I have been stressed and sick and whatnot recently, so although I've been doing overtime, my goal is to destress as much as possible this week.

So in the interest of relaxing, I stopped by the library & picked up a few things:

-Green With Envy: Why Keeping Up with the Joneses is keeping us in debt (by Shira Boss)
-Save Karyn: One Shopaholic's Journey to Debt and Back (by Karyn Bosnak)
-Haunted Honeymoon on dvd (an old Gene Wilder flick, very funny)

I also have the Total Money Makeover to get through.

At the end of the month I'll be cancelling my Netflix subscpription (I've paid through the 25th). So in preperation, I've requested several new(er) movies from the Library. I'm in line behind several people, so hopefully it'll be my turn around the time that I cancel Netflix.

And as for Netflix, I currently have at my house The Good Shepard, The Guardian, and Unhitched.

Financially, I'm still meeting my goal to track all my spending. I've done very well with this. Each day, I write down any spending in a tiny notebook I carry with me. Then each night, I update it into an Excel spreadsheet. Its been a good system so far & my goal is to track for the whole year. I'm almost halfway through!

I also need to redo my budget, I have some changes that I want to make on it.

As for an overtime count:
Last week I did 15.5 hours
This week I've done 11 so far, with a goal of 16.5 plus any Sunday hours available.

The last few days have not been the best. I've been feeling sick again. I have been sick for almost a month now! I am tired, pretty much a Ms. CrankyPants all the time and to top it off, my house is in disarray because all I do is work and sleep.

-So I've been sick.
-My neighbors keep parking in my driveway.
-I'm so ANGRY that my neighbors take advantage of me (and that I couldn't confront them at the time) that I couldn't sleep last night.
-I need sleep because I'm sick
-I bought lunch today & since I collected the money for the group& felt bad for the delivery guy, I put in too much money for tip since others tried to stiff him
-This resulted in me overspending for today
-I was so unable to sleep that I went into work even earlier than I would have and now I"m even more tired. And cranky.

Ok, rant done. Sorry. I just needed to get it out.

Just to throw in a few positives:
-Over the weekend, my mom gave me a huge bag of books that she collected from some friends & yard sales. I love free books and my mom always knows where to find them!
-I finally got Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover from the library...which I'm starting tonight
-I haven't turned on the heat in over 2 weeks
-My parents bought me dinner 2x since last Thursday
-I went to my nephew's karate class and he was a huge show off for his Aunt, it was so cute
-There are new episodes of Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on tonight. After which, I plan to go to sleep at exactly 10pm

I packed dinner for work today and they provided free pizza for lunch. I gave .20 to a coworker for a soda and I spent $1.00 for a library fine.

I was tempted to buy dinner becuase what I packed didn't sound that good, but I just sucked it up and ate what I brought.

I did 2 hours of OT today, I'm working on Sunday for 5 hours. My goal next week is to do 14 hours.

Tonight I'm making a mealplan for next week & I'll be heading to the grocery store on Sunday.

Today was a no spend day... the first of the month! I packed all my food & drinks for work today & I have meal plans for Friday and Saturday.

I'll have completed 10 hours of OT by Friday, and if there are any hours available on Sunday, then I'll work then too.

Yesterday I sent an additional $75.00 payment to my school loan.

I was paid on the 30th, paid all my bills that I pay out of that check. Then I set aside cash for expected expenses between now & the 15th. Since I received the $50.00 visa gift card for my birthday, I decided to use that for some of my expected spending (groceries & gas) and use that extra $50.00 cash towards the student loan. I also used a 10.00 deposit (received for signing up on e-statements on my checking). I also squeezed another 15.00 from the budget.

So between now & the 15th, when I get paid again, I have:

$18.75 Spending money
$40.00 gas money
$10.00 gift (need to plan for mothers day)
$20.00 oil change (need to do asap)
$20.00 medical (expected 3 month supply of 1 prescription)
$6.03 clothes (which I'll be carrying into June)

Plus I have some money sitting in my house checking, ready for my mortgage, water, ect.

I've been listening to Dave Ramsey pretty regularly, so I decided to get the Total Money Makeover from the library again. I'll be picking it up on my lunch break. I'm excited to re-read it.

