Today I finally got around to buying a ceiling fan. I have always said that I get positively reinforced for procrastinating and once again that has been proven. I have been putting off buying the fan for several weeks for a number of reasons. Anyway, in the interim I recieved a 10% off coupon from home depot--great I thought, that will save me some money. Still put off buying the fan. When I went today Home Depot happened to be having a sale on fans--20% off. So with both the sale and the coupon I was able to get the fan, and extension bar, and a tape measure I needed for quite a bit less I had budgeted $125 and spent $100 so the extra $25 will go to the vacation savings!

Today was payday to I sent some money off the the evil CC's. I still have a long way to go for the big visa but I am at least paying more than the minimum. If all things go as planned it should be paid off by March of next year. I know some people may look at the two cards and wonder why I am not paying off the smaller card first. I know the concept of debt snow balling but the smaller card has a much lower interst rate so paying off the larger card makes more sense.
I normally put $240/mo in savings split between E-fund, A-fund, Car fund and Vacation fund. I have reduced that down to $140 so I could throw more money at the debt.
In other news, today we had a company picnic at work so I got dinner for free!

Well, I just now finally dipped my toes into the world of e-bay. I bought a Brahmin purse. Its gently used and I got it for $45. That may sound like a lot of money but these purses range from $185 to $400 retail so I feel good about the bargain.

The title says it all. Now I am not opposed to capri pants in theory. I am just tired of the fact that I need long pants for work and cannot find any long pants other than capris in the stores. I did finally find a pair of long khakis that looked halfway decent on me so I got them. they are a bit long but I can try to hem them. On the upside they were on sale. They were originally priced at 21.99 marked down from 38. When I got to the registar they rang up for 10.50 yea!

Ok so this is in no way financial but I am just curious to know what you think about Nuclear Power. I have definite opinions but I am curious to see other peoples opinion.
Do you see it as an asset to combat global warning, do you think the risks outwiegh the benefits, are you afraid of another chernobyl?
I welcome all thoughts!

Well today was the health fair--I am still alive and expected to still keep living for a while at least. Sine the blood work up was for fasting values I didnt have breakfast so I was able to save my breakfast money.
We also have two birthdays this week in our department so our supervisor bought lunch. I had brought my luch as I almost always do so there was no real money savings but I was able to save my lunch for tomorrow.
In the past few years I have inadvertantly planned my big vacations for May around my birthday so I decide to make that my vacation time on a regular basis. Most places I have ever wanted to go have good deals and good weather during May so it ends up being a great time to go. LAst year I went to Australia and had a fabulous time. Since I just started my new job in March of this year I really couldnt take any time off in May so this year will have to be a skip year. I did go to Orlando for a long weekend but it wasnt a long relaxing vacation. ANyway, so I am now trying to decide where I will go next May. I have thought of Iceland but the mre I look into it I think even with a good exchange rate it is still rather expensive. So now I am focusing on Alaska. Anybody have any ideas what to see and what can be missed. My list of places I want to go is quite long right now so I need to prioritize. I am hoping to travel around for about two weeks.

The plant I work at is pretty forward thinking when it comes to health. We have a gym on site which is $5 a month, they have regular health fairs and incentives for engaging in healthy programs.
Anyway we are having a mini health fair tommorrow and they are offering free blood work ups. Its free for employees and immediate family, contractors pay $40--still not bad.

As I mentioned in an earlier post I found the First NAtional Bank of Omaha online. The account is currently offering 6.00% interest until September.
So far I am having luke warm feelings. While the interest rate is good I dont feel like it has a very user friendly feel. Unlike ING you don't get a day by day running total of interest accrued. I really like that about ING. I have also gotten a few emails basically stating that they could suspend the account at anytime if any suspicious activity was suspected.
I also felt the sign up process was a bit bulky and I feel like it atkes too long to have money show up in the account.
I only have about $100 in the account and I may not add much too it. I have a feeling I will also be closing it after September.
The review is in no way a professional opinion, just mine.

I am still tweaking the colors on the blog. I wish there was a way to see the colors on the blog before updating and then having click back to the blog.

As I said in a previous entry I buy breakfast every morning at work. I have now decided to give myself a budget of $2.00 each morning. Whatever I don;t spend of that goes into my piggy bank (well actually my elephant bank but you get the idea)
I am toying around with the idea of the $20 challenge but I need to sit down and figure out how and what I want to add to it. When I see some people putting in coupon savings and such I pause. I use coupons too, but insead of putting that savings into an account I use the savings as a way to stretch my budget for a particular item. Is this just not a frugal way to think or is this a valid thought process. I guess it just depends on what each person is comfortable with and how one sees that savings. Any thoughts?

Well the power bill came today. It was lower than the last bill but it was due more to the fact that there were less days in the billing cycle than last time. I figured out the per day total and it was very close to last time. At least it was cheaper.
Today at work I didn't bring lunch. I wasn't feeling too well last night so I cam home form work and slept so I didn't prep anything for lunch. The money gods shined on me because some venders were set up in the training building and they brought lunch. SO free lunch!
The plant I work at has a cafeteria on site which is real convienient but can be bad on the wallet. I usually have breakfast there every morning. Breakfast is a good deal--1 egg white scrambled, 1 peice toast and milk for $1.44. I start work at 6:30am so I really need breakfast. I also look at it as a way to "bond" with my co-workers so I feel it is a worthwhile expense.
I had a bit of a weak moment last week--I ordered STARZ movie channels from Direct TV. I have a DVD recorder and I figure I will more than make up the money in recording movies instead of buying them. (I hate the whole rental thing--I never return them on time or don't feel like watching what I rented when I rented it--big waste of money for me)

Well, I had to go home for a death in the family so the budget took a bit of a hit. Although I have to say I bought a plane ticket with less than 24 hours notice and got it for $400. Not bad. My parents paid for half of it so that worked out.
I also had my dad come over a while back and lower the hot water heater temp. I haven't noticed any difference. Hopefully the dirrerence will show up on the bill! I will also be getting a ceiling fan for my bedroom so I can cut back on the AC at night. I really need a cool/cold room to sleep.
I also upped my 401K contribution from 3% to 4%. Not a huge jump but every little bit helps.
The 403B from the previous job is still doing very nicely. I am up about 6% for the quarter. Still need to get that rolled over to something else.
I went to BJs the other day. I try to stay out of that place as much as possible because it is an easy place to blow the budget. I did find paper towels in bulk. They came out to about .66 a roll which is a good deal so I got them. They also had one of those institutional size containers of clothes detergent for $10. I got that too. I won't have to buy clothes detergent for the rest of the year at least!
I have also decided to use my car fund money differently. Instead of saving for a down payment I am going to use it to fix upmy current car. I have figured that when I buy my next car my payment will be about $500-$600 a month. (partially because of the type of car I want and partially because I only want a 3 yr loan) Anyway, with spending $2000 on repairs I only have to keep my current car for an extra 3-5 months for it to pay off. Actually less if you add in the difference in insurance as well.