Toilet-Paper-Tracker

Last weekend, in addition to buying our tickets back to the UK, I also had to buy a new computer. Luckily, the old computer was fully backed up. It is very, very broken, but I decided to pay $55 to get it diagnosed; I am going to find out if the cost to repair it is less or more than what it's actually worth. Then I can make a decision.

But meanwhile, I'm typing this on my new computer. Since it's my business computer, my business paid for it. I have a business budget item for a new computer every four years or so.

And then came another large expense... definitely not planned. It looks like we're going to Phoenix in December. I will let you know why in a few days when the plans are firmed up, but it's a good thing, a sort of early Christmas present to ourselves.

We have the money for the plane tickets, and we'll need a rental car and a hotel. Ugh. But all of us are fine with using our Christmas money this way. It's my birthday this Saturday, and I have an envelope from my parents which I think has a check in it; I'll use my birthday money for this trip as well.

I'm trying to be frugal with the grocery shopping since we are spending all this money and because there are five weekends in this month. Meal plan:

Sunday - chickpea flour pizzas and roasted veggies
Monday - soup and garlic bread
Tuesday - very sweet salmon with rice and edamame salad with wasabi dressing (because I have salmon in the freezer)
Wednesday - tostadas
Thursday - big salad with turkey, cucumber, carrots, radishes
Friday - chipotle chicken stew from the freezer and a salad

So here's the good news: YNAB says we have $4778 in our every-other-year-trip-to-Europe-to-see-D's-family category.

This represents $3130 that we've saved up and $1648 from credit card rewards (when we get a statement credit for rewards, we accumulate this money in our account rather than reduce the amount spent on budgeted items).

The tickets for the three of us: $4237. That is $500 left over that can be used for the next trip (in two years' time).

The rest of the trip is paid for from our Irish account. We can stay with D's mum and sister and they feed us, so that's good. When we see D's dad we have to get a hotel, but he will probably take us out to dinner. We'll need to sort out breakfast and lunches.

The second half of the trip is always a family vacation (just the three of us!). Since we're already in Europe, we take advantage of Ryanair's low fares and go to one of their not-big airports. This time: Trieste. We'll be staying in Croatia (I am so, so looking forward to this!).

A word on the high cost of our flights...they are actually quite low (we used 1800 Fly Europe) for us. We live in the middle of the Southwest. If we lived somewhere near an actual International airport, the fares would be a lot lower. The nearest major airport is the Albuquerque International Sunport. Since there aren't international flights originating from this airport, and it's called a Sunport, I can only guess that they have flights to the sun or something.

Amazingly, it was actually cheaper (and way more convenient) to fly from our local airport than have to drive to Albuquerque. This is not the case if we're flying within the US, but overseas, it's always cheaper to start here. Which is great! It means we can leave our car at home and have a friend take us 15 minutes down the road to the airport. If you live in a real city, especially one near the east coast, I think Europe is a lot more accessible.

Anyway, we have the flights, now we just need to fill in the gaps: flights to/from Italy, self catered apartment in Croatia, Premier Inn near D's dad.

It's not the most frugal thing, but it's one of the reasons we're frugal with everything else - these trips back to the UK are not optional since D's family does not come out here (except his mum, a few times). I know there are others on here who are married to people from other countries... travel back is one of your priorities, yes? Do you set aside money each month for trips back? Do you have other ways of saving for this?

Our food spending is so high this week, it's making me crazy. (And after watching several episodes of Eat Well for Less - shame on me!).

Not sure why, but I will try to figure it out...

- impulse buy candy corn ($2.50) - but it's almost Halloween, and my birthday is on Halloween, and I love candy corn; surely one bag a year won't break the bank?

- stocked up on my bread when I found it at Natural Grocer for $1 less than usual

- coach coming to stay with us

- had leftover mozzarella and thought I'd better use it, so I made a giant lasagna. But the ingredients aren't that expensive - and I already had the mozzarella. This is not one of our usual meals, but the coach is here, and it's a nice treat!

- I accidentally categorized something as groceries when it wasn't groceries; that's an easy way to lower the amount in a category!

This week the soccer coach will come to stay with us again. He comes on Tuesday...

Sunday - neighborhood potluck in J's giant garage - we are bringing rosemary roast potatoes

Monday - grilled cheese and tomato soup

Tuesday - lasagna with courgettes

Wednesday - chipotle chicken stew

Thursday - potatoes dauphinoise with a salad

Friday - fish with homemade aioli and broccoli and rice

Saturday - no idea!!


So I have a lot of wealthy friends (you'd think it'd rub off!) and they have been raving about Hello Fresh. It's a box that gets delivered to your house with the exact amount of ingredients for the meals you order. You then cook it yourself. Of course, it is not a frugal option for dinner. I think it's $10 per person. Our dinners average $5 for all of us.

But, I was curious about what the meals were (new ideas?), so I went to the Hello Fresh website to check it out. It turns out they have recipes online for their past meals. Since they have both regular boxes and veggie boxes, there are a lot of vegetarian recipes.