My goal for May is to limit my discretionary spending as much as possible. I need to prepare for the loss of overtime at the end of May. I also need to look to find alternate sources of income. Fun stuff

And for any Lost fans out there... did you see last nights episode?!? It was SO good. I hear the season finale is going to be a 2 hour episode! Woo hoo!

Ugh, after a real weekend off (first in quite a while), I went back to work today for some overtime. I'm working 8am to 2pm, then I'll run a few errands. I have a 3:15 doctors appointment & my family is taking me out to dinner tonight for my birthday.

I plan on being home by 8-ish. So I can premake food for tomorrow and then sit down to watch the new episode of Heros. I am SO addicted. By the way, any Veronica Mars fans out there-- the new season starts Tuesday! I love my shows

I packed my food for work today, but I will be shelling out for the office visit & medicine. Oh well, I have the money for it. I'll use the 25.00 credit I have on my chase amazon credit card, and I have some money sitting in my medical fund.

I have a whole to do list for this week, entailing cleaning & organizing around the house. I also want to gather some video games and some dvds to sell in the resale shop. Due to my planned and unplanned spending for this month, I didn't put ANY of my overtime money towards savings out of my paycheck today. So I am looking at other ways to do that. Every little bit counts.

I am happy to note that I have not turned on the heat. I am using the fans some, but not a lot. My electric/gas bill went down consideribly and should be even lower for May.

I also put an ad up on Craigslist to rent my room out. I had a couple of interested parties. I'm still not 100% committed to renting the room out to somebody that I don't know, so I figure I'm going to go really slow about this

Well, my ear infection is back & since I didn't use my primary care for the first appointment, the only way I'm going to get antibiotic is to go in to see her, so I'll be spending $20.00 for the office visit & $10.00 for the generic antibiotic. Not fun.

I'll be heading in for overtime tomorrow, I'll be working around whatever time I can get the doctors appointment.

I have to call & set up an appointment for someone to come in & get the large bees nest in my gutter. I'm not able to take care of it myself. I'm probably looking at $100.00 for the visit

Today, I bought groceries (part of the normal budget) and new sneakers. I got a pair of New Balance for 32.00 on sale. My last pair of sneakers lasted about 5 years, so I don't mind spending a little more to get long term wear out of them. My old sneakers were ruined when I mowed my lawn. (I didn't think ahead and they turned green). Well, they were pretty grungy anyway & since I wear jeans & sneakers to work on Fridays & Saturdays, so its definately time to get a new pair.

I've been shopping around for furniture for my deck. I think I found the set I like, and its a little more than I was wanting to spend, but definately less than most places. Then again, I might hold off on buying a table & chairs altogether. Mainly because I don't know what I want.

On the upside, money-wise. I got a 25.00 credit on my chase amazon credit card. They had a promotion, so I used it for some normal purchases (paid it off immediately) and got the $25.00 credit. I've also received a $5.00 Pinecone check.

Also, I'm looking at $10 to $20 for switching to online statments for my checking accounts. I'm not sure if I'll get $20.00 since I technically have 2 accounts with the same bank, but we'll see. The deposit will be made to the account by 5/30/07.

AND the best expected income is a gift card that I'm hoping to win at work. If I make 160% of my personal expected production for April, I'll get a $400.00 gift card to wherever I want. As of Thursday, I was at 174%! I'll probably ask for a prepaid visa card, so I can spend it as I like.

Well, I'm hoping that May will be as frugal a month as possible. I'm reviewing my monthly budget & I'm going to try to find some areas that I can do better. There always are

Well, I was sick for about a week and a half. Lots of time off work (all paid), but no overtime. This week, I'm still recovering, so I've decided to do no OT this week either. Plus, I've already scheduled off for Friday & Saturday for my birthday.

On the spending front, I've been very very bad. Being so sick, I haven't been feeling like cooking, so I had some food delivered & my mom dropped some stuff off for me (which I reimbursed her for).

Plus I ended up in the doctors office twice, once on the weekend. Since my primary doctor doesn't work weekends, I ended up in the local medical center (not hospital). I had to pay a $30.00 specialist copay instead of my normal $20.00 copay, plus all the meds, but it was necessary & I'm FINALLY feeling better.

On the planned spending side-- I bought a push lawn mower. $134.99 from Sears (with my parents retiree discount). Then I bought a bike chain & tarp to cover it since the townhouse doesn't have storage for the mower.

