So its been a full week since the little kitten got declawed. And last night, as I was preparing stuff for my trip to the beach, I noticed little bloody pawprints on the hallway carpet. It looks like he pulled one of his stitches and had been too active, which reopened a wound.

Poor little guy was apparently in no pain though. He was still running and jumping around and I was able to clean his paw with no problem. Thank goodness, I would have felt terrible if he was hurting.

Anyway, the beach trip is now postponed until tomorrow and I headed to the vet this morning. Luckily, there is no infection and I just have to keep the kitten confined for a few more days. The best part- the vet didn't charge me for the visit. Thank goodness, I really couldn't afford another vet bill right now.



In other news, I just received my electric/gas bill. Both are supplied by the same company, which is how my state does things. Anyway, the new bill is 69.87, down from 71.84 from last month.

And because I'm a big nerd, I looked up the past electric/gas bills to analyze them. Since I bought the house in October of 2006, I've paid a total of $1,730.72 for electric and gas. Which averages out to $108.17 per month.

I'm doing my own version of budget billing. I've budgeted $119.00 monthly for electric/gas. When my bill is less, I'm socking it away in an ING account and when the winter months hit, I have a surplus to use for those higher bills. I'm thinking about increasing it a bit since its likely that prices for electric/gas will continue to rise.

I am also working on conserving more energy. If I do get that roommate, the usage will go up, but I've already allocated a portion of the rent to cover potential increased utilities, which are electric/gas, water and sewer (which is based on water usage).

One more thing that I did is compare bills for the same month in the prvevious year. For example, this month was $0.82 more than this month last year. And the prior 4 months (Feb-May) were under what they were in 2007. The heavy winter months this year were higher than last years though. And keep in mind, I'm just comparing the bills, not the usage.