I downloaded a couple that I want to try:
- brussels sprouts crumble (with mushrooms and parmesan, served over rice)
- one pot mexican quinoa (with corn, avocado and feta)

Those aren't really expensive dinners, and they tell you exactly how much your need of everything for 2 or 4 people.

Anyway, it seems like a good source for new (and not that difficult) recipes.

Things on my mind (which is all over the place these days; I think it's because my new project hasn't started yet, and maybe I'm a little bit bored).

Spotify:
I signed up for the free version on my computer. I can't usually work with music on, but as I said, I don't have a lot to do until my new project starts up. I can't stop singing! If I told you my taste in music, you'd be horrified. I like any song I've heard more than 5 times, so there are a lot of songs I like. Oh - and I still remember all the words to all of the songs I listened to in High School (think: Duran Duran, Adam Ant, the GoGo's). My singing is pretty appalling; Taylor Swift (who I also like) would cringe. Thank you, Spotify, because otherwise I'd probably buy a lot on itunes.

FICO Score:
American Express said I could see my FICO score for free, so I did. Do you think it's real? I got an 849.... yay! Not sure what I'd actually do with my score. Is it like these Chinese "citizen scores" - hope not. If you haven't heard about that, google it - totally frightening.

Exercise:
After running two laps around the horse track and then walking as a cool down during F's soccer practice, my friend T and I decided we are definitely social exercisers. It's hard to do it on your own. Which is why I teach exercise classes. Tomorrow is the day I run on my own from the office. And it's cold out. Not that cold; I'm such a whiner! Wish T could go with me, but her job (elementary school counselor) allows for a 2 minute lunch at her desk. Anyway, I am a little faster than T, but my friend B is faster than I am. Need to find a running partner who gets lunch and is right at my level. Do you like to exercise with people or alone? Or not at all? Or only one type of exercise? If you are here in Santa Fe, you should come to the gym and work out with me, because I need the social thing when I exercise! We can talk about how much money we're saving by investing in our future health!!!

Our mortgage is now at $46,633 (so over $550k in equity - wow! But you have to have somewhere to live, so I don't like to think about it that much).

The thing is, when we owed $200k, I could never have dreamed of such a low number, but now that we're in the $40k's all I can think about is being in the $30k's. Ugh. A bad habit of mine: not savoring the present, but always looking toward the future.

Today is the second chilly day of autumn, and it has me a little melancholy. I am a warm weather summer kind of person. Or snow... I love snow!

I am going to chalk up my feelings about the mortgage to the weather.

Other things on my mind: friends coming over tomorrow evening for the Great British Bakeoff final (it's on today but we have to watch on the iplayer, so please don't leave any results comments!!!!). We are doing make your own pizzas, which is fun, but not as frugal as I would have liked. More frugal than going out, though. And I'm making a tunis cake.

Also: I bought a new pair of winter boots on Amazon. They were on sale ($34! For really nice Teva boots!), and pretty much exactly what I want except that all the reviews said that they're for a narrow calf. There isn't a ton of room in the calf, but it isn't super fitted. I am trying to decide if this is ok or not. Maybe it is for $34. There is a stretchy gusset thing on the side without the zipper that I am sure is so that people with wide calves can put these on. Maybe I could get that part sewed shut (It's behind the leather, so it doesn't show but it makes the side stick out a little). Any opinions?

And: I am looking at a new pair of x-c skis and boots for F. She got a lot of use out of her old ones, but they're now way too small. I will sell these on craigslist, but it's hard to find kids' sizes used in the size you want, so I think I have to spring for the $150 setup from REI new. We used to have Play it Again Sports here, but it went out of business a long time ago. I looked on ebay, but the NNN binding skis are more expensive than the REI ones on sale!

Finally: we were going to take a trip down to White Sands for an upcoming four day weekend, but the night in the hotel room would pay for that x-c ski setup (and it really is too cold at this point for camping)! I am thinking it'd be better to do a day trip instead! Luckily I have lots of ideas... Tent Rocks? Tsankawi? Maybe even Hinkle Family Fun Center (F would like that better anyway).

Today was our big shopping day... grocery stores and gas. We didn't do too badly considering we're having friends over for dinner on Thursday (to watch the final of the Great British Bakeoff).

We also got things for F's "hot lunch." She no longer wants any of the hot lunches through school, and I'm just as happy; they charge $7 for the school hot lunch (yikes!) and it's not good, and it's not hot. She (and the other kids) don't like it. Hot lunch used to be a treat, so this is a way that she can have a treat once a week. And it costs $3 less!

The big money savings today: went to my friend's house to feed her cat. We feed each other's pets when we go away. It works for both of us, and I know it's not current money savings, but every time I pop in on her cat, I think "that's money saved for both of us!" We still take our dog to the free-roam boarding place, but this friend said she'd be happy to take our dog and watch her in her own home, so that might be a future option. When we go away for a long time, we have a friend come stay at our house with all of the pets.

Do you have a petsitting arrangement with any friends?

I did the numbers for September and we had a good month.

