Cptacek's Personal Finance Blog

We have Alco stores around here, and I am a "member" meaning I have a store loyalty card and signed up for their emails.

In an email on Monday (I think) they showed a deal of "buy a $25 gift card, get a $5 gift card free." I didn't see that in their ad on line, and it wasn't in their paper at the front of the store, either.

I asked the teller, and she said yes, the promotion was still going on, and would be until Christmas. Sweet!

My brothers and sisters and I are giving my parents one of those fake tempurpedic beds for Christmas. They were on sale for $289 for a queen a few weeks ago, and there was only one. My husband and I decided to get one, kind of to try it out to make sure it wasn't crap, and to give us more space as we are bed-sharing with our 6 month old and didn't have enough room in our full sized bed. So, I got a rain check for the other bed for mom and dad, and I'm waiting for it to be delivered to the store so I can buy it.

I had my brothers and sisters pay me their share over Thanksgiving. Since there are 9 of us, with tax it ended up about $37 each. 3 haven't paid yet, but 5 others did, some with cash, some with a check.

I went to Alco, and they won't take 3rd party checks, so I decided to use all the cash and some out of my account to buy 8 $25 gift cards. This got me 8 $5 gift cards as well. There is no limit to how many you can do in a transaction, they just have to swipe each card and code the amount in for each, so it will take a while to get done.

I also had a rain check for Hunts ketchup that was on sale 10 for $10 and get a $5 gift card back. I bought some gifts for my nephew from me (as his Godmother) and from my son (gift exchange for the kids), for another nephew (DH's godson) and for my son.

I sent an email to some people at work about it. One lady said she was looking at an Xbox that was $300 and you get a $25 gift card when you purchase one. So, she went there tonight and did this, and will get the Xbox for about $225. With her other purchases, she is going to save almost $100.

Another lady said she would do this to get a Wii and save $25.

I know their intention is to get people to give gift cards to others so they will spend in the store...but I don't care I don't have to give them away...I can use them to automatically get 20% off anything I buy!

This is my cousin Dean and his wife...


My cousin Dean was born with a heart defect and has had to have many surgeries since he was born, the latest just a few years before he married Lindsay. They have two daughters and a son.

Before they got married, Dean had a genetic test done to see if his heart defect was genetic, and the doctors assured him it wasn't. His two daughters are just fine, the son, though, wasn't growing right. They finally found out that he also had a heart defect, though a different kind than Dean did. They did surgery when he was about a month old (? I think he was that old already), and he seems to be doing just fine now too.

Lindsay was working for Marriott, at home. She worked during the day, and Dean worked nights. To save money on day care, while the two oldest daughters are at school, Dean took care of Griffin and tried to sleep while Lindsay worked, and Lindsay took care of the kids at night while Dean was at work.

Lindsay rolled her car coming home one night, and was paralyzed. She was in the car for hours, with no one seeing her until around 2:00 in the morning.

These two are the nicest people you will ever meet.

I hope this doesn't break the blog rules.
http://ptacekfamily.blogspot.com/?spref=fb

My cousin has cancer. I've written about her before a while ago. She had surgery to take out one ovary, did chemo, thought she was cancer free, then they found cancer in the other one.

Since I had my baby in May, I am exclusively breastfeeding him. I went back to work 6 weeks after he was born, and I work 3 days at work and 2 days at home every week. I have to pump for him, and well, I think I'm part Holstein because, damn. I only have to pump once in the morning to get all he needs, so I have quite the freezer stash going.

I read an article saying that a man who had prostate cancer who was a doctor decided to try to drink breastmilk to see if it would do anything to help get rid of the cancer. He tracked his PSA (? I think that is the relevant number) and when he was drinking 2 oz breastmilk from a family friend every day (in a smoothy, to get over the ick factory), the PSA number was steady or went down, but when his donor decided to wean her child, he had to get the milk from a milk bank. When he got the pasteurized stuff, it didn't work, but when he got the stuff barely pasteurized, it did.

I have since done more research, and the reason he even thought of it was that some researchers in Sweden showed that human breast milk kills cancer cells. When it is exposed to an acid, one of the proteins unfolds and becomes a cancer fighting machine.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100419132403.htm

I've read other articles saying babies that are formula fed have 9 time more incidences of cancer than breastfed babies. Also, even if breastmilk doesn't kill the cancer, the protein and carbohydrates in breastmilk, along with antibodies and everything else, etc., help those who drink it feel better after chemo.

I went over to her house 2 weeks ago with 32 oz of milk, and started pumping more to replenish. I just have to add one more 15 minute pumping session in the afternoon, and have plenty.

I called her house today, and got ahold of her mom (my aunt). I asked if she needed more, because by now she should be about out. Aunt told me she hadn't tried it yet

I totally understand the ick factor. But if it could work!?! Why not try it?

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Edited to add:
Here is the original study:
http://www.pnas.org/content/92/17/8064.full.pdf

My 55 year old uncle lives with my parents. He is slightly retarded, and went to school but can't read and can't count. He can tell time but doesn't really know what time means. If he were a kid today, he would be mainstreamed and would probably have found a job, but back in the 50's they didn't do that (or my grandparents chose not to do that) so he has never had a job and has lived with my grandma or my parents his whole life. I know other people with more severe limitations that live on their own and have jobs.

My grandma gets his Social Security money and gives him dribs and drabs of it, and pays my parents some of it for food and housing. Probably illegal, as she spends most of his money on things for her, but she can pull up bogus receipts saying the money was spent on him, so investigations don't catch her.

When my parents go to my brothers or sisters games, he has to pay for his way in and anything at the concession stand. They don't charge him for any gas or anything else.

My brother is now playing basketball at a junior college 2 1/2 hours away, and we went to the game last night. I drove and took my mom and uncle (dad was busy and so was my husband). I filled up when I left town, picked them up, drove out and back bucking a 35 mile wind the whole way, and then filled up in town again. Gas cost $60 for that tank. I told them we would split it 3 ways, so each of us would pay $20.

My uncle didn't have that much money to pay me. He is going to have to ask my grandma for more money, and I have a feeling grandma is going to throw a fit. Because she is greedy and manipulative.

I don't really care if she throws a fit or not. But what do you think? My uncle has been sheltered his whole life and doesn't have any responsibility other than making sure that the animals have water every day and washing dishes. Am I teaching a good lesson? Or being greed myself?

You know those shows where some TV host comes into a house where the wife is so "underappreciated" and sends her off to a spa weekend and the husband has to handle the house, kids and her job?

Those are complete crap.

First of all, my husband could not do my job. I doubt many of you could either Of course, this is after 6 years of college including a master's degree in theoretical algebra and 10 years of experience in the field. My boss can't do my job, no one else in my company can, and they would be hard pressed to find anyone who would move in to this small town part of Kansas that could.

However, and this is where the tv shows are always lacking: I COULDN'T DO HIS JOB EITHER! I wouldn't be able to fix a tractor. Or pickup. Or swather. Or be able to weld. Or know when to pull a cow into the barn to help it have its calf, and when to leave it alone. I couldn't stay out in all weathers and fight through the heat and the cold and the wind. I can't. I've tried.

What does that prove? If someone with a camera followed my husband to my job and expected him to do it, he would pretty much look like an idiot. If someone with a camera followed me out to our farm and expected me to do it, I would look like Paris Hilton or that other anorexic girl I can't remember the name of. All it proves is that each of us are good at our respective jobs and each of us are using our skills to support our household.

These shows always show how the dad can't handle the kids, either. Or house chores. And they make the man look like a douche and incompetent. I take exception to these, because wanting someone to come in and take over a responsibility they haven't been doing will naturally cause some upheaval. Expecting someone who hasn't been doing a chore to do it flawlessly the first time actually means that that chore has such low skill level that any idiot could do it. I don't know about you, but I think someone who can manage a household and children (and work outside the home, if that is applicable) has a great skill set that needed to be polished before it got to be the well oiled machine it is, and throwing someone into that position with no support isn't really fair. (Remember, the wife is off for three days of pampering).

When I was on bedrest for 10 days, the house did get a little dirty. Ok, it got pretty dirty. But, we didn't starve, we had clean clothes to wear and when he was home, whenever I needed food or water or help up so I could go to the bathroom, he lept right to it. Just because he did things differently than I did them didn't mean he did them wrong.

Thoughts?

The following post is all medical, no money Just warning you...

Ok, so I haven't been here for a while, so you all don't know I am pregnant! Yay! It took a lot to get this far (14 1/2 weeks). Lost 30 pounds, took loads of medicines, prayed, etc.

In fact, out of frustration, I made this handy little collage:


By using NaPro Technology, with the Creighton Model, we had tried about everything. This means that we were trying to get my body to heal so it would naturally become pregnant by itself (with a little help from my husband lol), not gloss over my symptoms and implant an embryo. No offense, hopefully. The final thing we tried was to take Femara, a breast cancer drug, but only 4 pills on the third day of my period. This is being used off label, but a dr in Ireland is having success with it. My dr explained to me that it was similar to Chlomid, which helps prompt ovulation, but Chlomid had a side effect of making the endometris thinner, which might cause a miscarriage. The Femara would just kick start the ovaries but not have a side effect on the back side.

I was getting very frustrated, and my dr. thought the next thing to do was look into surgery. Dr. Hilgers in Omaha at the Pope Paul Institute has been doing groundbreaking surgeries for the past 30 years to get women's bodies able to get pregnant when they are having trouble. After looking at my fertility chart that I had been doing every night for about a year, he accepted me to come up for exploratory surgery. However, the day that I called up there to figure out what I needed to do (forms, time table, etc) I was 17 days past ovulation. At the beginning of my charting, my luteal phase had been all over the place, but the past three months, it had been a solid 14 days, so something was up. Plus, my nipples hurt. So I went and got a blood test at the hospital, and it was positive!

I had been taking progesterone level tests at 7 days past ovulation every month to chart how much I was producing, and that month was the highest so far, a 12, when it should have been in the 20's 7 days past ovulation. When I took the pregnancy test, they tested the progesterone as well, and it had already gone down to 10.7. We went to Salina the next day and my Dr. gave me a Progesterone shot and showed my husband how to do it so he could give them to me from now on. I was to take 2cc on Tuesdays and Friday and get my levels tested every other Tuesday. So far, the levels have steadily gone up, except one week they fell a small amount. This past test they were high enough, my dr felt that the placenta was taking over as it should, so she dropped me to 1cc, still twice a week.

This is natural progesterone in oil, and the first few times we did it, it came right out of the bottle into the syringe, and into my upper hip. Doing it that way really left welts and bumps on my hip because it was so thick, so after doing some research online, I found to warm it up to body temperature (either in my hand or in my bra), take the shot, and then put a warm washcloth there for a while, and that helped immensely.

Things have been going good. Got past the 1st trimester. Started telling a few more people. I had a dr. appointment scheduled for last Wednesday, and I told my husband that once that appointment was done and everything looked ok, I'd start telling everyone, not just family and friends.

Well, on Wednesday morning, I started bleeding, badly. I sneezed and blood went everywhere. Like enough blood to fill a pad in an hour. I was working at home that day, so DH came home and we rushed to the nearest non-triage hospital, 75 miles away...would have been faster but the governor on the pickup stopped us at 99mph. Every time I squeezed my stomach muscles, even just to sit up or anything, I could feel more blood coming out. The only thing was, it was only blood, no cramps and no clotting, so that was different from before.

