Just paid 165.45 to savings! Now I'm $2,721.42 away from my 2007 goal!

I've been looking at this goal as almost a debt to myself. I owe it to me to get the rest of the amount by the end of the year

I'm keeping up with the overtime- Working about 11 hours this week. I have worked 53.5 hours of overtime for the month of March (Up from 40 hours in February).

I'm going to aim for 60 hours in April. Definately doable !!

UGH. Since when are my copays for office visits $20.00? Oh yeah, since 2007. I remember waaay back in 2005, when my office copay was $5.00 and my SPECIALIST copay was $15.00! Geeze. I don't want to think about what its going to be like in 2010!

Ok, sorry for the sarcasm, its all out now. I feel better

Well, for the $20.00, I got to talk to my doctor about my migranes, get 3 prescriptions AND to schedule a follow up in 2 months.

I've always had migranes, but they've been more severe and frequent in the last 3 months. So I'm hoping these meds will help. I'll be taking a daily med for prevention, a medicine to take when the migrane starts & and a high-falooting pain med that WILL make me very goofy, but definately feel better. Hopefully this will help

On the upside, I packed all my food for work today, but they treated us to pizza so that was nice. Yesterday, they treated us to pasta & salad & my team had an outing. We got to go bowling, which was pretty fun.

I'm giving myself a treat tomorrow & I'm getting something from the salad place I love so much. That'll be dinner for tomorrow night & lunch for Friday. Not too bad for $7.00.

Still working on the OT, but not so much this week. I'm getting back on board tomorrow. I just had to enjoy the nice weather we've been having.

Oh, and so far I've lost 6.5 lbs on the weight watchers. YAY!

I haven't gotten the bill with the breakdown between gas and electric yet, but the website gives me the total and I am happy to say that my electric AND gas went down by $38.19 !! This is based on a much larger month than the February was. So even though there were more days in this cycle, I still paid less.

I really want to see how much my gas usage has changed... mainly because I installed that new programmable thermostat. And I didn't install it until about a week into March, so I still should see more savings in April. I'm also hoping that it'll warm up soon & I won't be using heat as much. I was able to open my windows up on Sunday (it was beautiful out!) but then it was back to heat on Monday.

Overall, I'm happy at the savings and the extra between what I budgeted and the actual amount will be going directly into savings!

They served pizza at work today & tomorrow they're buying subs us. VERY nice! Just a way to try to gain more interest in overtime, but hey, it works for me!

As for the overtime update: I worked 17.5 hours last week & I'll be doing about 10 this week. I have a few appointments, so I can't come in early 3 of the days I normally do. Still doing well though

After 5 straight no spend days, I spent..

$0.55 on a soft pretzel
$7.80 on a book of stamps
$0.95 on a library fine

I picked up Stephen King's Lisey's Story from the library. I've heard good things about it!

I've had FIVE, yes, FIVE no spend days in a row. Tomorrow may or may not be my 6th. It depends on whether or not I stop at the grocery store on the way home from work. I probably won't, but we'll see

I was browsing links from my public library & I came across a great thing! There's a Delaware Money School. Its a school of free financial education classes! I've signed up for a few, I may know some info, I may learn some new things, but no matter what, it should be interesting.

And its possible that I might meet some like-minded people.

I signed up for:
-Investing for your future
-Women & Wealth
-Think Rich: Mind Your Money
-Everybody Needs a Will

Fun stuff! I'm very excited. Good to see that theres information out there to the public

Fern commented on my last post, which made me realize that there may have been some miscommunication in my last post, so I wanted to clarify.

I'm using my bank's Financial Services Company to sign up and aid in the rollover of my 401k to an mutual funds IRA. This is not a bank account, but an investment account. I have picked several strong funds to work with.

The reason that I chose to do this face to face is that I did my research before hand, but I wanted help in making the conversion as easy as possible. They were able to give me a prospectus for each of the funds (although I already had most of the info from online) and I was able to discuss other options for my finances as well.

I am definately trying to make my money work for me!

I'm all excited. I met with the bank guy about opening an ira to switch my 401k over to. I knew what I wanted going in, but after talking for a little bit, and answering a couple of questions he had some good recommendations.

I'm getting the account set up, now I"m waiting for paperwork from the 401k, once that happens, I'll request the check & then give the check to the bank.