Income increased 9% compared to the same month last year.
Spending down 2% (even with a $616 car repair bill)
Savings increased 27%

Now I'm putting our salary into all the YNAB categories.

We are still paying ourselves back for the restuccoing ($1680 to go). I will feel really good when that's below $1000. I thought it'd take less time, but because it's not super urgent, I am putting our extra money toward the mortgage instead of paying ourselves back.

I realize I didn't post this week's meal plan, and I'm already thinking about next week...
S - baked potatoes and salad
S - out to dinner - yum!
M - french dinner (olives, cheese, crackers)
T - non-kebab chicken and veg (used to be kebabs, but now I just roast everything - courgettes, red pepper, red onions)
W - posole from the freezer and a salad
T - cheddar bay biscuits and chicken/rice soup
F - fish with aolii and broccoli

One last update: the Physical Therapy is going really well... I went today but it was two weeks since my last visit. My low back was not doing well yesterday or the day before, but I made it almost two weeks, which is great! I now have a new exciting exercise called the sacrum clock. I've been doing all of my exercises every night, and it's making a difference.

Sometimes my attempts at being frugal backfire.

A couple of months ago, I bought a large shampoo. It's the same brand as the bodywash we use. All natural, no added scent (just the scent of ingredients). And it isn't expensive; in fact it's pretty inexpensive.

But here is the thing: it doesn't work! Ack! My head is sometimes itchy. My hair never feels clean.

I've been using it anyway, because I don't like to waste things, but I finally gave up.

I spent about 20 minutes in the shampoo aisle sniffing shampoos because I'm pretty sensitive to smells/perfumes but I don't want entirely unscented. And I found a not-quite-as-cheap shampoo that smelled great. It was a brand I'd used before.

And now my hair is clean. My head isn't itchy. I am so happy!

Is there anything you spend a little more money on because it's worth it?

I just found out today that my health insurance company is no longer providing individual coverage in our state. So there you go... I need to go back to the insurance company I had in 2013. It is an HMO, and I'd prefer a PPO, but that's just not an option in our state.

I just looked at my previous insurance company, and there are three plans I'd be ok with. So I guess we have to start thinking about switching soon.

My next step is to set up an FSA; I don't use an accountant for normal tax stuff, but I think I need one for this. I called the guy I always call when I need an accountant for various things, so I'm waiting for him to call me back. If I don't have to, I don't want to use a third-party administrator; it'd be great to avoid the cost for administration when I can do it myself.

As long as I was doing some investigative work into our insurance, I verified that our term life policies end in 2027 which is fine for us. F will be in college (gasp!). We each have $500k, and we pay a total of $52.47 a month.

I also decided to get our wedding rings and my pearls appraised. I never wear the pearls; they're just sitting there in the safe deposit box. Do I need to insure them? No idea.

There are two types of insurance that I'm not sure we need...?

Personal Articles Floater
This covers our wedding rings which we wear every day and also a pearl necklace that lives in the safe deposit box. I wear it maybe every other year once. So the Personal Articles Floater is $248 a year. The necklace is worth a lot (no idea how much), and the rings are probably $2000 each. Should I self insure instead with that $248? Maybe get the pearls appraised? (No idea in our town where I'd do that).

Dental
We pay about $50/month for dental insurance. What if I put that into an account instead and self-insure on that? I need to review what we're covered for. I think the insurance only covers half. It pays for part of one annual cleaning. But $50/month is $600 per year. That's a lot of cleanings! This is just for me and F... it's an add on to our medical insurance.

A little more research is in order.

I taught my last weightlifting class at the gym today, at least for a while. A woman moved to town and is paying for the gym to be licensed for a certain branded class. In exchange, the owner gave her my class to teach. I understand it from his perspective - he pays me to teach, but she's paying him essentially. The difficult part is that she is a mom at F's school, but we haven't been introduced yet. Not sure if I should introduce myself; I'm pretty sure she doesn't know whose class she has usurped. I'm not sure if she feels justified or embarrassed. I'd be embarrassed.

Anyway, this was a side job, but it means that I now only teach one class at the gym. I still get a free membership, but I will be making $35 less each month. I was using it to pay down the mortgage.

In other "loss of income" news - I am no longer maintaining the website for a subdivision I work for. This was only about 2 hours a month, and I am actually glad to see this extra project move on. I help run their Architectural Review Committee, and that is actually architecture. I am not a website administrator (at all!!!!). They're getting a new website, and they're going to maintain it themselves. I won't miss the income since this took up two work hours that I really could use.

Since I finished up a project on Monday and had a meeting this morning, I was going to spend the rest of the day tying up loose ends, but the other subdivision that I help with Architectural Review had a brand new problem (someone's window trim is BLUE! Oh no!) that needed to be dealt with immediately (you know, if someone's window trim is BLUE that is not something you can let go until tomorrow!). Sorry about the sarcasm. I actually love working for them; they are really good to me.