We finally got in to the radiologist for an ultrasound, and the baby is ok, but I was diagnosed with a subchorionic hemmorhage. When we first saw that heartbeat, which is the first thing she looked for, we both started crying. That was such a relief. The hemmorhage is a pocket of blood that isn't supposed to be there between the outer sac of the placenta and the uterus, and when I sneezed it started bleeding, like popping a blister. The dr said no one knows why these develop, there is nothing I did that could have caused it (like lifting something heavy or anything like that) and there is nothing they can do for them, but she put me on bed rest for a week.

When I got home on Wednesday night, after we had eaten at Red Lobster to celebrate that I didn't miscarry and drove home, a bit slower this time, I had been sitting for over an hour and a half in one position, and when I stood up, I felt a very large clot coming down. Very large. Got to the bathroom and a blood clot the size of my hand came out. I freaked out again, but DH said it just looked like blood, nothing else. It was darker than fresh blood, but I was still freaking out, even though the doctor said I would continue bleeding until the rupture healed. DH finally told me that it looked like when you shoot a deer and you butcher it, the first place you hit it has that blood clot look, so that calmed me down. Thank goodness for redneck husbands. I didn't have the number for the after hours person at the Dr.s office, so after calling, my mother in law, who was at work at a different hospital, and she asked the OB staff in the hospital, they said they thought it was normal, but to have me call my hospital and they would give me the number for my after hours doctor,and so after all that, I got ahold of him, and he said it was normal too.

After that, I have only bled a very little. The next few days, maybe as much as a dime or a quarter? But now, I haven't bled at all for at least 3 days, but I am still on bedrest, blowing PTO I was trying to save for when I had the baby. My boss's boss told me "not to worry" about PTO, but they just say things like that. Like he is going to give me 3 extra days next summer of free PTO. He won't even remember he said that when I go back to work (hopefully) on Thursday. I go to the Dr. tomorrow to check things out, but won't get an ultrasound again until next week.

I ordered one of those fetal heartbeat monitors from ebay, and hopefully it will get here in a few weeks, so I can just calm myself down a bit if anything else funky happens.

Well, here is our baby, and hopefully he (I don't know, but I think it will be a boy) will just stay put for the next 6 months:

Well, my goals for 2010 were to pay off the pickup (loan from DH's Grandma), pay off the house, and pay the Bank of Amigo card down to $8000.

Paid House off in December of last year, paid Grandma off last month, and have the Bank of Amigo card down to $8568. I had $950 allocated to this card this month, so I would have hit my goal two months early.

But...I got a balance transfer offer in the mail for a credit card I have a $15,000 limit on, no balance, and my oldest card I have. I've had this card since I was 18. They offered 3.99% with a 3% transfer fee, so I jumped on that. It actually was kind of a pain. I tried to do it last weekend, but the card had actually expired, so I had to request a new card, activate it, and then call in to transfer the money.

I sent $200 to Bank of America to make sure that I made the minimum monthly payment, then sent $8450 as the balance transfer. I did it this way so there would be just a bit of a balance left over when the balance transfer hits, so I don't overpay and have to ask for a refund from them.

I then sent the remaining part of the balance transfer ($4645) to the Chase card that currently has $12069 on it. It is currently 5.99% until Feb and then 16.24% after that...my highest potential interest rate. I set up a spreadsheet to see if this one is the one that should be paid or another card I have that is 13.24% now, and the math worked out to pay the rest of the balance transfer to the 5.99/16.24% card. This card will then be down to $7425.

So, my goal for next year is to pay off that card. It should be done by October, so it isn't really stretching much, but I upped my HSA to $100 a paycheck (up from $25 a paycheck) and I haven't figured that change into the projections.

What is wrong with your baby? It looks weird. (Note: there is nothing wrong with it. It just isn't cute)

If you weren't in junior high, I'd tell you to get a room already. Goodness sakes, you can't even go out on a date yet.

Did you adopt, did the father leave, did you get AI, did you have a one night stand? Exactly where did this kid come from?

Yep, bitchiness does come through in text form.

I guess when you don't have your daddy's lawyer money backing you up, you ain't shit, are ya Mr. Best Rancher on the Planet?

Are you gay? "In a relationship", no males in any pictures, a ring on your left hand but not on the ring finger and a comment someone left about sicking your friend on the person who gave you a black eye in a softball game. If so, I bet you wish you could take back your judgmental condescension about me being too hung over to go to Mass with you in college.

Jeez, if that is what I look like after losing 34 pounds, I must have looked horrible before.

Spent the past week tearing apart old jeans into strips, sewing them together and "reupholstering" a lawn chair:

It started out like this:


Stripped it down:


Finished product (the original chair was missing one screw, so I need to pick one of those up sometime...but it is usable as is):


Also, we traded or baler in on a newer model that won't break down twice a day. When you are trying to do custom work for other people, there is no way you can be broken down most of the day. You need to pull in, bale it up and get out. We traded off the lemon as our down payment, and the yearly payments don't start until next August. We are going to sell our planter sometime between now and then, and apply all of that equity to the baler, have them reamortize, and then the payments will be less than what the planter payments were. We got a 5 year loan for 3.99%.

The importance of these two things should be switched. But I don't have pictures of the new baler

I am so tired of the house being a complete and utter mess all the time. I hate washing dishes, the floors are dirty all the time, the trash, ugh. I don't know that there is anything I really clean well. I hate when people come over. I feel like they are judging me, and that I deserve their scorn. Even people who have bad houses themselves

I remember ages and ages ago I had read some cleaning book my mom had. The acronym was S.H.E., and it involved setting up your cleaning system so that each task you had to do went on 3x5 cards, you assigned them to do Daily, Every other Day, weekly, every two weeks, every month and every 3 months. You can throw every year in as well. Then you have little file cards so you can just move the cards to the next day you have to do it, so that day you look at the cards and that is all you have to do.

I didn't have file card box and I didn't have any dividers, but I had a buttload of envelopes I had incorrectly printed on for my sister's wedding. I cut two pieces off each envelope that the 3x5 cards can fit in, and numbered them 1-31 and Jan - Dec. I put them in an accordian like pocket pouch I had been using for coupons, but not anymore.

I use sticky notes as my memory at work, and when I was fixing up my house to sell I put sheets of newspaper up and defined each task on a sticky note so we could tear that down as each thing got done, so I figured this may do the trick. The newspaper/sticky note thing really helped organize the 5-6 people I would have in my house helping me (and not always the same people) so they could just pick something off the wall they wanted to do.

As I said, my house was a sty. So, I figured I could make up all my 3x5 cards, put them in the system I wanted them, and even if I have to wait 2 weeks to get to something, it's been longer than a few months since that task was done, so it can wait another 2 weeks. That way I don't overload myself and start to hate it.

My everyday tasks are washing dishes, including putting them away, and cleaning everything off the table (don't leave clutter. Since it is just DH and I and the table is big enough for 8, I tend to leave stuff on there). My every other day tasks are sweep, work out (today) and take out trash, water garden, and put clothes away (I keep them going through the washer and dryer just fine, but I hardly ever fold them or put them away, so that is my task) tomorrow.

My every two week task for today was cleaning the countertop by the stove (it gets used as a catch all). It took like 10 minutes? I don't know why I don't just keep it clean. Maybe this will prompt me in that direction.

My weekly task for tomorrow is wash bathroom countertop and sink. My every 2 week task for tomorrow is clean bathtub, toilet and wash mirror.

I also have some big things I want to do, like finish making the computer desk (another 4 foot piece to put the printer on), move the 4 drawer filing cabinet and set up the computer desk, so I put that on Saturday as well.

Other big things involve making and hanging curtains in multiple rooms, cutting some carpet remnants for the front room, putting some electronics away, cleaning out the office (there is just a big pile of random stuff behind me right now), set up the back porch, install a new back door, etc, but those aren't assigned to days.

I already have a few more cards to add, but I am out of 3x5 cards. I need to clean out my pickup every couple of weeks to a month, and plan my menus and grocery shop for the week.

Of course, now that I am trying to get on a schedule, I am going to be gone for the last week of June for a training class, so hopefully I won't fall off the wagon.

I want a garden this year and I don't want to pay a fortune for already started plants. I have usually just bought the plants already started, but this year I want to try to start my own.

I have read a lot about "earth boxes" which are pretty cool. You take two containers and cut the sides of one so that upside down it fits inside the other. It splits the container into two distinct spaces where the water can go in the bottom half and the soil can go in the top half. You put a pvc pipe down to the bottom layer and cut a hole in the shelf and use some smaller container with small holes in it to allow the soil to be in contact with the water. The theory is that the soil in contact with the water will wick the water up into the soil where the plants are planted. This way the plants get just the amount of water they need, you can fill up the bottoms and not have to worry about over or under watering them. Look here for a better understanding: http://www.earthbox.com/index.php

So, I thought the same thing could be done with starting pots. My mom gave me a great idea of using 2-liter bottles, and I also did it with smaller pop bottles as well.

All you need to make my earth pots is a 2 liter bottle, some panty hose and scissors. Oh, and soil, water and seeds.


Start by cutting the two liter in about half. It took a bit of playing with the dimensions, but I eventually ended cutting it into three pieces so the top piece will fit nicely in the bottom. I had about 1 1/2" of scrap when I was done.


Cut the pantyhose into short strips:


You use the pantyhose to cover the neck of the bottle so the soil doesn't fall out. I twisted each side then pulled tight and tied them on:


Then I filled the top with soil:


and the bottom with water:


and then put the top into the bottom. The soil will contact the water, and the soil will wick the water up into the top part. Here is one I did last week, with the little spaghetti squash already up:


I did a few more today, this time with smaller bottles:


Hope this works. If not, I'm out a few seeds, I guess.

I have spaghetti squash, zucchini, tomatoes and peppers getting started now. When I get some more bottles I'll start eggplant and cucumbers.

Got the Capital One card paid off on 2/26. I started concentrating on that card 1/13/10, when it had about $1475 on it, so a little more than a month and I got it completely paid off. Through some "creative accounting" I could come up with entire amount from my gas/food checking account, so I didn't have to cheat by using the line of credit.

By creative accounting, I mean that my usual way to do things is to subtract from my checking register on the day I wrote the check so I know what is going out, even if it hasn't cleared yet. Then, on pay day, I sweep whatever is left to the special emphasis item at that time. I had my gasoline bill to pay for due 2/28 for an amount of $353.20. Well, that would have made me in the red if I paid that before pay day. So, I wrote two checks that day, one for $170 for that day and the other for $183.20 for the day after pay day. I had them apply both of them and paid it on time, but the date stamps were straddling the magic day, which cleared up the $98 I needed.

So, once Capital One was at $0, I waited a day and then transferred $1900 from my higher interest Bank of America card to Capital One. Bank transfer fee of 3%, interest of 3.9% for a year.

That went through on the BoA side yesterday, so along with my usual payment to BoA and the $1900, that balance is down to $11,617.75 (originally $14,222.29 on 11/30/09).

Got two bills in the mail today; city bill and natural gas bill. Both were less than I budgeted, by a total of $50, so I applied that to BoA today.

I guess my new philosophy is to not wait until I make a huge payment when the bill is due, but instead to apply each payment when I have the extra money. Cuts out a bit of interest that way, though not much. I can still keep track of what I pay each month extra. Hopefully that has the same emotional impact as sending a big chunk all at once.

My new goals are to get that card down to $8,000 and pay off G'ma by the end of the year. Should be doable.

