I am determined to have a much more controlled budget for May than April. Because what is the point of a budget if you really don't try to make it work.

So payday is today and I just paid the mortgage, two small credit card bills, property insurance. Later in the next week automatic deductions for our family "Y" membership, life/ltc insurance and college loans will be processed. Grocery shopping can be held off until Monday or Tuesday since I went way over my weekly budget last week. I still have some frozen chicken for the weekend. These are the rest of my money goals for the week:

1. Do grocery shopping at the A&P only! No fancy/gourmet/organic stores. Very bad for the budget.
2. Test drive Ford vehicles to claim 2 $50.00 gift cards – FREE. I think I’m going to choose the Mustang or a gigantic truck.

3. Bribe SON2 with the FREE $50 American Eagle gift card from my bank in exchange for household chores.

4. I can get really lazy when it comes to cooking on the weekends so my goal is to limit eating out to Sunday breakfast with DH only.

Wish me luck!

Last month I ordered a walkman from Amazon late in the afternoon on a Friday and it was delivered the very next morning. I was so amazed. I live close to NYC and it was shipped from New Hampshire. How is that possible?

SON2 called me at work on Monday afternoon and asked me to stop at Barnes and Noble to pick up AP study guides on my way home. I don't know about you, but I try to avoid stopping anywhere on my way home from work, especially since I knew he wouldn't even look at them until at least the weekend. So I figured I would buy them online. Amazon had them for roughly $12 each plus an overnight shipping cost of only $7. Now 7 bucks is cheap for overnight and I fully believed that they would arrive the next day just like my walkman. It was not to be; they arrived yesterday—a day late. If I wanted to complain about the late delivery, to whom would I do so and is it really worth it? My rationale for forgetting about it – if I went to Barnes and Noble instead of ordering online the price for the guides would have been $13.45 x 2 = $26.90 plus $2.28 for tax = $29.18. Account for the aggravation of stopping on the way home from work and the real possibility of buying other items that I don’t need like a magazine, a book I won’t read until summer vacation or a candy bar placed prominently at the register and I figure in the long run I saved a lot of money so it’s not worth complaining about. Would you bother complaining?

I logged into my online bank account last week and saw an ad on the page for Thank You points. I navigated my way around the site and to my surprise I had accumulated around 7,000 Thank You points. I didn't do anything special to earn them, I just did my normal bill paying and transfering cash from one account to another. They offered and I chose a $50 gift card to American Eagle for SON2 -- FREE. It came in the mail today and makes me smile

Turns out my other online bank offers rewards as well and I've built up a nice balance there too. But I didn't have the proper password to access the cashing in function so I'll have to call them tomorrow to fix that up. You need more points at this bank for the same $ value of the reward of the 1st bank. Who cares; it's free!

At 7:00 a.m. I said more spending would be coming today as I cannot seem to get through a day w/o spending money.

$15 for lunch (sushi)- not expected.

I packaged up a nice lunch for myself from home and promptly forgot to bring it with me when I left the house. Probably because I had the travel coffee mug and a cheese sandwich (breakfast) in my hand at the time. Not enough time to turn back once I realized I forgot. I guess I'll have it for dinner as we get company lunch on Thursdays.

$14 for Girl Scout Cookies

On my desk at work when I arrived. Totally forgot about them.

TAFN

7:00 a.m.

$1,000 prepayment for summer condo rental - expected.

$250 - senior prom tickets for SON1. Not expected as previously advised SON1 that he would have to pay for prom himself since I paid for his junior prom last year. This kid has more money in the bank than me but has been spending like crazy on his car. He wasn't going to go to his prom (by the way he is going to his girlfriend's senior prom) because he didn't want to spend the money. DH felt bad and told him we would pay.

If he wasn't such a good kid I might have put up a fight. What can you do?

When people don't see the money going in and out of the account it is very easy to spend it.

I'm sure something else will pop up today -- it's early yet.

Additional expenditures not expected today:

$20 for SON2 for Yankee tickets - two games upper deck Cheap entertainment for a 16 year old. Couldn't say no.

$30 copay for last minute Dr. appointment for DH.
$47 for medication.

A little history:

After refinancing in January, we wiped out our equity line and major credit cards and created a detailed budget which obviously includes fixed and variable expenses. Additionally, I included a category for misc expenses, those you can't really think of but know you will have, with a few hundred dollars allowance. It has been amazing to me to see what the "misc" expenses are and how fast they add up. I have been keeping a record on my spreadsheet. Sometimes up to $1,000 in one month. In hindsight I can see how we racked up credit card debt over a 10 year period. The equity line was mostly for renovating the house and educational expenses. We were able to pay the bills before refinancing but it was getting extremely time consuming. Even though we increased our mortgage I'm much more comfortable having all that consumer debt paid off. I like to prepay the principle anyway.

Eliminating the multiple monthly credit card payments leaves room in the budget for the college loan repayments that have recently ensued -- help!

Come on Lloyd spit it out......tell the truth...if you can. I hope they keep him up all night.

Ended the day yesterday at ($130)

Today
5:30 a.m. See a text from GC – college meal plan depleted – please add $50 – Ok not planned but realistic. Requested she make it last till next week when the semester ends.
Now ($180)
Go to the gym. Home by 6:15 a.m.
Text from Chase – overdraft alert -
At work by 8:00 a.m. – text from Chase – another over draft alert – what on earth?
10:00 a.m. – while talking to co-worker my phone buzzes – yep another overdraft alert!
Now I gotta check the account on-line.
Oh yeah……
Meal points $50
Auto shipment – proactive $25 – expected but forgot about it
Somebody went to 7/11 this morning and it wasn’t me - $4
JC just purchased a part (2) for microwave: $47
Balance ($256).

I haven’t been able to get from one pay period to another without hitting the slush fund for quite a while. Getting paid Friday - - and I’m not going to spend a dime until then……though the rest of my family may....

2:43 EST

My husband and I went to to the International Car Show in NYC a couple weeks ago. We gave our email address to a Ford representative who sent us a coupon to test drive a Ford vehicle. Best part? We get $50 each if we do the test drive before June 30th. Amazing, no? I know JC (husband) will test the F150 pickup. Not sure which one I'll choose. I just bought a Honda Insight last year (cash for clunker deal) so I'm not in the market for a car; but I am in the market for free money. YAY!

Been meaning to do this for a long time now. I don't know why today is the day, but it is.

Well, I don't get paid until Friday and I'm negative $130 in the checking account. We were doing great until we went grocery shopping on Saturday at a new "higher end" store that just opened. Sort of splurged. Will have no spend days all week. I will not buy coffee or lunch. Brown bag lunch and travel mug coffee. I deserve it. Funny how we can eat peasant food one week and then endulge in overpriced fancy shmancy food the next.

if at first you don't succeed..........