Hello Winter

Luke 1:78-79, “Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace.” (NLT)

It got pretty cool yesterday.  I slept pretty good last night.  Having headache and back ache made my put off my last batch of cookies for today.  Now I wish I had powered through.  I bought a new crockpot, broke the crock for my other one.  Looked online and couple thrifts, could not readily find a new crock.  I will keep the shell and lid for a couple months...see if I can find another crock.  If not, I can trash then.

Woke up yesterday at 4am...stayed in bed till 6 and got up.  Watched the sun come up.

Later in the day, we moved around some stuff so that we could move my truck in the shop.  It really makes things tight in there, but the truck is new and expensive, so we wanted to store inside.  I finally got all the commission friend's sister's shoes listed on Poshmark.  I have 146 left, but they are all cleaned and listed.  I brought all the boots back in my house, hoping I can get them all sold by end of February.  The boxes of shoes I have narrowed down to at lieast a single file against far wall of the shop, allowing the truck in.   I have 41 of my own listings, mostly jeans and shoes.  I have sold gross of over $600 for her and couple hundred for myself.  I am saving up for another pair or 2 of tennis shoes.  They are all I wear now.  So I am just going to embrace it.

My high school class is planning a late January get together.  I have been working on it with my friend.  I have to use DH phone.  No telling when mine will be back.  She laughs and tells me she found ANOTHER BOX of shoes.  They are totally ok with and I am thinking someday...if all the stuff is listed and I don't want to perpetually stock my inventory...I will let the listings dwindle and I will either donate the last bit, or take them somewhere to sell in person on commission.  I will see what happens.  My friend said, get what I can and donate the rest.  They just needed them gone.

What are you donating?  Baking?  Hope your day is filled with Christmas preparations and happy planning!

Serious Family Meetings

So, having a great weekend at RH, except for the heat...and drought.  I have watered well, hope my small trees will be ok.

This weekend one of my BILs was also down, visited his folks.  We got on subject of funerals.   It is one of those conversations that are difficult but necessary.   I have become accustomed to discussing openly.  Some people have harder time.  Some people avoid.  Some joke.

How do you handle it?

Budget

I have 3 months to pay off my 4000 credit card, while maintaining my stringent saving and budgeting plan.  This is $100 over budget, because I charged my mani pedi instead of paying cash.  I also plan to go back one more time to this esthetician and have a facial along with my mani pedi - maybe right before we move.  I will make it up.  I received $107 from a class action settlement about billing practices for this licensing prep class.  I will add it to our cash stash - we are up to $800.  We want to have $1000 squirreled away in our home safe for emergencies.
I also have to buy another delivery of a couple of my supplements before I am in between addresses - so, that is another $200 I have to come up with.  I may have to see if the extended stay hotel will let me get a package.  I order a probiotic from Amazon that is pricey and has to be refrigerated, but if i go more than a couple of days with out it, I get incredibly sick.  I already put aside $400 for my last 4 months of parking.  So, I should be ok.  We have to pay $103 a month to park.  For the first 10 years I worked here at this downtown, I found free parking a couple blocks away.  It was sort of a pain, but I got used to it.  At another place in another city, I had to pay $50 a month 20 years ago and still walk further than 2 blocks, so walking 2 blocks for free seemed doable.  Then, we had a pretty cold winter this past winter and a friend and I decided to pay Jan through March to park in parking garage and we never looked back!  But, we did figure out that by parking free for 10 years, we had saved over $12,000!  $100/month x 12 = 1200 x 10 years = $12,000.  So paying for 8 months isn't so bad.  Hope everyone has a great Wednesday.

Two Steps Forward

One step back.  At least that beats one step forward, two steps back. 

Some great strides in decluttering and saving, then I see something shiney.  Oh well.  I had saved up some money for a couple of things and so I feel ok as long as I try to stay away from impulse buying.  I had planned to get something nice for DH retirement and now that is out of the way.  I can work almost a year trying to add back to my savings to make up for that. 
 

Lots of festivals this time of the year and that is so fun!  Yesterday we went to an art show and a car show.  We had a great time, even though it was in the 90's and humid!  We also went to a great meal out Friday night and they serve family style, so LOTS of leftovers!  Also 3 friends have given us fresh produce, so I am not going to the store until late in the week, we are working on our pantry and freezer. 
 

Today we are going to a movie which is a rare treat.  We almost always do matinees due to keeping cost down.  Then we go pick up our used car that has been very challenging with all the repairs we had to shell out within months of owning it.  But I look at it like, now the vehicle has basically been rebuilt, so should last us several years. 

My DH also sold his newer truck recently so we could put that money in the bank to be able to pay off RH when we sell our CH.  It should happen still.  I also recently did a small financial assist for a family member and gave to Red Cross for hurricane and bought a shirt to help animal shelter.  So, that makes me feel really good.
 

This weekend, I thoroughly cleaned master bath everything!  Lights, doors, baseboard and floor.  I will finish up tonight with scrubbing the grout.  I also caulked a place around front door window panel and repainted that trim. 

I read another blog who recommended you hire an inspector to go through and point out stuff you can address beforehand.  I may just have BIL who has built houses do that.  I also have a friend who is really good at staging and when she was here last month, she gave me lots of ideas that I wrote down on a list.  I did not get rid of much this weekend, but now that we will have our big SUV back, I can take a giant lamp to my aunt (A2) and I am taking a large houseplant and 2 giant planters to my SIL2. 

I wish I had started blogging sooner so I could remember all the stuff I have sold, given away to family/friends and given to thrift stores.  It has been pretty substantial.  Here are a few examples:  clothes, shoes, jewelry, collectibles of certain name brands sold.  I have used Facebook market place, ebay and Poshmark.  Furniture: FB, garage sales and Craigslist.  Plus I have given plenty away.  Sentimental stuff goes back to where I got it, or on to younger people in my family.  Sporting goods, expensive small items mostly ebay.  I had a freezer that we called bulk item pick up and I have put several large things we don't want, that have little value that I have sat by the curb with a "free" sign during our neighborhood garage sale.  I will do a whole post on Poshmark sometime.  All these things I have probably make over $5000 in the past 2 years.  I also gave away some large houseplants free on Craigslist. 

The older I get, the more I think about cleaning and maintaining certain things.  I am getting tired of houseplants, but I still keep a few.  DH and I really hate to kill houseplants.  I would rather give it away.  My health condition is cooperating with me great this weekend, feel great!  I walked yesterday before it got warm and I will walk later today again, AFTER the NFL game!
 

Hope you are getting a lot of fall projects tackled!