Don't quite know what the snowball will be as I don't know what the minimum payment on the Capital One card will be now. I'll figure that up when I get a new bill.

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When cleaning off my shelves I found a book I had borrowed from a co-worker at my previous job. This is the guy I left on a bit of bad terms, as he know I was going to be laid off the Friday before I was laid off (on Monday) and he wouldn't tell me. Although, the rumor he started did give me a bit of a heads up so I could steel myself for it, but he could have told me, nonetheless.

Anyway, I sent the book but didn't put a note or anything in it. I'm kind of odd about cutting ties with people. Once I cut them out (or move away) I tend to lose track of them pretty quickly. I got a nice card and letter today in the mail from him thanking me for returning the book and updating me a bit on the situation at my old job. They are down to half of the IT staff, and the person who was CIO has had his status changed from reporting to a Vice President (when I was there he was actually pushing to be a VP himself) to reports to a lower VP.

Part of the letter was:
"I have completed the conversion of Bgate to a completely parameter driven system where I don't have to touch the code for additions or changes. The standard template still uses your PGP processing exactly as you wrote it. A few months ago the PGP processing had an error in a piece that is not executed very often. I was surprised because my experience with your code has been that it works every time. When I debugged the problem I found that I (!!) had made a typo when I added it to the standard template. I corrected the typo and it is back to working per your standard of excellence."

Well, that is high praise. I think I wrote that bit of code in 2006, and he hasn't had to make any changes to it since. It is amazing how long stuff like that hangs around when it just works.

By the way, I thank God pretty much every week that I found this new job. I keep thinking about sending a thank you card to my old job for laying me off because I never would have found this perfect fit otherwise.

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Got an offer on a tractor we had bought 3 years ago to start our baling business. It had broken down three times in the past few years with >$1500 repairs, the same repair each time. It was obvious that we were missing something, but none of the local mechanics knew what was wrong (can't complain too much...the local mechanics took their payment in Crown Royal and Coors light). We took it to the shop and they found the real problem and said to really fix it, it would cost ~$3500. Dang. We only paid $6000 for it originally. So, instead, they offered us $1500 for it for salvage/parts. DH thought it was a good idea, but wanted to run it past me first, so we talked last night and we both agreed.

This money won't go to the credit card, but to the farm. The swather payment of $12,300 was due this week, and the refund from income taxes was $9300, so we need to make up the difference. The $1500 will go towards that (or some other farm bill).

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Baby progress:
The mucinex really worked this past month, though only for one day. Stretchy, lubricative and clear, just what is needed. That was called my "Peak day". I started taking blood tests on "peak plus 3" and will continue every other day until "peak plus 11". This is testing for progesterone levels and estroidals, to see if I need a supplement. We did try for a baby that night, and I should know if I am pregnant in a few weeks. The doctor said if I have not started menstruation 16 days after I ovulate (Peak + 16), take a test. Only on on Peak + 6 right now, so waiting. I am feeling a bit of pressure in my lower abdomen, though, although I know that is no sign. It just feels a little different. Trying not to let my emotions get the better of me here, but I do have hope.

In my last post, I thought I had $408 left on one card and I wanted to pay this off by March 5.

I had forgot about a reimbursement from COBRA that I had already deposited and applied to the card, so it is down to $265...but interest accrued, so as of today, the balance is $273.10.

Got the gas bill today, and it is about $45 less than I budgeted for. I also looked at the timing of bills, and I can send $75 more now, and send $75 less on March 14...though with this out of the way, all of that money will go to CC2! Yes, I'm switching from having student loan the next thing to CC2, since the difference in interest rates between those are about 14%!!! Anyway, I am sending a total of $120 right now to CC1.

After balancing the food/gas/misc checkbook, I can sweep $55 from the previous pay period to CC1 as well. Should have done this last week, as this Thursday is pay day again.

That means I only need to come up with $98 (+ interest) in the next few weeks. Yay me! I have one more bill (electric/water/trash) to come in before then, that may help. But we'll see about getting that $98 out of the other account and I won't have to use any of the LOC.

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Made homemade yogurt this weekend and some bread. The yogurt was awesome, the bread is very dense. I don't know why I can't make bread to save my life!?! It always turns out perfect for throwing through windows, not so much for eating. Tastes good, but you could break a tooth on it, I think. I mixed the yogurt with some peach salsa (also homemade from this summer, also very yummy) this morning for breakfast and used it as a substitute for sour cream on my chili for lunch. It was soooooo easy. Like, pour 8 c. milk in the crock pot. Heat for 2 1/2 hours. Unplug for 3 hours. Add 1/2 c. yogurt (with live active cultures). Wrap with towel as an insulator. Let sit 8 hours. I mean, how easy is that! And very good. Thank you, http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-can-make-yogurt-in-your-crockpot.html

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Helped DH with some hay feeders today, and got to watch a calf be born. That is so neat. We had 3 today, and are up to 13 for the year. Wanted to get some fence built, but didn't get around to it. The loader tractor had the steering go out the other day because a hose broke, so we had to modify a bale fork to fit on the other tractor. Goodness, DH is good with a welder and a torch. I mean, yeah, he did that for 10 years out of high school before we go married, but he can build and modify about anything.

I'm doing the Dave Ramsey thing, trying to pay off some credit cards. Let me throw a situation at you...I asked one sister her opinion, but would like my friends here at SA to opine as well.

I owe $408 on Card 1. My student loans are at around $2500. I owe $13,500 on Card 2. (there are more cards, but they don't play into this situation). My debt snow ball is $420 per month, and all extra budgeted money that I don't need for bills go to the snowball, so on March 14, I'll have around $480 to pay off Card 1 and then the rest goes on the student loan. The current interest rate on Card 1 is 11.24%, and the current interest rate on the student loan is 3.125% or some such ridiculously small number. The interest rate on Card 2 is, I think, 16%.

I got an offer to transfer balances to Card 1 at 3.99% for a year, with a 3% balance transfer fee, but the credit limit on that card is $2000 and it has to be done by March 5.

My goal for the year was to pay off the house (done), card 1 (almost done), student loans and the pickup we bought with a loan from DH's grandma ($3000 - 0% loan).

I am doing Dave Ramsey's method because I need a process to follow. I know in my head that attacking highest percentage is the smart math thing to do, but at this point, I need a method that gives me pride every so often before slogging through a year of payments to pay off a card.

I want to do this:

* use our farm line of credit to pay off Card 1 in the next week
* transfer $2000 (with a buffer for interest and fees) from Card 2, lowering that card to $11,500ish.
* pay the farm line of credit on March 14 with the snowball
* keep paying minimums on Card 1 (with the new balance) and Card 2 after the transfer
* concentrate on the student loans this year and the pickup, even though the $2000 on Card 1 would now be the lowest credit card amount.
* Once the goals for this year are done, start over on Dave's plan, starting with Card 1 again, then moving on to Card 2.

This way my goals from the beginning of the year are the same and I effectively lower the interest rate on a card I won't get to until next year. If Bank of Amigo (Card 2) said "we'll lower the interest rate on $2000 of your balance to 6.99% for a year, but keep the rest of it the same" I would jump on that. I think that the minimum payment on Card 2 should go down the same amount that the minimum payment on Card 1 would go up, so the snowball should go up by the original minimum payment on Card 1, right?

But, is that cheating? Is it going to undermine the procedure I am trying to follow? Will not reducing the number of cards I pay each month hurt my psyche? lol about the psyche, but I hope you know what I am talking about.

I know in my head that this is a smart thing to do. But I also know that I am following a plan because I have not been tenacious enough to do it by myself. That is what I am really afraid of...falling off the wagon.

Any advice would help.

Thanks!

alliteration is good for you

Anyway, my goals are going well. My financial goals for this year were:
1) pay off house (orig $1300 left)
2) pay off Capital One (orig $1477 left)
3) pay off Student loan (orig $2590 left)
4) pay off DH's grandma (orig $3000 left)

Got the house paid off in December...should have taken until March 6, so even though that was before 2010 started, it still counts.

Swept $83.59 last paycheck toward Capital One. This paycheck I don't have any more to sweep, but my snowball is $455, so that can go today. That makes $800.08 I've paid since the last due date. Today, the balance was $864.88, so after the payment is applied, I'm down to $409.88 on this card. Yippee! It will be gone for sure by next month.

Last month was a huge household bill month for some reason.
- Farm electric was $77.23, and the highest it had ever been before that was $53.66. Asked DH why, and he said he had to keep the tractors plugged in all the time so they would start in the cold weather. Ok, good reason. Just so long as we hadn't left something plugged in without realizing it and it was just draining energy.
- Cell phone was $95.64 because I had switched plans, usually ~$70. I think my roaming is causing more trouble than I thought it would.
- We are going crazy renting movies from our VOD service. $40 in movies last month? Really? I keep saying we need to sign up for Netflix, but I haven't yet.
- Gas bill for house was $126, the month before only $67, the month before that $26. Darn this cold weather!

Most of those I can usually count on to have extra to go to the snowball, but I only mustered $35 extra. I upped all of those categories in the budget, and it balances until the end of April, so if bills get down to normal, I'll have a lot more to go towards the snowball after paying each bill.

Only paying $50 / month for the Student Loan, so not much progress there, but the pickup loan Gma gave us is down to $2100.

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The tax game I played worked out well. I had rolled over a little more than $16,000 from my 401k to an IRA in December, and then rolled exactly $16,000 to a Roth IRA. Because I was laid off, got a lower paying job, $2400 of the unemployment was not taxable, and farm depreciation, when all taxes were said and done, we had an AGI of only $26,000ish. We are supposed to get a large refund...about $9000. Should be here next week. That will turn around and go right to the swather loan, and we'll only have to come up with $3300 more for that by the first week of March.

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Baby news: well, lack of baby news: I've been charting for two full cycles now, and from what it looks like, I simply don't have enough mucus. My doctor upped my Metformin, and told me to get Mucinex Max to help the mucus production. Three days after I ovulate this month, I'm supposed get blood tests done every other day for 11 days to see how my progesterone levels are doing. If they are off, I'll take a supplement. I lost 6 pounds on my diet since Thanksgiving, which is good, but I need to stay on the wagon instead of cheating.

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Last week was hell at work. We sent 1099s out on Jan 30th, and they were totally and completely wrong. We sent out the amount of grain that was settled in 2009. That doesn't take into account grain from previous years that was sold in 2009, pushed forward up to 4 years ago. It also doesn't take into account grain that hasn't been sold yet. My boss, the accounting manager and I spent probably 80 hours last week trying to get this right. To add another complication, some of the taxes that are taken out when grain is sold (the checkoffs that I have complained about before) should count as income to the producer and an expense. Ok, that doesn't look right, but we had to add those things back in, and then send the producer a second paper showing the amount of taxes they paid so they could count it as an expense. Except not all of them, and we got that wrong twice. It was really hell. I think we finally got it done on Tuesday, but people are still calling because we have never sent these out before and they are confused. My boss told me I can take a day off sometime in the next month or so and not have it count as vacation because I put so much time in. In a few weeks, after I get some of the confusion out of my head, I'm supposed to start over and try to get it right the first time so we have a process to use next year. Bosses won't be happy if we have this same problem again.

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I didn't know Big Love had started again! I finally checked it, and they are on like episode 5 already. I watched s4e1 last night and e2 tonight. Looking pretty good.

I'm a little late to the party, but I'm joining in today.