Although I spent most of my time last week sleeping, I did get the energy to go buy handles and pulls for the vanities on both bathrooms. They were gold, but all the fixtures on the bathrooms are silver, so I switched them over.

Then I bought some Allen wrenches ($17.99) in an effort to fix the existing towel bar that keeps falling. It didn't work, so now I have to buy a towl rack. I'm getting sick of hanging the towels on the door & over the shower curtain pole. I'm keeping the Allen wrenches though, because they'll come in handy for later projects.

And while I was sitting on the couch all week recovering, I found out that I have bees. Big ones with a nest that's in my gutter. Lucky me... why, oh why couldn't one of my neighbors get it?? There's no way I'm going to be able to get up there to spray the nest, and no spray will reach it since its on the roof, so I"m going to have to hire somebody.

AND the worst part about being sick was that my bedroom tv broke, so I couldn't lie comfortably in my bed, I had to veg on the couch for the time that I was awake.

When I first started having problems with the tv, I actually took it apart, fiddled around with some wires and it worked fine again. Then it completely blew up the other day. Definately not fixable.

So I'm in search of a new tv. I know its a bad habit, but I fall asleep to the tv and I'm having a hard time without the white noise. I think I've found a good price on one, I've been doing a lot of research. So I'm going to pick one up tonight after work.

On the upside, I haven't used my heat in about 2 weeks. All the windows are open & in the last 2 days, I started using ceiling fans. Only in the room that I am currently in. I can't wait to see my electric/gas bill this month

And here's a cute story about my 6 year old nephew! Last weekend he went to TWO birthday sleepovers for friends. On Monday, my mom was telling him that it's Aunt H's birthday this week and she asked him what do you think we should do for it. He says to her "Oh, maybe she'll have a sleepover!" And I know in his head, he was picturing my parents, him, my sister & some of my friends all having a sleepover It was very cute.

So I decided to have him over for a sleepover on Friday, then on Saturday I'm going out with my best friends, Sunday will be family stuff.

I'm hoping to be on track with spending. I need to hit the grocery store & organize some stuff around the house.. its gotten a bit messy due to being sick.

I went to work yesterday & ended up leaving on a 1/2 day due to being sick. I called off work today too. I'm starting to feel better, so I've been playing around with my crappy free digital camera. After some fiddling, I got it working again. (PS, I should warn you, I'm a little silly due to the cold/flu meds I've taken)

So I took pictures of the abandoned piece of lumber on my property and posted it free on Craigslist. If someone comes & takes it away, it'd be a huge help to me



Then I took a picture of my cat Colbi, cause she's just so darn cute.



Then I took some pictures of my spare room. I put an add up on Craigslist earlier this week, and I wanted to email some photos to the replies.





Since todays a really nice day... the first one in a week or 2, I have all the windows open. And today I found out that I have a nest of HUGE bees. They're not the bumble variety, but the really HUGE ones! I think I see a nest on eave of the 2nd floor. Its something I'm not goign to be able to take care of by myself, safely. So it looks like I'm going to have to hire someone. Plus I think there might be a 2nd nest on the roof. I saw a dozen of those bee things today. Definately needs to be handled soon.

Oh well, I'm going back to work tomorrow, it'll be a slow day since its Saturday & I am feeling better. Then I'll have Sunday off again & if I feel like it, I'll do a little overtime on Monday.

Well, I won't be doing any overtime this week. I stayed home sick today and I've slept most of it. Since I'm used to working over 60 hours a week, the fact that I'll only be working normal hours should be helpful when I go back tomorrow. Instead of working a 10 or 11 hour day, it'll just be 8

So I'll get to sleep in a little & take it easy. I think I just have a virus, so I didn't go to the doctors. But I don't feel bad enough to justify staying home again tomorrow. AND I don't want to waste my sick time.

Well, I'll have to bust my butt on the OT next week. We'll see how it goes.

I feel happy that, although its been pouring non-stop since yesterday & the wind is really howling, I haven't needed to turn on the heat in a couple of days. Its a litle chilly, but I just put on my slippers & the cozy robe that I bought on sale recently. I can't wait til it turns warm & I can keep the windows open.

I've been working hard at overtime, working nearly 7 days a week. Its something Big that I've been doing to meet my savings goals, but it has been taking its toll on my health. So I'm going to slow it down some & if I don't meet my goals by the time the overtime stops in May, then so be it. I'll find other ways to do it.

