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Long blabby post

September 21st, 2012 at 06:27 pm

No eating out challenge:
Sept. 18: as predicted, a small fail. I had one drink while out at trivia.
Sept. 19: success.
Sept. 20: success.

So far I've had 17 out of 20 successful days.

It's made a major impact on my available spending money! I believe I've got about $70 at home, and of my $80 I get to withdraw today, $20 will go into the theater ticket fund, I should try to keep about $10 for a drink next Tuesday, I may keep $20 to buy treats at an Asian grocery store our friend is taking us to Monday, and the remaining $30 can be for clothes. That means I have $100 cash to spend for clothes! I'm going to hit up Marshall's and Target with AS today and see if I can cross a few winter-wardrobe needs off my list; the temps are dropping quickly here.

NT also reminded me I have some Amazon bux (about $30) in my account, and we have a discount code for shoes, so I may try to get my work shoes there.

Hopefully I can find enough to get me through using just the $100 cash and $30 Amazon credit. Then I can continue to try and save up money and buy other pieces gradually throughout the fall.

In other news, my walking is going well; I'm averaging about 8,000 steps per day this week, which is what I need to meet the challenge. The next two weeks will be harder, needing an average of 10K steps per day, so I'll need to work at it more. (Hope the weather holds out because I can add up a lot of steps just walking to and from work and daycare.)

I'm doing pretty well with calories, not perfect, but I think with the walking too, I should see a weight loss on Sunday. Fingers crossed!

We got our monthly statement from the rental management company in the UK, and they apparently got us new renters and are charging about US$90 more per month! A small percentage of the raise goes to the management company, but we pocket most of it. That's good news for our savings goals this year and next!

We have a longish grocery list this week, and need to get diapers, wipes and formula too, but I'm hoping we can at least come close to staying under our spending limit. AA is using the potty more, so hopefully we'll be able to eliminate the expensive compostable pull-ups soon! (We are dedicated to not using disposables if at all possible, but man! is it a pricy endeavor.)

AS accidentally put her cell phone through the wash, and now the SIM and the phone are both nonfunctioning. We tried the rice trick to no avail. I'm trying to find the cheapest solution possible; I ordered her a new SIM on T-Mobile for $1, and I'm trying to win a phone on eBay for $7. If that doesn't work, I'll bid on another one for $8 or $9, and keep trying until I get a cheap phone. The cheapest prepaid device that T-Mobile offers on their website now is $50! I know I can do better than that.

While I was at it, I ordered a SIM for NT. When his 60 days are nearing the end with Net10, I'll have him start a T-Mobile plan instead of re-upping with Net10. I'm hoping his SIM will work with his Net10 phone, but if not, we'll try to get a cheap unlocked T-Mobile phone on eBay like I'm trying to get for AS.

I can already tell this is not going to be a relaxing weekend (can't remember the last time I really had one of those, to be honest). NT has to work pretty much a full day Saturday (no OT, but he can try to take the hours off in dribs and drabs elsewhere I believe). Sunday afternoon we have a friends' kid's b-day party and Sunday night NT and AS are going to a music show. In between all that we have to get grocery shopping done, fit meals around the other events, and AS still has a ton of proofing to do for her new freelance project.

The social calendar is filling up for the rest of the year. It's a blessing and a curse; I'm so glad we're not losing touch with our friends even though we have young kids, but it can be a little daunting because none of your down time feels like actual down time, between taking care of the kids and the extra household work they incur, and then going to all these events to make sure we still have friends when we get out of this hectic part of parenting! Smile

We are thinking about hosting a party sometime in December, since it's been a while. But we'll see how many of our friends also host events that month; we may not feel the need.

Haven't thought much about Halloween yet; I do want to at least dress AA up and take her trick-or-treating; she didn't understand it at all last year and ended up bawling because she couldn't chase a "meow" that she saw run behind one of the houses we went to. This year we'll be able to explain beforehand what to expect, and she knows what candy is now, so that'll be exciting. Smile

I wonder if we'll even get invited to any grown-up Halloween parties. We used to host them, so I suppose we could again, but the last one we did a few years ago (before the kids were born) had fewer attendees than usual, so we kind of lost steam after that. But if no one else steps up, maybe that can be our cool-weather party instead of December.

1 Responses to “Long blabby post”

  1. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1348283323

    You sound like you have a busy weekend ahead of you!

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