I had a huge box of clothes (like a moving box you can hang them in) stuffed with clothes that has been taking up room in our bedroom for over a year now. I went through it, and found:
- 17 things to throw away
- 25 T-shirts to cut up into rags
- 2 shirts to cut up and use for a craft project
- 54 clothing items to give to mom/brothers/sisters (! Yeah, I know)

I also hadn't gotten rid of a bunch of financial "trash" that I don't like to just throw out with the regular trash. It should be shredded, but I don't have a shredder, so I'll take it over to mom and dad's and burn it. Add them:
- 4 bags financial trash

My cousin had gotten me a new wallet for Christmas, and I hadn't transferred anything over to it yet...the old one's zipper had broken, so I was using a rubber band to hold it together. Transferred that, so add another thing to throw out.

Totals:
19 x 1 = 19
81 x 1.5 = 121.5
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140.5 points

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Found the old brother ink cartridge that worked with my printer...I replaced it with a generic, but the generic didn't work for some reason. So I am going to try to suck the ink out of the full one and put it into the brother one, and see if that works. If not, I'll buy a new one, but might as well try.

My goals for the year are to pay off Capital One (~$1500), my student loan (~$2500) and DH's grandma ($2400).

On 11/01, I had wanted to pay off the house this year as well, but I got that paid off last week! If you remember, the little screw up with the student loan was going to push that goal to next month, but I decided that the federal government will NOT have an effect on me. I will achieve my goals in spite of them. If you remember, I was at $1150 and needed $1300. I paid the chiropractor with the cash I had been doling out to DH (the cash came from our hunters) and used $150 out of gas/food, and voila! $1300. I DID pay off the house in 1 month! Take that feds. Your bureaucracy won't keep me down!

I will get the chiropractor money ($141) back from my HSA. I turned the receipt in to the administrator, and should get paid back sometime next month. That will go on the stack as well.

I am going to keep building up my snowball (currently $420 a month), and when those three loans above are done, start on BoA. That won't get done next year, but I will be knocking it around at least.

I am going to buy more laptops to resell. Easy money; just have to get to Wichita to pick them up initially. I made about $45 per laptop last time I did that.

I am going to offer to help a lady in town that does taxes. She has a daughter that plays basketball, and my brother and sister play basketball as well, so Tuesday, Thursday and Friday is out, but if she works late on Monday and Wednesday, I could go straight there after work and help her out for a few hours. She would pay about $10 per hour, and all of that could go to the debt snowball. I helped her a while last summer and like it, but events interfered and I stopped going.

Also this year, instead of putting receipts in a pile to be sorted through later, I am going to take care of them when I balance checkbooks. I take farm receipts from the stores and tape them to paper (so they are easy to look through), scan them (so I have a backup) and then hole punch them to put in a notebook. Some of those store receipts fade, so having a scan of them will be important if anything ever comes up where I need them down the road. I will also come up with a spreadsheet where I can keep track of the expenses through out the year.

Because of all the machinations I had to go through to pay the house off in a month, I can only put $210 towards Capital One on 1/13. Minimum is $44, so 5 times more than I was paying. By 2/13, though, I can for sure send $420, plus any money from over budgeting. There are 6 bills that will probably be over-budgeted for, so all the extra will go.

I will also sweep my gas and food account to the special emphasis bill each pay period. I got paid yesterday. Excuse me while I go balance that check book...ok, I'm back. Only $15.34 left to sweep from last pay period, but I need to ask for reimbursement for $95.70, which was another Doctor bill. I'm going to go through this $500 HSA pretty quickly...

On 11/21, I figured I would have all the credit card debt paid off by 5/2014. With the house paid off early, that knocks it back to 2/2014. I am not taking into account interest in those figures, but I'll just keep on tracking it like this. If I'm consistent with tracking it, at least it will show progress, even if interest will extend it a bit...but the interest would extend all data points, so the rate of progress would be the same.

I'll do farm goals after Tuesday. We sell calves Tuesday, and I'll have to make sure to cover a lot of big bills: main farm loan, line of credit, planter payment, swather payment, rent payment. Eek. I don't want to think about it right now.

At work we have an option to submit our medical insurance premiums for reimbursement from the HSA. I can't figure out why this would make sense to do. We pay $55.17 per pay period for insurance, and $25 per pay period for the 125 Health. They are both taken out of the check and are not included as federal taxable wages. Now, if I was going to get reimbursed for the $55.17 per pay period, wouldn't that mean I would just increase the reimbursement money to $80.17 and get that $55.17 back the next month? What is the point? Am I missing something? There is no tax reason to do this. But, maybe, that would allow for a bit more of a buffer. I just put enough in there to cover the deductible for me, because I am hoping to have lots of dr appointments sometime this year (you know, pregnancy test, ultrasounds, etc) and DH won't go to the doctor unless his foot is hanging off. If I put more in the account, but then didn't use it all, I could just submit the medical premiums and get the money back. Hmm. I'll have to think about that for next year's open enrollment.

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SIL is pregnant with her. Hmmph. Well, she has had two miscarriages, so this is her third pregnancy. The others were lost early (before 2 months) and she is now about 5 months along. I don't know how to say that. When he is born, is it her first child? Her third child? As a mother only to one miscarried child myself, I don't know how to put it. Anyway, I started thinking about shower gifts and such, so I started looking in the baby aisle, and holy crap, things are expensive. But I found the cutest flannel fabric of a frog on camoflouge, for $3 a yard, and I got all 5 yards of it. I wanted it to be reversible, but I couldn't find any red flannel at Alco, but DH had a flannel shirt that had shrunk and he couldn't wear it anymore, so that is the back. Of course I washed and dried both the material and the flannel shirt before starting:


My sister had given me some baby clothes, so I drug that out and found a bib to make a pattern from. It is really small. I decided to make two of these really small ones, and then two of medium sized ones and two large ones.

The frogs are so cute. I cut one large frog out to applique to the red side of one bib and two small ones to applique to the red side of the other. I used a decorative stitch around the outside when I was done, and here is what they look like:



It only took an evening. I have lots of frog material left, so I think I'll make a swaddling blanket and more bibs, but I need to find more red material before I can make the blanket.

It was a good mail day today. I talked to a friend of mine the other day, the one that bought a laptop from me, and my husband delivered it. He didn't know how much I was charging, her husband thought $200 and she thought $250, so my husband said just pay me when they saw us again. Um, all FOUR of us have cell phones, so you could have just called, but whatever Anyway, I haven't seen her for over a month now, but talked to her on the phone, and she said "I owe you for that laptop! How much is it?" Told her, and she mailed it to me, even though we only live like 10 miles apart. lol. So that check came in today.

Got a refund from a radiological outfit that did my ultrasound when I was pregnant. That was $16.03.

Got our 4% patronage check from the coop, for $71.50.

That should all go to the snowball. The monthly snowball is at $370, and I got it up to $850 for this month. The electric bill was $5 less than I thought, so it went up to $855.

But, because the Federal Government is run by nincompoops, it went down by $100. Let me explain. I switched bank accounts for the bills, and I changed the bank information on the Direct Loan website. BUT, that doesn't change your automatic payments, it only changes the manual one time payments. Of course that isn't stated anywhere on the site. So, my 11/14 payment didn't go through. Got a letter saying that I missed a payment and it would be going into forebearance. WTH? I've never missed a payment. I logged in and made a payment of $100 to make me current from the new account, and then I called, and they said you have to download a form, put the bank info on there (even though the new bank info was already on the website) and send it in by mail. Because of that, I thought that the $100 web payment wouldn't go through, so I sent another $100 payment in by check. Looked at the bank statement today, and they got both payments. Called today, and they said I have to make another web payment in January, because it takes 30-45 days to change that automatic payment information. REALLY? I can do that immediately on most sites! Again, WTH?

The more I interact with the federal government, the more I realize they are all pretty much idiots or just don't flippin' care. Either way, it reinforces why I am a conservative

Anyway, that extra $100 payment makes the snowball go back down to $755 for this month. At least I didn't just blow it...it just went to goal #3 instead of goal #1 (1 is house, 2 is smallest credit card, 3 is student loan).

But now, I can add Round($200 + $71.50 + $16.03 + $755) = $1045 to the house, and only about $300 left! Yeah!

I got a bill for the chiropractor for $141. I have a $500 deductible on my insurance before they start paying anything, so I think I am about half way there (year is October - September). But, $141 will come out of my non-bills account, and then I'll take 1/2 of the gasoline bill I get from work and pay that out of the non-bill account ($170.50 is half) with one more paycheck before the end of the month which will cover the other $170.50. That leaves about $105 in the non-bill account as of pay day today (after the above mentioned bills) which I could send to the house as well. $1045 + $105 = $1150. My next paycheck is 12/31, and I want to pay this payment for the house before the end of the year, but maybe I'll wait until that week and see how the non-bill account is coming, and I might be able to send more in. All Christmas gifts are done, and we don't have any travel to speak of for Christmas, so I don't see any problem with that.

The plan was almost 4 months (3.88 to be exact ) to pay off the house at the original snowball, and it looks like I will be damn close in 1...and if the government hadn't screwed me up for $150 I KNOW I could have done it in 1!

So someone asked how we budget. I have three different checking accounts. One is strictly for bills, one is for gas and food and misc stuff, and one is for farm. Of course these somewhat liquid, because after all, when a bill has to be paid, a bill has to be paid. But this is the ideal way I have it set up.

I deposit $600 every two weeks in the non-bill personal account. I deposit $1000 a paycheck into the bill account, and the rest goes to the farm account, about $295.

I don't really budget the $600 or the $295, because the $600 is pretty flexible, and there is a big buffer in there if I get in trouble, and I haven't figured out how to budget for unexpected farm expenses. But, I do have a strict regimen for the bills.

Easiest way is just to show a screen shot:


As you can see, I do it in a spreadsheet. OpenOffice.org, in fact. The free version of excel.

So, let's go through this. The top four lines have been paid, and have been reconciled with the bank from the last statement. That is shown by being gray and having the black column Cs. Under that black is an X, so I can filter on blank or non-blank (you can't filter on color).

The next 12 lines have all been paid, but not reconciled, because they are gray without the black box. Chase Visa #1 (line 215) and Bank of America (line 217) have been scheduled to pay on those dates, shown by being gray with no black box.

Yellow lines are automatic. I put Auto on some of those lines, but really don't look at that first column, so Auto isn't on all the lines it should be (oops). I color them gray when they are done (the day of or the next day, depending on when I check the spreadsheet.)

The orange ones I have to log on to that site and schedule a payment, and once I schedule it, I color it gray (I don't wait until the day of. That is why Chase and BOA are gray now).

The blue ones I have to send a check to, so I have to schedule it ahead on bill pay. The date on the spreadsheet is the due date. It will go gray when I send the payment.

The green one is the current special emphasis item. That is where I keep track of the current snowball. It will go gray when I send the payment.

I actually have this scheduled out until the end of February. The lowest I'll get is $48 on 2/10, but I'll get paid on 2/11, so that should be ok. I have a gap between bills from the 14th to the 25th, so if I need to change bank information at work (which takes a paycheck before switching, and during that switch, we get a paper check) I can deposit it and allocate the money as I said above.

You can see that I allocate $200 a month for gas for the house (line 219) but on line 198, I only paid $67.01 for that bill. The difference goes to the snowball.

How did I get $200, you ask? Well, that is another sheet...