I worked 6 hours of OT today & originally I was going to work 7 or 8 hours tomorrow. But since my stomach problems have been acting up, I'm going to see how I feel when I get up, but if I do go in, I'm only going to work 4 or 5 hours. Then I'll doze away the afternoon on the couch

I premade food for tomorrow, so if I do go in, I have food to take & lunch to come home to Dinner will be a veggie burger & baked fries, both of which are in my freezer.

I was asked in my last post what my savings goals are for 2007, so I am here to answer I also updated savings figures to the left.

First, I'd like to say that I've been very fortunate to have overtime available to me since January. This has negated taking on a second job and/or a roommate, which I originally planned to do.

I had several savings goals for 2007:

One of which is to track my spending to the cent for the full year (which I have been doing). Tracking has curbed [some] of my spending.

Another is that I put extra money towards my student loans each month (an average of $200.00 currently).

Here are some specific numbers for my savings catagories. The funds are held in ING & Emigrant Direct accounts.

Emergency Fund to: $6,500.00
Car Repair Fund: $500.00 [done]
Vet Fund (for yearly check & misc)$250.00 [done]
Christmas 2007: 400.00 [done]
New to Me Car Fund (not looking to buy for a few years yet) $2500.00 [done]
House Expense Fund includes:
-HOA fee 2008 $90.00 [done]
-Sewer bill 2008: $200.00 [done]
-Lawn Mower Fund (to be purchased soon) $200.00[done]
-Landscaping (i.e plants) 50.00 [done]
-Deck Furniture $300.00 [done]
Plus I'm using interest for Misc House Stuff: 33.55 total (so far)

I've overexaggerated the amount needed on some of the goals, just to give myself a cushion.

My savings had been good this year due to overtime, an unexpectedly large tax refund, and a small inheritance.

I figured that I'll need to work roughly 100 more hours of overtime to meet my Emergency Fund goal. Definately doable. I've already completed 24.5 hours between last week & this week.

Once I meet my emergency fund goal, I'm going to start paying down the student loans even more aggressively.

Work announced that the overtime will likely go away in late May/early June & the announcement has put me back in focus. I've been a little lax in some of my spending due to the overtime & starting today I'm going to live in my very strict budget that I have set up when there is no overtime. So I'm going to cut down on groceries, eating out & misc spending.

I plan to get a 2nd job and search for a roommate to suppliment my income once the overtime goes away, but in the meantime, I am REALLY going to buckle down. If I start now, then it won't be as much of a shock when my paycheck goes back to base pay only

Also-- I FINALLY got around to playing with my colors. I like the blue, but I may keep playing around with it.

No spending yesterday or today. For Easter, we had brunch at my sister's work. She and I were to split the bill, but she wouldn't let me. Apparently her boss compped (spelling?) her for 1/2 the bill. So she refused to let me contribute. Which I REALLY appreciate. The brunch was GREAT!

Afterwards, my parents & I went to see The Reaping. My parents treat, they wouldn't let me contribute either.

I got some goodies for Easter- a decorative basket, some toiletries, and a few knick knacks. No candy since dieting.

On Friday, I received a $2,500 check from my Aunt's estate. I've known for a year that this money was coming, and I've planned to set it aside in a New-To-Me Car fund. I figure I've got about 2 or 3 years left in the car I have currently, so it'll come in handy

I'm working 6 hours of overtime tomorrow and then I'll head to the bank to make a deposit.

I have a $5.00 Pinecone check, the $2,500 inheritance check, the cash I had planned to use today and the $40.00 found money from earlier this week. All of which is going into my savings, plus 20.00 of my bimonthly 'spending money' that I'm not going to use before I get paid again.

Tonight I'm working on a meal plan for the week. I'm planning on packing my meals for work through Saturday breakfast, lunch & dinner at work (working 9am to 8pm most days). It's easy to do as long as I plan. I have most of the stuff at home already, but I do need to pick up some veggies from the store tomorrow. I'm hoping to come underbudget on groceries for the next few weeks, since I overspent last month (stocking up on some great sales).

Oh, and because I just got around to totalling my March spending, here's my March savings total! $1179.45

I just realized that today is my 1 year Blogiversary! Its great to see what's changed in the last year. I've taken a more active approach to finances, bought a house, changed jobs and much more!