After dealing with blue window trim, I did manage to get some dinner in the crockpot and I went to Target to find some clothes for F now that the weather is turning cold and she no longer fits in a 7-8 (she still fits in them but everything is way too short - sleeves, length of tops, length of leggings). I bought four shirts and three leggings and... she liked ALL OF IT! I know her taste - not too girly but bright colors. She likes stripes. She likes henley shirts. She likes leggings and soft, soft jeggings, but not jeans. Total cost was $55.

I think we're all set for winter now.

Tonight: soccer practice now that it's stopped raining. I'll bring my new ebook (the new one by Neal Stephenson) from the library.

Yesterday was a wonderful day... low key, fun, lots going on - my kind of day.

F scored a goal in her soccer match; they won 4-0. We got Vietnnamese food for our Anniversary lunch. Not expensive, but really good. And then we got our annual green chile. We only got half a bushel, because we can't eat a full bushel in a year. We put it on homemade pizza, hamburgers, and these are the right size to stuff with cheese (naked rellenos). Oh, and tostadas; it's really yummy chopped up on tostadas.





At home we made potatoes dauphinoise for dinner; the house smelled like a French bistro.

And then we went out to the Plaza to hear the Mavericks... we danced around and saw a bunch of friends down there. Then home to watch the new episode of Dr. Who!

I hope your weekend is going well, too. Anyone else watch Dr. Who last night?

Tomorrow is our 12th anniversary... Here's the day we have planned:
- F's soccer game (45 mins away)
- Lunch in Albuquerque (another 15 mins, we're most of the way down there for soccer) at the Vietnamese place we all love. It's not expensive, but it's yummy!
- Get our green chile on the way back up

Relax while we bag our chile. I want to watch a movie or a show or something. Any ideas that would be good for the entire family? Something funny would be good. F is ten. She doesn't like scary (and I don't either!). I love Melissa McCarthy but I think her stuff is too raunchy for a ten year old.

Then - light dinner (not sure what yet).

Then - off to the Plaza to dance, dance, have fun! It's the Mavericks at 8:00 pm! Love that F stays up late, and there's nothing to wake up early for on Sunday!

D is doing student photos for F's school again this year. He doesn't charge the school, but he makes money when parents order photos. Not sure how much he'll make, but he is going to take part of it to buy a new smartphone since his is now pretty old (isn't it weird what counts as old now?). The rest will go into savings which I need to shore up since we "borrowed" a little to redo our stucco and pay for D's allergy shots.

I helped out with the school photos today, so I didn't get much work done, but that's fine - I finished my deadline on Monday and this week is pretty quiet. Just a couple of meetings and misc. work.

Because of the busy day, I didn't have time to spend any money!

And I returned a lunch container which said it was 5x5 (perfect sandwich size) but turned out to be 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 (not perfect at all!).

Lunch was a very frugal: slice of turkey, a few chips, pluot, home-made muffin.

Dinner is: Spaghetti Gambino Crime Family (not the real name). It's actually this Jamie Oliver recipe (a really nice combination of shrimp, lemon, garlic, rocket, white wine and sundried tomatoes):
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/spaghetti-with-prawns-and-rocket-spaghetti-con-gamberetti-e-rucola/#wXgBfvWfM3AdzisI.97

The rest of the week's meal planning (including the past few days) looks like this:
S - quesadillas with guacamole
S - chicken piccata and broccoli and rice
M - posole
T - gambino crime family pasta
W - grilled cheese with salad
T - crash potatoes from freezer and roasted broccoli
F - big salad with radishes, carrots and cucumber

Now I am super hungry, so I'm going to make dinner... what are you having tonight?

It's just after 4:15 pm and I still need to:
- finish emptying the dishwasher
- bring up the bins from the street
- make sure F gets her soccer stuff together

We are leaving at 5 for soccer practice.

I wanted to quickly post about Eat Well for Less (on the BBC iplayer if you live in the UK). We watched the first season of this show, and we all think this season is a little better.

It's sort of like rubbernecking to watch what these families buy at the grocery store. But there are also really good ideas. We want to try the tuna burgers from episode 1, and the beetroot chocolate cake from episode 2 sounds interesting... it's a no-egg cake (and I always seem to have food allergy friends of various types so it'd be a good recipe to have on hand).

Here's the beetroot chocolate cake:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/eggless-chocolate-beetroot-blitz-bake-cake

And here's the tuna burgers:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/tuna_burgers_87061

Bear in mind that I haven't tried either of these yet.

I also want to try the homemade veggie crisps.

The show is making me think about what's on our shopping list. We seem to buy a lot of snack foods (some tortilla chips, crisps, etc) and I think too much readymade food (not ready meals, but things like D's scones; this week I made muffins instead, but D still wanted his scones).

Have you seen the show, and is it making you think about your shopping?

The bad first:
- I had to buy a drill bit today in order to hang my yoga swing (this is so I can hang upside down and get traction for my lower back pain; it works pretty well, and I guess if I can cut down on the PT it will save me money). Also had to buy two climbing straps because the yoga swing did not come with extenders (ugh! I did an Amazon review and noted the things people will need to buy to mount the swing, since I had no idea). With the bicycle hooks I bought the other day to screw it into our garage beams, I probably spent about $20 extra on the swing.