These records go back to Jan 2007. Again, gray means it is done. I have two sheets as a check on myself...I could code it to automatically update one sheet when I do the other, but I like to see both spreadsheets in their respective formats. Yellow, orange and blue mean the same as above. Green isn't on here, because it wasn't a monthly bill (private contract, with very understanding previous owner). But when I start snowballing a credit card for instance, that one will be green.

First column is what is due, and the second row for that entry is the max bill since the beginning of the sheet. You can see that on line 14/15, The most I have ever paid Kansas Gas is $197.15, so that is why I budget $200. Now for Geico, the most I had paid for that is $123, but I change policies and it is now $68.04 every month without fail, so I budget exactly $68.04. Variable items get budgeted the most and exact items get budgeted exact. Once I know the exact amount for a variable bill, I update it.

The rest of the spreadsheet are due dates and amounts due. I started this when I was juggling bills for two houses (mine and DHs when I used to work 2.5 hours away) and I couldn't keep track in my head when everything was due. This very easily shows the due date and the amount, and the other shows if I have the money to pay!

My other two accounts just look like ledger sheets, and I use gray and black boxes on them as well, but no other colors

Thank you, pinchthatpenny, for the meatball receipe:
http://pinchthatpenny.savingadvice.com/2009/12/11/december-11-12-eats-with-awesome-meatbal_55769/#comments

I tried it today, and boy, were they good. I think next time I'll only use one egg, though, because they were pretty running when I was putting them on the pan.

For some reason, I wanted to make those, and I wanted minestrone soup as well. So, I looked up a couple different minestrone soup recipes and kind of mixed them together. I cooked the meatballs, then took half of them and minced them up to put in the soup. I'll put the recipe I used on my sidebar. DH and I both liked it, though it only cooked for about 30 minutes. I'm going to keep it simmering until we go to bed, and hopefully it will be even better for tomorrow.

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Had a nice surprise last week. Big storm came through, so my boss told me I could work from home for two days, Tues and Wed. We planned what I would work on, I had a couple projects to do, and I made sure to work hard on them so this experiment won't be a bad experience for my boss. I got a lot done, and he was happy with it. I think, after a few more months, I'm going to ask if I could work from home 1 day a week or 1 day every couple of weeks. I think he really likes what I am doing, but I don't think they have a policy for doing that. I've only been there 4 months, but they are really happy with my work.

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I've been trying to work on my sister's wedding invitations, but I am having a hard time doing it. I could do mine, because I knew what I wanted. But I don't know her taste, so I'm kind of floundering. I'll try to get more of that done in the next few days. Dear Sis, don't read this: I am going to print one out and actually send it to her in the mail so it is kind of a surprise when she gets it.

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Found out that the calf sale is in Salina on Tues, Jan 5. DH called the manager of the sale barn, and it seemed like the manager remembered our calves from last year, which is a huge surprise. Last year he stopped the sale to point out how good our calves are, but there has to be hundreds of thousands of calves go through there every year, so for him to remember us is kind of a big deal. It may be that the auctioneer just holds out a few more seconds, asks for one more bid, anything, and it could mean a lot more money. Hope our calves impress again like they did last year.

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Got paid for another laptop, so another $200 towards the snowball this month, I had a $50 check from a credit card, and other bills were less than expected, so I'll have $850 to send to the house this month. (Snowball is $370, so I added another $480 this month). I got $100 in cash as a Christmas bonus from work, and I have some cash from our hunters renting out the pheasant hunting rights on our property (I think $305 left) but I've been slowly giving that to DH because he likes cash. I've been giving him about $50 a week for groceries, gas, misc other stuff. I have one more laptop to get paid for.

I also have been doing a lot better job in my gas/food/misc check book. I was dipping into the cushion quite a bit when I was still paying the truck loan. I get paid every two weeks, and deposit $600 in there every paycheck. I have about $650 of buffer in the account, and I got down to -$631 at one point! Two weeks later I pulled it up to -$201, er, then it went back down to $242, and now, after a few months, I'm at +$139 as of the last pay check. Today, it is at $445, all presents are done, and pay day is Thursday! I'll need to pay $340 to work for gas for the month (I have a gas card that gives me $.05 off a gallon, but I charge it - no interest - and have to pay it by the end of the month), but I should be able to sweep extra money into my snowball from now on.

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I took back some batteries I had bought to Alco. I bought D batteries, but the hot shot takes C batteries. Then, I got the last presents I needed to get, with a 20% off coupon! One shirt I got was originally $50, marked down to $10, then 20% off is $8! I got another shirt, some candies, and a DVD. Everything else I got I ordered from Amazon...and learned a lesson there. Not everything sold on Amazon is shipped from Amazon. Those things, even if you are over $25, cost shipping. An expensive lesson. I bought some glow-in-the-dark fingernail polish for my sister, and the $3.95 polish had $7.00 in shipping! yikes! I didn't catch it until after I okayed the transaction.

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Need to work on my net worth statement. I don't know why, but in order to complete the IRA to Roth IRA transaction, they need all that info. Doesn't make sense. I mean, if I had a negative net worth and not enough income, they wouldn't do it? I have to get that done tonight so I can send it in tomorrow. I'm anxious to see if it all works out like I hope it will.

and the news is disappointing but hopeful. My aunt sent me a book about the St. Paul VI Institute in Omaha and how they treat women's infertility. It was a good book, but I couldn't drive to Omaha for checkups as they suggested. But, it turns out that there is a doctor in Salina that has been trained their way, and I met with her last week.

Basically, they treat the woman's entire body and not just her ovaries. They don't throw birth control pills at you and don't throw clomid at you. They try to get your body healthy, measure estrogen, progesterone and other hormones on a regular schedule, teach you to recognize your fertility markers and encourage you to eat healthy (low carbs in my case because of PCOS) and exercise. I don't think I have ovulated in the past two months, and I have been charting my basal body temperature, and it has been mostly below 97'. (The lowest number on the chart is 97', so that was a clue that something was wrong.) I think it might be thyroid, especially since at my first appointment from when I was pregnant the doctor circled the thyroid numbers, but didn't say anything else about it. (That shocked this new doctor. She said the thyroid can be very instrumental in getting and staying pregnant.) I feel a lot more comfortable with this doctor and my specific problems compared to my previous doctor that didn't even know that metformin can be prescribed for PCOS, and who had to call another doctor after my miscarriage to discover she should have had me on progesterone the entire time.

So, either PCOS and thyroid problems are making me gain weight, or my weight gain is exacerbating my PCOS and thyroid problems. So, we get to lose weight.

GAH! It seems like an impossible battle. But, if I don't do it, I won't be a mom. It is that simple. So, a lot of hard work is in front of me.

I started the diet today, since my last Thanksgiving thing was yesterday. Doing Atkins, which has worked for me in the past, but is really hard to stay on. I need to work on proceeding up the levels instead of staying on the induction phase forever and then stopping cold turkey. Made a yummy italian salad dressing from scratch to put on my salad tonight and DH made steak. Leftovers for tomorrow!

I played in an alumni basketball game for our high school on Saturday and played a little paintball on Sunday. Today I worked out using an old VHS tape I was going to throw out. It is a Power 90 tape I had from back when I was in college. It used to be so EASY (I was used to working out 3 hours a day for basketball, so I didn't even break a sweat then) and now it was terribly hard. I am looking forward to getting to level 2 because he is kind of annoying on the tape in level 1

I went in for a blood test on Friday, but haven't heard the results yet.

I have an appointment on Tuesday to meet with the person who is going to teach me the Creighton Model Fertility Care System (charting your mucus) to tell when you are ovulating. It will also give an indication of how your hormone levels are doing. It is very interesting. We have so much information we can get about our bodies if only we know how to read it!

I really think it is a shame that medicine has shifted towards the pill for PCOS and IVF and other non-natural remedies for infertility. Many doctors I have gone to don't actually know much about a woman's cycle, or don't want to follow up to see if you can regulate it any other way. The message seems to be "acne? take the pill. PMS? take the pill. PCOS? take the pill. athlete's foot? take the pill." I mean, goodness, it is not the panacea to all female problems. In fact, I think it may mask some problems, and be treating the symptoms, not the problems.

I don't know what all this is going to cost out of pocket. She is treating PCOS, so it should be covered by insurance, but I don't know about the Creighton Model teacher. Probably not.

--------------------
In money news, I have figured out my debt snow ball (can't remember if I blogged about this yet, but too lazy to look). Tomorrow the last payment for the ambulance ride from 3 years ago will be paid. My debt snowball is currently $335 (pickup, table and Bandit surgery), so I was able to send the entire $320.50 that was left with no problem. Add the normal ambulance payment of $36 and the new snowball is $370. (I like round numbers. So sue me.)

Next is the house. We owe about $1300 on it, but we aren't really on a set schedule to pay it off as it is private contract. DH would like to pay the entire thing off by the end of the year, but I can't send that much out of the bill bucket. We would have to sell something. We are selling calves in January, so maybe we will use some of that money to pay it off. But, if it comes out of the bill bucket, I'll be able to for sure send $565 on Jan 1, maybe $10 more, depending on the electric bill. That puts the house pay off by March 1 at a minimum. Of course, that won't grow the snowball because we hadn't been making regular payments (with the previous owner's blessing, by the way) but another debt will be gone.

One bad thing is that our smallest debts are also the lowest interest rates, and even though I know in my head that paying off highest interest rates first makes more money sense, I think I need to follow a system. DR seems to be a good one, so there you go. The next debt is a credit card with $1477 currently on it at 0% interest, then student loan of $2590 at 3.125% interest. I should get through these by the end of next year.

I guess there are my goals for 2010:
1. pay off house
2. pay off capital one
3. pay off student loan

That is all the further out I'm going to project, except that my preliminary numbers show I can get us out of all of our non-farm debt in 3.5 years (though technically, all the credit card debt did come from farm purchases. it just feels differently than a bank loan, though.)

-------------------

I have been wanting to get a preliminary estimate of our taxes finished so I can convert my rollover IRA (from my old 401k) to a Roth IRA this year. I want to roll over enough to keep us in the 15% tax bracket, and not get in the 25% bracket, as I see taxes going up and up and up in the future. We may look back at 15% with longing and nostalgia. Hell, we may look back at 28% with nostalgia. I learned tonight that I will have more wiggle room than I thought. We bought about 60 cows cows this year, and I can section 179 as many as I need to bring the income level down to 15%. I didn't know if I had to do all or nothing, but a friend of mine who does farm taxes said I could do a specific dollar amount, not even a whole cow! So, figuring we didn't pay any taxes last year, lost my $92,000 job, I was on unemployment for 6 months, and my new job is only $60,000, AND having $72,000 of wiggle room from the cows, I think I can safely move $20,000 from IRA to Roth IRA. I still want to go through the receipts and do a better check, but if I don't get to it in the next week, I'll have my adviser pull the trigger. I can always recharacterize it next year before I submit my return, so the only risk is not doing enough, I suppose.

Months ago, we switched our phones from Alltel to Nex-Tech. They had better service and were cheaper. We got free (adequate) phones, a $50 sign up bonus and $200 per line we switched. So, $400 total. This went to pay off the early termination fee that Alltel gave us for quitting that contract early. It is a good deal, but if we break the Nextech contract within 2 years, we have to pay back that $200 per phone AND pay another $200 per phone. So, they really got ya once you sign up.