I've learned a lot from the people on this site and I've gotten a lot of support. So thank you all! This is a great group to be a part of!

AND as a nice surprise, I found $40.00 today! I was cleaning out some old photos/memorabilia that I had taken from my great aunt's house and I found the money tucked into an envelope. (She was known for hiding money all over the place). Since my mom is the beneficiary of the estate, I called her to let her know I found the money & she told me to go ahead & keep it. I'm turning around & using it as part of my contribution to Easter Sunday brunch. It was a planned expense, but now I'll be putting that $40 I had planned to use into savings.

Also, in an effort to be more healthy, I've been walking some. But on rainy days I've been doing nothing. Since I'm into video games, I've been toying with buying this game called Dance, Dance Revolution, which requires you to step around on this dance pad (its a VERY active game). My friends had bought the game a year ago & never play it, so I borrowed the game and the dance pad from them. Well, the pad was broken, so I sucked it up and bought a new pad online for $13.00. I'm taking the money out of my 'Entertainment' budget. As soon as it arrives, I'm going to use it as an alternative to walking! I'm very excited because the game is fun

I've taken a break on the overtime this week (just to give myself some 'time off'). I'm started back today and will get in enough next week to make up for the time off this week. I still have that goal of an average of 10 hours of overtime per month.

Oh, and one last thing! While yesterday was a no spend day, today was not. I ordered that dance pad and I had lunch out. All within my budget. My mini goal is to have no spend days all next week!

Today is a no spend day! And I'm working 6 hours of OT. When I get home tonight, I'm going to be premaking food for the week and cleaning. I feel better when I'm organized, so I've been working hard at keeping my house clean & planning my food.

I've made a meal plan for the week. Since I'm pretty much working 7 days a week, I'm planning a lunch out each week. Just to give myself a break from working 10 hour days then coming home to cook. Its all within my budget, and my diet. As long as I plan ahead

I'm going to get my March totals together. I've been keeping up my goal of tracking ALL spending for the year. 3 months down, 9 to go!

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!

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

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 got paid today and used most of my overtime money towards savings and student loans. Since I've upped my 401k, my take home was a bit lower, but thats what I wanted I've upped it again to continue through overtime, and since I don't want to lose the extra take-home, its actually motivated me to do even MORE overtime.

Anyway, I put $300.00 directly into savings, $50.00 to student loan principle. I also used some of the funds to replenish a few of my cash catagories that I had used to pay for my IKEA trip last weekend. All planned, all good

My goal for March is to do an average of 10 hours of overtime per week. There's 5 weeks in March, so I should make 50 hours. I'm hoping to beat that figure. We'll see how it goes. I'm getting a bit burned out from the overtime.

Today was a no spend day, packed breakfast, lunch AND dinner for work. No money spent on vending machines or the company cafe! Yay.

Had no spend days yesterday & today. Packed my lunch both days and I'm sticking to my Weight Watchers plan. It makes it easier to stay with the WW when I'm paying for the online priviledges. I feel that I have to follow the plan and lose weight to get my money's worth.

I worked 7 hours of overtime yesterday and a 1/2 hour today. I would have done more this morning, but I wasn't feeling too good, so I slept in a bit instead.

On Saturday, my nephew spent the night & he woke up sick with a fever on Sunday. He's doing better now, but I hope I"m not getting what he had. I'm taking a LOT of vitamin C.

Sunday, we went to IKEA. I spent more than the limit that I had set for myself. UGH. But I got some fun stuff. And I paid cash, no credit. I got a duvet cover set, which definately was a want, not a need. I got a clock for the bathroom. A few small things for the kitchen (like a fun looking spoon rest).

The only other big purchase is a lamp for my nightstand. I have no overhead light in my bedroom and I do have a big lamp on the other side of my room, but I really wanted a bigger lamp for my nightstand.

The one really fun thing I got 2 Dracaena Bamboos, which I put in a rectangular vase with decorative rocks. I tend to kill plants, but apparently this stuff is foolproof. We'll be testing that theory here at my house The plant is also called Lucky Bamboo.

Since I'm getting so much overtime, I upped my 401k withholdings to utilize the extra income in retirement savings as well as my regular savings. Since I've been with a new company, my 401k matching doesn't start until 1 year, so It'll go into effect in June. They match dollar for doller up to 5%, per paycheck. I can't wait!