Also bad:
- Need to bring something to a soccer potluck party tomorrow, but we'll be going right from F's school Country Fair where I'll be volunteering from about 2 pm on... I think I just have to buy some tubs of cookies at Trader Joe's... more expensive than baking something or making something, but they won't go bad in the car.

But this is good:
- Had a great PT appt. today and my back feels so much better, plus she taught me how to fix things myself a little bit if my back starts to hurt in between.

And also good:
- We had a nice frugal dinner of pasta with butter and pecorino romano plus sauteed courgettes with a little garlic.

And even more good:
I got $70 from the gym, and took it right to the bank so now we owe $48,064 on our mortgage. I am not sure how much our house is actually worth... during the recession they said about $500k, but things have picked up a lot since then.

We delayed our shopping trip by a day, and the amount was about 75% of normal. So the food inventory is working, I guess! I also bought some pasta so we're now stocked for pasta until mid-December (we eat a pasta dish once a week).

Today F and I went downtown to have a mother-daughter day... we parked in the office, and walked about half a block to our favorite place for lemonades, and then had a picnic in Cathedral Park (next to our beautiful cathedral). I brought her a burrito and a sandwich for me, plus some tortilla chips, salsa, pickles and a nectarine. I keep a picnic blanket in the office.

There are tons of art booths downtown right now, and we wandered around a bit, talking, hanging out.

Tonight we're going over to some friends' for dinner. I'm bringing potatoes dauphinoise (they asked for a carb-y side dish).

When I was doing our food inventory yesterday I was thinking about food storage. We hardly ever have food waste, and it's partly because I've worked out how to store a lot of perishable foods.

avocados - I leave them on the counter to ripen, then put them in the fridge so they don't continue to ripen after they're already ripe!

lettuce or cilantro or spinach - I wrap with kitchen roll to absorb moisture from the "rain" in the vegetable aisle.

cheese - I put a piece of kitchen roll in there, too, once it's opened

bananas - I wrap stems with plastic wrap

flour tortillas - I keep these in the freezer and just take out one at a time; they last forever this way; we only use 2 or so a week.

herbs - I store leftover fresh herbs in ice cubes in the freezer

butter - I keep baking butter in the freezer and spreading butter in the fridge

bread - we keep our bread in the fridge (and extra loaves in the freezer)

Things I'm still not sure about: strawberries, applesauce (once it's opened it gets mold so fast; can you freeze it?). Any tips? Any other food storage ideas I haven't mentioned?

How on earth can I have accumulated SO MUCH food. I meal plan every week, but I've never done a food inventory until now. I am embarrassed and awed and shocked.

Our fridge isn't bad, but I was going to buy a ton of fruit this week and realized we already have 4 pluots, 3 apples, 3 nectarines, most of a cantaloupe and half of a watermelon.

The freezer is insane: two portions of freezer meals which I had in my head and shrimp I bought last week on sale to use later, but everything else was sort of crazy... I have a ton of things I can bring to the office for lunch (lunch sized portions) that I just forget about. Also two turkey burgers that were left over when I made turkey burgers the last time. And 16 (16?!) hot dog buns plus a package of 4 hot dogs (left over from the coach party). Looks like we need to eat some sausages and hot dogs in the near future.

Also tons of dinner ingredients in the pantry. And a lot of chips and crisps. I like to have variety, but sheesh!

With careful meal planning, it looks like we can whittle this down a little bit, and have a pretty low grocery bill for the next couple of weeks.

OK, a new spending trigger I need to consider: being tired! I am tired, so I need sugar which makes me want to go out and buy a muffin. Lucky for me with my food intolerances and celiac, it's not so easy to just go buy something.

I just completed the work I wanted to complete today. I've figured out the work I need to finish on Tuesday. The work load is not too high right now because I am waiting for a big approval from the County before things kick in. So it's not like I have to be glued to my desk today... I could easily pop out and get that muffin.

F is doing better with dropoffs. She's still worried and anxious, but she sees that she needs to go to school and it's not optional! Monday was terrible, but the rest of the week has been great. So I feel like I need to reward myself... with a muffin!

Argh!

And I paid off $487.32 this month toward the mortgage principal. If we stop applying any more to principal we'll own the house in September 2019. åΩ But our goal is June 2017. Either way, that is within THIS decade. Wow. Don't you think I deserve a muffin for that sort of financial control?

The office will buy it for me since it's pretty much a work necessity at this point.

Today we:

- are eating all of our meals at home, even though it's a weekend and sometimes we eat a meal out on the weekend. We only have $8.37 left in the dining out budget (we committed to a breakfast out next weekend, but that is September). Tonight: tostadas. Mmmm...

- went to the pool. It's the next to last weekend, and the weather was iffy, but we got pool time before it started pouring rain, and then played a game that was a combination of 4-square and ping pong! We used our last two guest punches taking F's friend and our coach. Next weekend there is an ice cream social Sunday with lots of pool games.

- did a load of laundry and hung it to dry before the rain came.

