Used to be one could try to save money by not going out to shop. Nowadays, with online shopping, it's even harder to avoid. But when you have to you, you have to. Bought Proactive for teen son and some pants from Lee. An hour later Chase Bank's fraud Department called me on my cell to make sure I authorized the purchases.....I wonder what the "flag" was. But I thought it was pretty cool that my account is monitored like that......feels like you left the virtual store with the security tag on your item and the alarm went off hahaha.

One of my goals this month was to only go grocery shopping at our local A&P store. Apparently, this was only my goal. DH and DD whipped up a fantastic Mother’s Day dinner for me and the family but it made a huge dent in the grocery budget. They went to THREE stores to get all the ingredients for dinner and spent an extra week’s worth of the grocery budget. I’m not going to consider this a failure. It’ll just be a non-recurring “extra” for the month. Dinner was really good.
So DD is home for the summer and will be transferring from a university in PA to one here in NYC. Farm country just wasn’t her thing. My slush fund has depleted another $800 for her tuition and room/board deposit. I’m hoping I can keep this account funded until the end of the year. September is usually a heavy spending month with all the kids back to school and having to purchase all their books. My two kids in college will be instructed to buy used books whenever possible. Last year my daughter spent $275 for a math book and then dropped the class. We tried to sell it on Amazon and craigslist. The highest price being paid for it was around $25 – what a rip! We were able to sell other books on Amazon and collect close to $200 which made me very happy. The newer/cheaper trend is downloading textbooks but I’m not sure if they are interested in doing that.
SON1 has to have surgery again on his shoulder. The surgeon is not in our medical plan, but thank goodness he has agreed to accept whatever the insurance company is willing to pay. The last operation cost $10K and he accepted $8K. He has to do something a little different this time so I don’t know if it will cost more. Either way, that’s $2K I will not have to spend, although, I would if necessary. Physical therapy co-pays will probably cost close to that much anyway. (Thank you to the NYC officer who did not ticket my husband for an expired inspection sticker, while he was looking for parking so that SON1 could get his MRI – saving us about $50)
Besides the above, additional “extras” this month are a baby shower gift and a graduation dinner. I hope I can keep to it. Wish me luck.

It's ninety degrees again today but it's also muggy so its worse than yesterday.

DH and I had our breakfast out: $23 w/tip and that's all I've spent the whole weekend. No test drive at Ford as we've been too busy around the house. I'm cooking dinner now, yes because of the weather but also because I'm tired or busy in the late afternoon and just like knowing dinner is finished. SON2 hasn't gotten up yet and didn't require $ this weekend so the American Eagle rewards card is still in my wallet. Will save grocery shopping for tomorrow -- at the A&P.

A thrifty weeked indeed!

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?

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..........