We got on a promotional plan, which was 1000 daytime minutes, 1000 text messages and 1000 night/weekend minutes. Since April, the highest bill has been $83.59, and the lowest bill was $64.14. Except this month...$329.41!!! I about crapped myself. I called Nex-tech and said something must be wrong, because we had never had that high of a bill. I called Friday, and the guy then couldn't make any changes because his supervisor wasn't there, but he did say that he would investigate which real plan (vs. promotional plan) would be better for us, and he could retroactively apply it to this bill. We would just have to keep that plan for 3 months before we could change it again. The customer service guy took my number on Friday and made a point to call me back today.

He told us to go with the Nationwide 1300 plan, which is unlimited Nights and Weekends, unlimited Mobile to Mobile (which means any Nex-Tech or Kansas Alltel phone...and hardly anyone around here has any other cell phone except those. My brothers and sisters in KC are the exception, but I text my brother, rarely talk to one sister, and talk to the other alot. Come to think of it, I think that Nex-Tech has an agreement with Sprint, so all calls to Sprint are considered Mobile to Mobile as well, so they would be free, meaning KC family would be free too!), 1300 anytime minutes, 10 free calling circle, and $.35 per minute outside the coverage area...meaning outside of Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado or Missouri. Any calls when I am at work, or on the way home for about 20 minutes, will count towards the 1300 minutes, because that is in the "nationwide" part, not the "in coverage" part. That plan will be $62.46! A savings of $261.95. I couldn't believe that they would do this retroactively!

Kudos to you, Nex-Tech. I was ready to beg and plead, and if that didn't work, just suck it up because I did sign the contract, but you made things very very easy.
----------------

Well, we have had a productive two weeks. Two weeks ago, we had beans to cut, wheat to plant, milo to plant, cows to move home, bales to move, feed to bale, and calves to wean. DH had to help our landlord with his wheat, his soybeans and his milo as well.

Well, as of today, we got the beans cut, the milo cut, the wheat planted, and the calves half weaned. The landlord's wheat is planted, his soybeans are cut and I think his milo is almost cut.

It has been a stressful two weeks. Er, and I didn't help matters by getting mad that DH was helping the landlord and other neighbors instead of doing our work (in my mind). I think that I have a legitimate beef about that, but I think I had better get used to it because that is just how he is. He would give you the shirt off of his back, let you take his pickup and walk, and give you the food off his plate...and nice though that is, sometimes it is a little much, especially when I am the one juggling bills and trying to make sure that we pay all of our obligations. If your beans are still in the field, it is a little hard to sell them to pay bills.

I say we have the calves half weaned, because we do it a little different than most people. Most people get the cows and calves in, sort the calves off, let the cows out in the pasture, move the calves a few miles away and put some grain out for the calves. The cows stand around mooing looking for the calves, the calves stand around mooing looking for mama, and after about 3 days (with both cow and calve hoarse from effort and exhausted trying to find each other) they finally give up calves start eating. The calves have a high chance to get sick at this time, because they are constantly roaming the pen, aren't drinking water, aren't eating anything, and bawl something awful.

We use something called "Quiet Wean". They are little plastic yellow nose flaps that you put into the nostrils of the calves. It is sort of like a bull ring that people used to use to lead bulls around? Anyway, the ends of the plastic have little balls on the end so that there is nothing pointy inside their nostrils, but it can't easily come out. The plastic flap then covers the mouth when they try to nurse, but they can drink and eat real food just fine. That way, they are around mom, but learning to eat by themselves. After about a week, you separate them, and they are fine! They naturally weaned themselves, and when you put them in the pen, they just start eating and drinking right away. You have to get the cows in twice, a week apart, so some people don't like to do that extra work, but we think it helps protect them from illness and stressors. You have to buy one per calf, but you just wash them and use them the next year, so not a big expense. We actually used mom and dad's this year, and when we take them out, they will put them in theirs. They cost $2 a piece.

We get them here:
http://www.quietwean.com/howitworks.htm

psst, fuck you FTC. I didn't get paid to just write that review, and didn't get any free samples, so go look somewhere else to catch bloggers in your evil little web.

Whenever you sell wheat, corn, milo, soybeans or cattle (and I think mushrooms, hots, cotton, well, most any farm commodity) you are forced to pay some amount to the marketing board associated with that product. For instance, for wheat, the Kansas Wheat Commission gets $.01 per bushel for any wheat changes hands from producer to 1st purchaser in 2008. In 2009, it is going up to 1.5 cents per bushel. For soybeans, it is 0.5 percent of the market price per bushel sold.

For cattle, it is $1 per head every time you sell anything, calf, cow, bull for seedstock or beef.

These programs are marketed as being for research, expanding domestic markets and expanding international markets (marketing). They started off as a true check off, where by if you wanted to contribute, you would opt in and pay this amount. Eventually they began forcing everyone to pay under penalty of fines ($5,500 per instance for cattle).

For some of the check offs, you can request refunds for your money and actually get it back (wheat and corn). For milo, you can apply for the refund, but they haven't yet decided if they will pay it back yet. That decision will come in 2011, but you have to have your form in 60 days after you sell the product. (!) You can't get a refund of soybeans or cattle check off dollars.

Whenever I talk about getting this money back, everyone says "it is for research" or "They came up with 'Beef. It's what's for dinner'". The Supreme Court said it is constitutional. But I think it is akin to having to pay union dues and not wanting to join the union...and Kansas is a right to work state!

This year, the Kansas Wheat Commission brought in $3.56 million dollars! And now they are upping the tax from $.01 to $.015. So, conceivably, next year, they will bring in $5.34 million. Of course, that depends on the size of the crop.

You can download forms to get the money back for corn and milo, but for wheat you have to request a form in writing, and they stamp a certain voucher # on it, and if you sell at different elevators, they have to send you multiple vouchers (you can't copy them). Why, in this day and age, should you have to do that? Man, just put up a web site where you can enter your name, if you have to have it for "tracking purposes" (whatever that means), and let me get my form. The only thing I can think of is that people will get tired of calling in and requesting a form, so the wheat commission gets to keep the money. Here is my email trail to the secretary trying to keep me from getting my form:
Me: "Is there any reason this can't be put on the internet so producers could download it without you having to bother with sending it out?"
Her: "The reason it is not put on our website is because we need the written request whether it be e-mail, fax or by postal mail for tracking purposes."
Me: "So if, for instance, I gave the form you are sending me to my parents, they couldn't use it? It has to be tracked specifically to me?"
Her: "The request really needs to be made in the name of the person that the form is for."
Me: "Why? Is that the law? If you get a filled out form that you haven't already tracked, will you not process it?"
Her: "We have a database that is cross-checked. If they are not in the database a new entry is made. No, we process all requests."
Me: "We sell wheat at two different elevators. Do I have to request another one, or can I just make a copy of the one I have?" - this email was after I got the first one I requested in the mail.
Her: "You need one original form for each elevator that you sold wheat to. I will put another voucher in the mail to you."
Me: "This is just plain crazy. What would it take to change these crazy rules?"
Her: "If you would like, you might want to call and visit with your Kansas Wheat Commission representative Dean Stoskopf – PH: 620-653-7573." psst. Don't try to call that number. It is disconnected. Thanks a lot, secretary. But I did find his number, and I did get a hold of his wife. He, this "representative" (that I have never had the opportunity to vote for) is supposed to call me tomorrow.

Oh, yeah. Have I mentioned that wheat was $2.00ish per bushel during the 40's and it is $5.00ish now? Man, that's some savvy marketing. Hell, with inflation, the price went down!

Their web sites and pamphlets reek of unionization, socialism and misdirection. For instance, a quote from Teddy Roosevelt in on the Wheat propaganda paper: "Every man owes a part of his time and money to the business or industry in which he is engaged. No man has a moral right to withhold his support from an organization that is striving to improve conditions within his sphere." Um, no. I have every right to withhold my support from any organization I choose. It also says: "A large portion of the check-off goes towards research to improve wheat varieties....A recent study evaluated the wheat breeding program at Kansas State University, the sources of funding and its return to producers. The cost of running this program is $4.8 million and returns an economic value of $89 million to Kansas." Hey, that sounds good, huh? Except $4.8 million is about a million more than the entire check off program brought in last year, and in fact, the checkoff only spent around $911,000 in research. So, they are trying to take credit for the entire $89 million return to the state, while only contributing at most 1/4 of the money.

This just burns me. I do not want to join the Kansas Wheat Commission. I don't want to join the Cattlemen's Beef Promotion and Research Board. I don't want to join the soybean board or the milo board. And I don't think they should be able to make me.

Very not financial. Maybe controversial. But I would like to hear your guys' thoughts...

My cousin C is 28 years old. She has recently been having trouble with an ovary, and had a cyst the size of a softball that burst. She had to go in and have exploratory surgery, and in the course of that, they determined that one ovary had a growth in it, so they removed the burst cyst, removed the ovary and the fallopian tube on that side. She still has the other ovary, but they are still running tests, and it might be cancer such that they will need to take everything out.

C is single and has never been married, though has had quite a few long term boyfriends. She has no kids. She is staring in the face the possibility of being infertile (and in her mind, alone) for the rest of her life, and in fact that life might not be that much longer, and it is tearing her apart.

I saw her yesterday and had a good visit. During the course of that visit, we started talking about how people who are married, and have kids, and especially are married early, just don't "get it". It is a conversation we have quite a bit.

I talked to another cousin J the other week. She just turned 30, and hasn't been on that many dates, let alone had a boyfriend. Obviously, no kids. J has another cousin, B, on the other side of the family that is also 30 and is having her 3rd kid. J's aunt said "B better quit having kids pretty soon...she's already 30!" J said "Remember who you are talking to here." It really upset her. Her cousin is too old to have her 3rd kid? And she isn't even remotely close to having her 1st? Again, some people just don't "get it".

As a reminder, I didn't get married until I was 30. And I miscarried and still don't have a child.

My sister R (who got married at 20 and had a daughter at 21) asked me today how C was doing. I told her the medical stuff and told her that C is still working through the same old stuff, but now it seems to be much more in-your-face. My sister said this:

"I feel sad that C does not see her self worth. It seems (without knowing all the whole details so I may be WAY off) that she gets in relationships just because she is lonely or because she insecure? She gets into a relationship but she does not commit to it or allow this person to get too close to her and jumps out. But she is lonely so she gets back into it. I think though, her sadness comes from some sort of unfulfillment that I don’t think that men and babies will be able to fill…"

I do acknowledge that sometimes people get in, and stay in, or go back to, relationships that they shouldn't be in because they are afraid to be alone. If you want to be married and the person you are with isn't the person you want to marry, you need to move on. But, the last sentence really got to me. After thinking about it for awhile, I wrote her back this:

"Don't take this the wrong way. But I'm going to say it anyway. As for the wanting husband and kids thing, I think that it is really easy for someone who got married out of college to not be able to get the utter frustration and despair you have when you are 10 years out of high school, dating ALOT, and be no closer to being married and having kids than you were the day you graduated. It is the only thing in this world that we do that working harder at won't help with. You just have to meet the right person. There is nothing you can do to change that. It is completely out of your hands. In that portion of your life, you are revving up your motor, but no one will change the light to green. Rev, rev, rev, still stuck there. That sucks. And now you have something wrong with you that may make it impossible to have the kid you want so much? I think she is handling it pretty gosh darn well. I wish once she knew that the person she was with wasn't the right person she would break it off right away instead of it lingering, though.