Now that I'm getting that settled, what I need to do is think about opening a Roth IRA for this year. Its one of my goals for the year & definately doable. I just don't know if I want to wait until I have the money set aside, or if I want to start making monthly contributions until I get to the annual limit... decisions, decisions

The best part of the meeting was when the Financial Services guy told me it sounds like I've "really got my act together". Its always good to hear feedback about my plans

... National Teach Your Children To Save Day!!! My work is sending volunteers to teach 3rd & 4th graders about saving. I wish I could volunteer, but I have an appointment that day Oh well, its still a great of idea!

It was on my financial goals list this year. I wanted to get it done in January, but I prioritized overtime above making the appointment. NOW I'm finally getting around to it.

I have an appointment with my bank to set up an IRA. Once its set up, I'll submit the paperwork to my previous employer to move my 401k over. I'm excited because I also want to talk about contributing for 2007. I hope to make the contribution limit by April of 2008. To be honest though, its all dependant on overtime. If it keeps going, I might make it, if not, I'm going to have to get that 2nd job to make that goal.

I've started listening to his show on XM. I don't always agree with what he says, but its definately interesting. He also offers the shows online for free. If anyone's interested, just go to this website for the links.

Today was interesting, he had this one guy who was up to his eyeballs in personal AND business debt and the guy was talking about after he sells some assets, he'll owe about 200k to business vendors and about 200k to family. The man clearly stated that the family is going to need the money back relatively soon, but Dave tells him don't worry about them. They'll get paid when he's ready to get paid. Let them wait.

I dont' agree with that. Obviously, the family shouldn't have lent money they can't afford to lose, but these people are in need of some of the money and he should make it a priority. Because he told them he would. And now Dave's telling him to tell them to wait.

I feel bad for both parties here. The man is lying to family and his wife about the situation and if he isn't going to honor his family loans in a timely manner, their relationship is only going to get worse.

My sister is bad with money and I worry about my parents situation. IF it comes to having to lend them money... its only going to be what I can afford as a gift. If I get the money back, thats great, but if not, I haven't put myself into any financial stress.

No spending today, packed all my food. I'm sticking to my meal plan for the week... Yay!

I"m waiting for my electric bill to come, I should see it in the next week or so. I'm curious to see what the programmible thermostat has done to my usage. Now, the thermostat wasn't installed until the 2nd week of the cycle, but I'm hoping for a good difference anyway. I'll let you all know as soon as I do!

Well, I was going to go in for overtime today, but I just really needed the day to relax. I worked 17.5 hours of OT last week and even with skipping today, I can probably work about 10 this week. I did pretty much nothing all day and it was great!

Yesterday I did some deep cleaning in the kitchen & living room I did all my laundry over the weekend. And while I had a few things to do, non were pressing. So I vegged all day. Even got an afternoon nap in

Obviously, since I stayed in all day, it was a no spender And I've already premade my food for tomorrow. So tomorrow should be a no spender as well.

I deposited more money into my savings after I was paid on the 15th, so because I like to see the big numbers--- I totaled the amount I've added to savings this year.

January $300.97
February $1345.43
March (so far) $1014.00

I've been working a lot lately, so I've been eating breakfast, lunch AND dinner there. Plus I'm doing the Weight Watchers, so I'm really trying to follow the plan. So, tonight I'm working on a mealplan tonight to make prep each day as minimal as possible. So here's a tentative plan:

Breakfasts will mainly be fruits and cheerios or oatmeal

Lunches will be: Big salads, tuna sandwiches, peanut butter on crackers

Dinners: Mon: Wheat pasta w/ sauce and salad
Tues: Shake n Bake chicken, baked potato
Wed: Chicken taco salad (w/ Tostitos baked scoops)
Thurs: pasta salad, with MorningStar Chick'n strips
Friday: Sloppy joe and baked fries.

Most of the dinners will be made tomorrow. I'll make bigger batches & freeze the extras. I can premake 2 days of salads at a time, then switch lunch the next 2 days to tuna sandwiches (1/2 can each day), then have peanut butter and crackers & do a salad again for Friday.

I've premeasured snacks-- honey nut cheerios, baked cheetos, ect to grab n go. I'm just trying to make this as easy as possible for myself.