- checked "track package" a million times for F who is very keen to get her bribe/reward tomorrow "before 8:00 pm" according to Amazon.

- vacuumed the house, cleaned the litterbox, cleaned the birdcage and assorted other household chores. D did some yardwork thinning out the arugula which has taken over.

- invited F's friend L over to play. This means a fun day for her without having to spend money!

- finished knitting the first slipper sock. Now knitting the foot of the second one. And then I need to reacquaint myself with mattress stitch in order to sew the bottoms on!

- made a frugal grocery list for tomorrow's shopping trip. We have $90 left in the grocery category. Pasta with red sauce and courgettes, fish with green beans and roasted cauliflower, taquitos with a salad, chili with chips/avocado/sour cream, something from the freezer with a salad, baked potatoes and broccoli.

And now it's 6 pm... quiet evening at home!

I'm not proud of it, but I'm not ashamed either. And maybe it wasn't a bribe; maybe it was a reward.

My poor 10 year old is just having such a hard time with separation anxiety. And she missed day 1 of the class field trip. We drove all the way out and she was told by the teachers that the parent drivers needed to leave in 5 minutes and if she could stay that was good, but she'd need to decide immediately. So she left in the car with me. Luckily it was not as dramatic as the day before at school when she screamed and screamed at dropoff and then called me at 10 am and said she felt sick and then cried on the phone.

We vowed to try the next day for day 2, but I could see she was deflated. And anxious. Really anxious. Only now, it wasn't even about anything. She was just anxious about anxiety.

I told her that we'd try tomorrow, and if she was able to stay then she could pick out a toy. After she read a book and did math on Khan Academy (because it was still a school day and I didn't think being allowed to skip the school trip to play all day was a good idea even if the teachers basically forced her to skip the trip by not giving her enough time to work up the courage to stay), she got on Amazon and found a playmobil set she really wanted. She shyly asked me if it cost too much.

Hell, yes, it cost too much! But I figured if this was something to look forward to and a motivator, than it was actually cheap. I said yes, and she started getting very attached to her playmobil set, even printing out a photo of it to carry in her pocket, and then Istarted worrying that she wouldn't be able to stay for day 2 of the class field trip. And that then she'd be even more upset.

So we started practicing square breathing, which is the only anxiety-reliever that actually works for me.

I worried all night and didn't sleep. I wanted that too-expensive toy her so badly! I knew if she could do it, it'd be a big step forward for her self-confidence.

I drove her back out at 8 am, and we did square breathing the whole way in the car. And then she started weeping quietly. And then the super nice older teacher saw her and came running over. That teacher called over F's best friend K and we stood and talked for a few minutes and we explained square breathing to K and the nice teacher. And then she said "I can't do it" and my heart was racing, so I started square breathing. And then she did. Then we were all square breathing.

And then she said "I'm staying" and I left. Quickly. I almost cried with relief in the car. There was no screaming, and she was still there. On the highway, my phone rang, and I was so relieved to see it was my electrical engineer and not one of the teachers!

Then I got a text and it was another teacher saying "All the girls are so glad she's here!" and then a photo of F in the middle of a bunch of other 5th graders.

When all of the parents went to pick up the kids, one of the 6th grade girls said to me "L and I eat lunch with F and K and A every day. F is so sweet!" F confirmed that she and K and A (also 5th graders) go eat in the 6th grade class with the two 6th graders. And another girl came to say hi and told me she was glad F made it.

F was still clutching the paper with the photo of the playmobil set on it. She asked if she would be able to get it. Um, yes - I already ordered it! It's coming on Sunday!

She said the day was really fun, and they did some great activities, even though the zip line was canceled due to thunder. She felt like part of the group. And maybe Monday dropoff at school will be a little easier? Maybe I'll sleep tonight, to.

So - I bribed my daughter. She might have stayed today anyway, but if the bribe (reward) helped, than I'm ok with it if only for the huge boost in confidence.

Mortgage Principal:
We paid off a whopping $856.71 on our mortgage principal this month. We are still set to pay off everything in Oct. 2019 even if we don't put another dollar toward principal. Of course we will, though!

Back to School, Back to Anxiety:
F is having more anxiety with the start of school. She is working on it, though. We've been seeing someone and insurance covers it, so it's only $10 each session, but I'm beginning to doubt how helpful it is. The dropoff separation anxiety was so bad, though, that the school psychologist finally stepped in and since she was able to witness it, had some very constructive ideas.

Another Day, Another Coach:
We are hosting another soccer coach this week, and it's kind of a two-fer... he came with his girlfriend. We'd asked her to dinner, but then she didn't have anywhere to stay. She's a soccer coach, too, and her flight back to Ireland is Sunday. She needs to be in Denver by then. First she had no idea how to get there (there isn't a train system here like Ireland or the UK or the Eastern US and you have to go south to Albuquerque to get a bus to Denver). The bus leaves at 3 am! And she missed her bus last night even though they were there super early (long story). So we've been feeding two coaches for now a third night... a bit of a strain, but she's such a sweet girl!