Look, when you are single, you are, by definition, selfish. What else is there to give of yourself too? Your relationship with God shouldn't change whether you are married or not. You can volunteer or whatever, but if you actually think that is a good solution, think about this: give up your husband and volunteer instead. No comparison, right? How about this: give up your daughter and volunteer instead. There is nothing that can replace your marriage bond or your bond with your children. If you think that is incorrect, please tell me what you would voluntarily give up your daughter for, in an across the aboard trade. NOTHING. So if you don't have those bonds, you are missing something. Nothing can replace those things. It doesn't equate to your self worth, but it is something that you are missing.

I probably got on a rant here that wasn't justified. But we talked about this last night. Heck, we talk about this all the time. I talked with J the other day, and she and I talked about the same thing. I know I am married now, but I still remember what it was like 3 and a half years ago before I met DH. Exactly the same. And people just don't get it.

Ok, off my soap box. I would like to hear what you say about my rant "

This isn't going to piss R off. She knows that I am very thoughtful in all I do, and she will read this in a spirit to try to really get what I am saying. (She responded to say she would write back later when she had time to think about it.)

But, I wonder, what do my saving advice friends think? Am I way off base here? Or am I on to something?

woohoo! I bought 100 shares of BNSF at $79.79, and just found out today that Berkshire Hathaway is buying the whole company! Either we will get $100 a share, or equivalent shares of Berkshire Hathaway! Yippee!

That is all for today. Too tired.

Well, things are just kind of rolling along. For some reason, I have a big break in bills from the 14th through the 24th, and starting in November my one bill paying bank is going to charge $8 a month for balances under $2000, so I needed to change all my direct deposits to a different bank. I got through most of that last night. What a pain! Three I needed to contact someone other than doing it online. One was DH's disability insurance, and they are sending me a form to do that. One was our telephone/cable/internet company, and I downloaded a form for that, and now need to send it, and on is DH's life insurance company. Um, I haven't yet figured out what I need to do there, but need to get on it pretty quick. I have two more accounts that I log into to pay, and so I'll change those when I do that.

I figured out that right now, I need $1000 a paycheck for all household bills. That is water, electricity, credit cards, insurance for my pickup, insurance for DH (above), natural gas, vet, ambulance bill, phone, cell phone, farm electric, student loan, and taxable investment account. That leaves $600 a paycheck for pickup payment, gas, food, and misc. Another $250 is going to go to the farm account. I budget for the most I have ever paid for these bills, so, for instance, the gas bill in the summer is like $25, but in the winter about $200. I budget $200 so I'm never short in this account. The other $125 can be used elsewhere.

ahem...
One more payment and it's mine, part 1:
One more pickup payment of ~$160. Usually $181.76, bi-weekly, but this Thursday, the pickup is paid off. Yippee! Wow, when I think back to everything I've gone through since I bought that pickup 6 years and 166,750 miles ago. Got dumped, probably went through depression, but never checked it out, became a team lead at work, met DH, changed jobs, sold house, moved, bought house, got married, sold house, moved, got laid off, moved, got pregnant, miscarried, found another job. And every two weeks, $181.76 came out of my account. I will never, never, never buy a new pickup again, and I will never, never, never get a loan for a vehicle for 6 years!

Need to determine if I am going to drop the coverage to just liability. Right now I'm paying ~$68 a month for insurance from Geico. The pickup is still worth $7665 according to kbb.com in "good" condition, but there is some hail damage, so even at "fair" condition it is still worth $6840. If I wrecked it, we would probably replace it with a $2500 vehicle, at most. I'll probably keep it as is, for sure for the winter, because of deer and ice. But after that, I don't know. I probably will call Geico to see if they will drop the coverage again, and use the bluff of "I'm thinking about dropping it to liability only" and see what that gets me.

ahem...
One more payment and it's mine, part 2:
Will make the final payment for Bandit's surgery this month. When we set this up with the vet, they said they would charge us $1000, and we could pay over time. I was sending in $100 a month. Interest charges would accrue, but I was supposed to call the vet's wife at the end and she would take the interest charges off. So, called today, and she took $36.23 off, leaving $89.00. I'll pay that on Friday, and then Bandit is ours again I usually pay on the 1st of the month, just to make it easy, but she said if I pay before the end of the month, no more interest would be accrued.

The $100 (vet) was coming out of bill account and the $181.76 was coming out of the gas/food/misc account. As soon as the pickup is paid off, I am going to find another account in a bank up here (the old one is in Texas) so DH and I can both pull money out of it, and close that one. DH has been using money out of the bill account for his misc, and I want to get away from that. So, in another few days I'll have to change my direct deposit again and rethink where the money is going to go.

$418 every two weeks has been a little tight for gas/food/misc, but really, I don't know where it all goes. It just seems to fly out of my hands. Of course, I'm driving 2 hours a day, so a lot of it goes to gas, but other than that, food and beer, probably. Now, adding DH on to that account, I'll probably leave it at $600, but shave the bill account down to just adequately covering the bills and free up some money there. Yep, just checked, gas, food and beer. Not much misc spending, and I paid the chiropractor bill off in the past few weeks from it too.

Now would be a perfect time to start a snowball, huh? I keep thinking that, but then I keep thinking I need to save some of the money for the farm, just in case. Farm bills due by the end of the month:
Co-op #1: $1263.00
Co-op #2: $4985.18
Co-op #3: $ 340.51
Crop Insurance: $2271.00
Pasture Rent: $750
Total: $9610.69

We got paid for our CRP last week, so that was $3326, and we just filled our soybean contract today, so 1000 bushels at $9.08. That will cover the above bills. We have more beans and milo to cut and deliver, too. But, we have farm insurance payment in November ($2200?), land payment ($9900) Dec 1, and planter loan ($2500) Jan 15. We are getting ready to wean calves, and will sell them in January, so the other bills after January will be covered.

You know what, though? Cash flow bites us in the ass. We have our big payments set up to be after we sell something, for instance, sell calves and pay cattle loan and line of credit, sell wheat and pay land payment, etc. If cash flow is giving us trouble, then we need to decrease our monthly nut. At least that is the advice I give others, so I should take it myself.

Ala Dave Ramsey, the lowest 6 accounts are as follows:
1) Citi Financial: $73 total, $27 / month (0% interest)
2) Vet: $89 total, usually $100 / month (0% interest)
3) Pickup: $160 total, usually $363 / month (3.85%)
4) Ambulance: $390.50, usually $36 / month (0% interest)
5) House: $1300, private loan we pay when we have some extra money. Let's get this paid off! (5% interest)
6) Student loan: $2590.86 (3.13%)

ahem...
One more payment and it's mine, part 3:
Just decided, let's pay the Citi Financial one off. It is 0% interest until 2010, I would pay it off in a few months anyway, let's just get rid of it! This is for a table and chairs that I never should have bought, but at least now it is paid for.

Ok, sorry for the disjointed post here, but I think I'll do this for the 1st November paycheck:
- $550 to food/gas/bills, for DH and I. I'll have a buffer in there just to see how it goes at first. Maybe will need to up it, but let's try that.
- $350 to farm account. Farm should pay for itself, eventually. But this may help smooth out some of the bumps.
- $1000 to bills. As I said above, $1000 will cover bills NOW, so as I knock some of these small accounts out, I can snowball.

Here is my next couple month plan for the snowball:
Pickup loan, 10/22, $160 - done
Russell Vet, 10/26, $89.00 - done
Citi Financial, 11/1, $73.00 - done
Gilpin Ambulance, 11/1, $36.00
Student loan, 11/14, $50
Capital One, 11/14, $50
Gilpin Ambulance, 12/1, $200
Student loan, 12/14, $50
Capital One, 12/14, $50
Gilpin Ambulance, 1/1, $134.50 - done
House payment, 1/1, $300
Student loan, 1/14, $50
Capital One, 1/14, $50

I'm driving myself crazy. I think this will work. But hey, I'm sure I'll tweak it a dozen more times by 1/14/10, anyway. Heck, in this post, I tweaked it 3 times!

Got good news yesterday. We had freeze damage on 40 acres of our wheat this year, so we had to turn it in to insurance. We had 65% coverage and the price they guaranteed was around $8.50.

They guarantee the 5 year yield average on that farm. The theory behind that is so a good farmer, that consistently gets 50-60 bushels per acre gets more than the poor farmer that consistently gets 5-10 bushels per acre.

We just took the ground over so we didn't have a 5 year average on it. But, they took the 5 year average on the ground instead. That was 17 bushels. One of our fields got 18, so we had to cut it, but the other field was only going to get 6, so we didn't cut that and got 65% of 11 (the difference of 17 and 6). We already got paid for that.

It turns out they messed up, and instead of using the 5 year average of the ground, they should have used the 5 year county average. That is 32 bushels! So, we should get
32 - county average
-17 - what we already got paid for
---
* 00.65 - 65% coverage
* 08.50 - $8.50 per bushel
* 40.00 - 40 acres
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$3315 - TOTAL

That is my back of the envelope math (we didn't have exactly 40 acres, and the $8.50 is an approximation), but should be darn close. They said we should get that check sometime next week!

That is awesome.

-------------------------

As for the house cleaning and meal planning, that went well last week. I decided to take the same approach as working up to running a 5k...slow and steady, and add a little more each week. So last week, I just concentrated on keeping the kitchen clean. I kept a sink full of soapy water to wash everything while I was cooking, washed dishes immediately after supper, washed the floor, and made sure that I made a container for lunch the next day as I was cleaning the table off. It went very well.

It was great to have the meal planned before I got home. I could then start supper when I got home and have it ready to cook as soon as DH got home...as a farmer he generally works til dark, but sometimes earlier, sometimes later. I just have to wait until either he calls me to tell me he is on the way home, or start cooking when he gets in the door.

I made meatloaf on Thursday, and instead of cooking all of it, I put half of it in a ziploc bag to freeze, so next time I want to cook meatloaf, I just have to defrost and bake. I froze some cut up onions, and I also froze some pre-cooked vegetable mix from the chicken and vegetables night. My freezer is getting full! I have another little freezer in the garage, and a big freezer as well. The little freezer is half full of meat, but we haven't used the big freezer yet. So, if I continue like this, I'll have a lot of choices to pick from, and plenty of room to put it.

I need to plan next week's menus. I'll put them on my side bar as soon as I do that.

So, now that I have a good handle on the kitchen, I'm going add on keeping the bathroom clean all next week. Then, the living room, then the bedroom, then the office, then the back room.

This may sound very rudimentary to most of you, but I have been teetering between not caring if the house is dirty and overwhelmed when I think about tackling the whole thing at once. So, I'll add one room per week, and after 5 more weeks, the whole house will be spic and span. Keeping it clean should be easier than getting it to that point, right?

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One of my banks, the one that has my bill paying account in it, is going to start charging $8 a month if your balance goes below $2000. Well, they aren't going to get $8 a month from me! I have another account that we left $30 in just to keep it open, but haven't used for about a year that doesn't charge anything, and of course has free bill pay, so that is going to be my new bill pay account.

I also will be done paying off my pickup after two more payments (bi-weekly) so at the end of next month, I'll own the pickup free and clear. After that happens, I want to change my "gas/food/other" account to a bank up here. (The current one is in Texas and also has the pickup loan.) I can't put DH on it unless we go down there to sign something to put him on the account, so it will be easier to get the pickup paid off, open a different account and close that one. Then, we can have a farm account, a bill paying account, and an "other" account. Currently, DH has had to pull "other" out of the bill paying account, and I want to get away from that. I want to find an account that has ATM reimbursement and is local.

First things first, though, and that is to get all the automatic bill paying things moved over to the idle account we already have, and get that done by Nov 1, since that is when the fees start.

I don't know why, but http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com has inspired me this weekend. I admit I haven't done too well managing my house, well, ever. Always dishes to wash, clothes to wash. The bathroom is dirty. The floors are dirty. I don't know why, but this weekend, it just got to be too much, and I started attacking.

Kitchen looks very nice now. All dishes are done and put away. Cleaned the outside of all the cabinets, moved some drawer contents around, etc.

Started planning my meals out today as well. That's what the meals on the side bar are about. I'm listing all the ingredients for making that stuff, so I can easily pick from the list to make a menu. I'll probably add a grocery list page, too, so I can access this at home and at work.

I'm just doing suppers. We eat leftovers for lunch, or DH grills something for himself when I'm at work. Toast, peaches (lately, but not for much longer), and sausage is breakfast.

When I got home today after shopping, I took the polish sausages and split them into 4-sausage packets. That way if we want to grill them, 4 will be enough for us and we won't have to thaw the entire package out.

I also chopped up every green, red, and yellow pepper I have. I have a bad habit of buying peppers and then not remembering if I have any and then buying more, so I waste a lot. I ended up chopping like 10! I bought 6 and found 4 in my fridge...but they are now all chopped up and mixed up and put in ziploc bags in 2 cup portions, so I can just grab and go now.

I also made bread today. I mean, what is up with that? I don't know. It is doing its final rising now, and we'll see how it goes. Hope it tastes good! It is just normal white flour bread, since thefamilyhomestead.com said try that first and then get fancy. I would like to start making whole wheat bread, even going so far as to grind my own wheat I take from our combine. How awesome would that be? Of course, I'd have to get a grinder, and those look kind of pricey. I'll see how I do with the bread making for a while before getting one of those.

I also bought the stuff to make my own laundry detergent. Ivory soap, washing soda and borax. I'll try that tomorrow.

I also ran tonight with Bandit. Man, I've had a busy night!

Apparently, at our house it is. I went through my pile of receipts today, sorting them into farm expenses, farm income, job searching expenses, depreciation, etc. I just had a huge pile I needed to get through, and it is now residing in a 1" binder and a 1" pile, sorted by date.

Usually I tape the smaller receipts to a piece of paper and put them in the notebook as well. I plan to do that, and then scan everything in so I have a backup of it in case something happens to the paper.

The push to do this is because I am planning on figuring my taxes as close as I can before the end of the year and convert an IRA to a Roth IRA in 2009. I plan to convert enough of it to get my income up to the top of the 10% bracket. I am transferring my old 401k to the IRA right now (just got the check for $16,954, and need to forward it on). What with me losing my job this year, being on unemployment, buying more cows, a planter, etc., I think we will have quite a bit of room to do this. I can only foresee taxes going up in the future, so I want to shelter as much as I can in the Roth IRA as possible.

You know, that gets me thinking. What happens if some kind of a fair tax is implemented? People have already paid taxes on Roth IRAs and their income. So if a fair tax is implemented, won't that be double taxation on that income? I have never heard anyone explain how that would work.

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I ran that 5k last weekend, and I am so proud of myself. I hadn't run 3 miles without stopping since college 10 years ago (I did it once before the race). It was very slow, but I didn't walk at all, which was my goal. There were so many hills, at one point I wanted to, but I figured I could jog as slow as I could walk, so why not reach my goal when I could do that?

It was a really fun weekend. We had 19 walkers/runners in our group. My mom paid for all the t-shirts we were wearing (an early Christmas present), so we all stood out.

Brother T won his age group (15-19)
Sister J won her age group (15-19)
Sister K got 3rd in her age group (20-24)
Sister E got 4th in her age group (20-24)
Brother D got 3rd in his age group (25-29)

I didn't walk. That's winning for me Actually, I got 21st in my age group, out of 41. It took 42 damn minutes, but I got through it.

We then went to my sisters house for lunch. I had taken some cans of stuff (corn, mushrooms, black beans, salsa and a bag or brown rice) and my crockpot, and made that in the hotel in the morning before we left for the run. It was done by noon, so that was my contribution to lunch.

We then went to a park for a niece's birthday party.

Then, my brother in law just had to go to Hooters. Ok, we'll all go. We had one table of guys (including my dad, my 16 year old brother, my husband, by 24 year old brother, and 4 BILs) and a table of girls and kids.

Service was absolutely horrible. It took 30 minutes for the waitress to get our drinks at the girl table. It took another 20 minutes to take our order. The order was all messed up (she forgot 3 orders of fries, and had a salad that no one ordered, and one of the drinks had a hair in it). I asked for our checks, and she only got mine and DH's, after 30 minutes, and then had to come back and ASK us all what we got because she didn't have it written down? I don't know. We were there for over 3 hours.

DH was paying, and I told him to not tip because her service was terrible. All the guys at their table erupted "Why? We all got our beers on time." He ended up tipping her awesomely. I was pretty peeved at that. My sisters paid their tabs for their families, and didn't tip at all. The waitress didn't even give my brother a check. By that time, we had waited for our checks for over an hour, so we told him to just leave.

So, other than that tipping incident, the weekend was really fun. All of my family in one place doesn't happen that often.

My sister wants us to do another run on Thanksgiving day in Salina. I am planning on keeping on running 3 times a week. I haven't lost any pounds except the 6 I initially did, but I am feeling better and my jeans feel more comfortable, so I know I am losing some weight. I take Bandit (my dog) with me, and he really needs it, because when DH is working all day on the swather, he is tied up all day...and very rambunctious when I get home. After 2 miles, he usually is pretty calm when we get back.

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Things are moving along on the farm. Beans are almost ready to be cut, milo is almost ready as well. We will be weaning calves in a few weeks. DH is currently swathing and baling for a lot of people, which will bring in some good money, once he gets it done and can bill it.

My dad wants us to swath and bale for him, and have him trade some work. He can put on siding and do windows, so I think I want him to replace our windows and at least one door before winter hits. We only have 6 regular windows in our house and one big picture window. And the back door needs to be replaced (you can see light through the edges when it is shut). I don't know how much it is going to be, but I think that should be done before the siding is done. Maybe next year he can do siding as trade?

I don't remember who exactly suggested this blog (it was someone here, on a blog, or in a comment to a blog):
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com
but it is pretty good. I like to cook using the crock pot, especially in the summer.

One post she had was how to make beans:
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/cooking-dried-beans-in-crockpot.html

I never knew how to make dried beans...I was always scared to try. But her post made it look so easy.

I bought two bags of dried black beans this week, and on Thursday night I picked through them to make sure there weren't any split ones, or shriveled ones. I just dumped them out on our kitchen table, and sorted through them...took probably 10 minutes. I put both bags-worth in the crock pot, and waited until Friday.

I have a crock pot that has a removable bowl, so it is really easy to clean. (I have two of those in fact). If you are buying one, I suggest to get one like this...you can soak it to clean it, instead of having to worry about the cord on other kinds.

Friday, when I got home, I covered them with water, so it had about 2" worth above them. I put the crock in the refrigerator. That step took like, um, 2 minutes. Most of that time was finding room in the refrigerator. The blog said to soak them 6 hours in the refrigerator to keep germies from growing. We were going out last night, so I figured I would rinse them when I got home...

Well, I forgot about them until about 11:30 this morning! Oops. They really swelled, almost to the top of the crock. I rinsed them, put them back in the crock, filled it up with water, and cooked them on high until around 6:00. The directions said to do it for 8 hours, or bite tender, but they really smelled good, so I tried them. They were ready, as far as I could tell. And they tasted good. I rinsed them again, and decided since I already had the crock pot dirty with beans, I might as well use it to make supper with.

I put 4 cups worth of beans, 1 can of corn, 1 small can of mushrooms, a jar of salsa, a can of chicken broth and 2 cups of uncooked brown rice in the crock pot, and put it on high. I didn't drain anything, just dumped the cans in. I thawed out some chicken and put that in there too. On high, that should only take about 4 hours to make. I love that meal! Put some salsa on it, and some sour cream, and it just tastes awesome. Then, the next day, you can use it in tortillas to make burritos. The flavors really go well together.

After I used the first 4 cups for tonight's meal, I rinsed the rest of them again with cold water and put them in ziploc baggies, 2 cups each (she said one can was 1 2/3 cups, but my recipes aren't precise enough to bother with 2 measuring cups, so I just used a 1 cup measure twice). I got 4 of those baggies worth, flattened them out some (so when they were frozen they would stack better, and to get the air out of the bags, but not enough to actually squish the beans) and put them in the freezer. That step took, maybe 5 minutes.

So, even though I started them at 6:00 p.m. yesterday and they weren't in the freezer until 6:00 p.m. today, I only spent less than 20 minutes doing anything with them.

I will definitely do this again. But since I have two crock pots, I will probably get 4 bags of beans and split them up between the two. It was really easy, and I know that there isn't any extra ingredients (like salt or preservatives or that goopy icky stuff on the bottom of the cans when you use canned beans). Doing 4 bags won't make much difference in time.

So, whoever turned me on to that website, thanks a lot!

I was reading another poster's blog, talking about how high the cost of all organic, all local, all natural food was in New York. I offered a suggestion that she could start a container garden, or freeze some of the produce that she got during the season to stretch it out over the year.

That suggestion was made in good faith.

However, I have been reflecting over her post for a couple hours now, and I have a slightly different take on it. I didn't think I should impede on her blog with perhaps a contentious post, so I thought I should make my own entry. For the record, I am not attacking her. I have just been ruminating on people's buying habits and what people expect.

I started to think about how our grandparents (or great grandparents...how ever far back you have to go) used to do things. They didn't buy food at the grocery store every couple of days; they grew it (vegetables, fruit, grains), raised it (animals for meat, chickens for eggs), ground it (flour), milked it (cows/goats), baked it (bread) etc all themselves, or did without. They also dried it, smoked it, salted it, canned it, or hung it outside in winter to freeze it. If they had tried to buy everything, it would have been cost prohibitive. And they took a lot of time to do these things...I imagine back in the day leisure time was a commodity not many had.

So what makes it possible for people to not spend that much time procuring their food? Modern farming. Modern farming is why you don't have to spend $1200 a month for nutritious food for 2 people, but can if you choose. Modern farming is why you can play on the internet, exercise, have hobbies other than hunting/fishing/gardening. Modern farming is why you can live hundreds or thousands of miles away from where the food is grown, in fact, maybe not even know where it comes from (milk comes from a cow, not the grocery store). Modern farming is why food costs (the actual commodities, not the processed result) get lower and lower when compared to inflation, due to the ground getting more productive, plants getting higher yields, producing more bushels / acre than ever before.

People like to disparage modern farming techniques, saying things like "we are cutting down forests" etc. That is not true it the U.S. There are more trees in this country now than there were 100 years ago. Modern agriculture is sustainable on the ground already in production, or less as the years go on, with such techniques as rotational planting (growing plants that replenish the ground with nitrogen...soybeans and others), letting the ground rest every couple of years, controlling noxious and other bothersome weed with judicious use of herbicides, and continued improvement of plant seeds.

In short, I guess, thank a farmer for providing you with good, inexpensive, healthy food, so you have time and money to do other things. If not for us, everyone would be spending >$1200 a month on food for 2.