Camp Coach Reimbursement:
We get reimbursed for feeding the coaches who come to camp (not for the ones who are staying with us now, though). We received our $80 check and I'm going to put it toward groceries rather than our mortgage. Our grocery budget was stretched pretty thin this month now that we've had THREE coaches in the same month! We don't have enough left for this weekend's grocery shop without this money. What's good: with the money we have plenty. Also good: lots of food in the freezer to build on.

Stupid Hot Lunch Program:
The hot lunch program at school this year is super confusing. It's also expensive. And F had it on Monday and hated it. She hated chicken tenders; really?! She looooves chicken tenders usually. She said they were gross. The sweet potato fries were gross and not actually fries. The sauce was gross. The caesar salad wasn't good. And the choices of drink didn't include chocolate milk which is a huge treat she only used to get for hot lunch. So.... I am going to invent my own hot lunch at a cheaper price. I never buy convenience foods, but I am going to go to Whole Foods and get a veggies sushi or a slice of pizza and a cookie from the individual cookie thing and a chocolate milk and send her with that. Maybe not the most cost-effective, but cheaper than the hot lunch program, and I need that 5th day each week to be easy, because I am stuck with the 5th day even though we split the task of making her lunches.

There were lots of mortgage snowflakes this month (and one more to come)...
- $325.52 from Irish house rent
- $150 budgeted
- $5 craigslist sale
- $78 ebay sale
- $77 gym payment
the mystery addition to this should be about $210! It's more Irish rent money. We can only take out 300 euro at a time, so we do a 200 euro withdrawal every two months as well. So this adds to this month and next.

Knitting: I am furiously knitting myself slipper socks before the cold weather starts! My old pair pretty much disintegrated.

I'm still paying ourselves back on a few negative categories:
- household repairs (the remainder of the restuccoing project)
- medical unforeseen
- medical

All other categories are positive. Some have money in them because they're building up for annual purchases (like the camp category and our HOA fund. Also F's camp fund and the fund for the pool we join each summer.

And then there are categories with a lot of money in them; I'm afraid to transfer the balances to the negative categories, and I have no idea why. I mean, if some emergency came up, then those would be negative categories instead, right?
- Utilities has $228 in it. I want some money in there for winter when the bills are higher, but even in winter, our bills are under $115, and I have a budget of $95, so I don't need to keep that much in there. Spring bills are about $50 and summer bills are under $30.
- Auto registration has $93 in it, and we pay about $40 in March for one car and $50 in December for the other car... we put in $10 per month. Quick math problem... we can take out $73 and still have enough built up for both December and March.
- $58 in Entertainment; I put in $50 per month and this covers our netflix subscription plus any fees to museums, etc., but I doubt we're going to do much since school starts Wednesday and we have soccer every weekend.
- $128 in Gifts for Others - We'll probably spend some of that at Christmas, so maybe I should keep it in there, but I put in $31 a month, so that will build up more
- $97 in pets - yes, there could be an emergency, but then this could be the negative category. That's what the emergency fund is for, right? All of our pets have a ton of food and treats, and both just went to the vet for well exams, so no expected expenses for the rest of the month.

Our coach left this morning - oh, F is so, so sad! I think he was the best one so far... like the perfect big brother for F.

I've been spending the morning washing sheets etc. But I don't care - we invited him to come back asap for our city's Fiestas! There is another coach that is here not only part of the summer but also Fall and Spring, and he'll be here for Fiestas, too, and they're friends.

Tonight we are going to our friends' house for a summer afternoon potluck. I am bringing a flourless chocolate cake because I always have the ingredients for flourless chocolate cake on hand!

I need to go to the store tomorrow, but we've got a lot of food still in the fridge, so it's an eat-from-the-pantry meal plan.

What I have: celery, a cucumber, half a watermelon, half a cantaloupe, frozen chicken, some eggs, half of a head of lettuce, whole head of cauliflower, rice, four cans of soup, a few sausages and hot dogs in the freezer, enough turkey burger in the freezer for turkey burgers (plus we have buns in the freezer!), french fries in the freezer, three meals worth of white chicken chile in the freezer... wow, it's a lot!

We need a couple of staples: olive oil, butter. Also some fruit - peaches are on sale and so are cucumbers and mini tomatoes.

Here are the meals I can think of for the next week and a half or so:
- tortilla espanola (I have eggs and potatoes, so I think we're set)
- mexican eggs with salad (need to buy more corn tortillas and green onions and eggs, a couple of courgettes would be nice to have alongside)
- white chicken chile from the freezer with a salad (need a head of lettuce)
- big salad and toast (using the rest of that head of lettuce, probably should buy some more carrots)
- soup with garlic bread
- general tso chicken with rice and cabbage (can use the other half of the green onions I buy for Mexican eggs and a cabbage would be nice since it's not expensive)
- roasted cauliflower with sausages/buns
- turkey burgers with french fries

When F was a baby, D and I each worked half time. So that meant that we worked 4 hours each (plus more in the evenings after F was asleep) and were each alone with her 4 hours a day. We often met for lunch as a family for what we called the "switcheroo."

Each year in August, we'd meet and discuss the schedule and rearrange as needed. Maybe she had her baby music class on a Tuesday morning and I wanted to go to that, so I was with her on Tuesday morning. Maybe D had a standing meeting on Wednesday afternoon, so I was with her on Wednesday afternoons. We also talked about various chores and who did what; that got revised each year as well.

As she got older and was in school, our work hours increased. In the beginning, D picked her up from school some days and I picked her up others. We still did our chore check-in before the new school year started. We made a whole schedule, and now there were other things on the schedule like soccer (which she started at 4!).

Then D got a full-time job. I was scheduled for dropoff and pickup, which I love, so it's ok. D was tired after work, and I was home with F by 4 pm most days, so besides doing a little extra work while she did her homework, I would get her a snack, undo the lunch box, maybe empty the dishwasher...

Then D got full-time allergies. He couldn't really dust anymore. Vacuuming was out the question. He wasn't feeling well most weeks, so I took over cleaning the mirrors or the front of the fridge/oven/dishwasher.

After the job and allergies started (around the same time) we didn't do our annual chore check-in. Well - it's time to do it again (because I am starting to feel like I am a home-maker but with a full time job, plus D's allergies are a lot better after the shots).

Here is how we do it:
- list all of the household chores in 7 categories: daily, every other day, weekly, monthly, two or three times a year, annual, every so often. These are chopped up into smaller pieces. Like we don't just say "laundry" because maybe I will put them in the wash and take them out and hang them, but D can fold them or put them away.
- we each highlight which chores we're ok doing and which we have really high standards for so we need to do them ourselves.
- figure out what to do with what is left.

Maybe all of this comes naturally for some couples, but my fallback position is do everything and D's is hang out in the living room watching football (soccer).

We need to make sure we don't skip this really important annual check-in.

And here is the financial part of this: we don't have a house-cleaner or a personal assistant, or whatever else people have to make all of this work.

What do you do to divide up all of the various chores that go into running a household?

So having finally paid off our Dublin house, we now need to tie up some loose ends. I made D make sure that we are not still paying the mortgage (it was an auto payment). Also, Ireland requires a life insurance policy for mortgages, so D was paying 62 euro a month for a policy that would pay about 192,000 euro.

Contrast this to our US life insurance policy for him that is $22.90 a month for $500,000.

The surrender value of the life insurance policy in Ireland is 3000 euro, so we will surrender the policy and keep the US one.

Now we need to make a plan for the 3000 euro. I think it will be half into flights to the UK for next summer and half into emergency fund.

So, now we really can start thinking about next summer's trip to see D's family with a holiday over there for the second week.

I don't even want to think about it. I spent like $100 today.

A lot of it was household supplies. It seems like I run out of everything all at once, but some things I didn't need to buy quite yet. The thing is, I was down at Target, and I don't want to go down there again in a week. That was about $70. (Anti-eye wrinkle stuff, toilet paper, paper towels, tinfoil, paper plates, napkins, new underwear for F, face soap for me).

I also bought about $30 in extra groceries for the BBQ we're having at our house tonight for the four coaches who are running the soccer program F is in this week. I offered to host at our house, which is totally great! I love having people over. Three of us are hosting coaches, so the other two families will bring things, too. But I got hot dogs, buns, french fries, cookies, paper plates and lemonade for the kids (probably the bulk of what we need to feed everyone). I think K is bringing watermelon and a salad... T is bringing beer/wine/ice.

Whatever they don't eat, we'll eat in the next few weeks... I made sure that I got things that we like. The hot dogs and buns can go in the freezer if we don't eat them all.

I am hoping that the grocery budget is just fresh fruits and veggies for the next few weeks - that's a challenge to myself! Eat from the pantry!!

Just random thoughts for today, some financial/some not...

1. I bought a new mouse for using at the house with my laptop since the old one broke. Bought with office credit card since I need it for working from home (really only need it to use Autocad). The scroll thingy is sort of weird (smooth rather than clicky; I preferred clicky). This is the updated version of my old mouse. I guess I'll get used to it.

2. I got the mouse at Staples. We were also there to get some plastic/acetate display pockets for F's sports illustrated womens world cup covers. My "framing" idea is to put them in the acetate, then use a big bulldog clip and hang on the wall in a grid pattern. Much cheaper than framing, and she can keep the covers on the magazines. But they didn't have the pockets or the bulldog clips. I went home and ordered on Amazon. Can't believe how irritating stores are; I'd much rather shop online.

3. We ordered 8 more salad plates because we use those most often and always run out before we run the dishwasher. Ordering more plates was on the Declutter Calendar for last week, so I'm a little bit late.

4. We are leaving in a few mins. to go to a horse show (free!!). It's the last weekend. I'll let you know how it is.

5. Here are the other things on the Declutter Calendar for this month:
week 1
- change water filter
- declutter hall closet
- reorder plates and bowls that are broken
week 2
- wash car
- dust tops of all framed pictures
week 3
- clean out paper stacker thingy
- wash and rehang white curtains
week 4
- clean shower and apply rain-x
- weed