I have never heard back from the local water district. I accept that if it were the right job for me, it would have just fallen into place.

Unfortunately, my laptop got dropped and the screen got a huge crack. I thought about looking into replacing the screen (how much it would cost, etc.), but then decided no, I don't want to do that. I allow Google to save all of my passwords, so dropping my laptop off at a repair place means I am vulnerable to complete strangers logging in to my bank accounts, etc. I ended up at Best Buy and bought a new one; my EGadgets sinking fund will cover most of the cost.

I am done paying for my dental work! My partial is almost complete, I may be taking it with me at my next fitting (or it may need to go back for another adjustment). It is a long process, getting a denture. I transferred all but $1 from my dental sinking fund to checking. I had saved more than I needed, the excess will of course go to debt. I renamed that last dollar "Car Replacement Fund".

And lastly, I bought another planner. It is a simple, inexpensive one from Mead, and so far it is working out perfectly for me.

This coming week, I expect to make an extra principal payment of approximately $1,100. I am really looking forward to it.

I mentioned in my March budget report that I had spent $50 on a fancypants planner. It is from Plum Paper. I am enjoying this purchase immensely! I think I may buy one every year from now on. This is a look at how I have been using it.

I customized the cover:



I am using the monthly calendar to track the ins, outs, and daily balance of my checking account:



I am listing each credit card charge as I make it. I think I may start a running total on the side:



I do a mini-budget for each paycheck:



I have a dedicated page each month for listing each bill I must pay, and I highlight the amount when it has been paid:



I made a chart to track my progress on my Heloc repayment:

Well, I got home Sunday from the cruise. SB and I had a great time, and we caught some new Pokemon. It was nice to have time to re-connect as a couple with no other distractions.

The service for my cousin was very nice. He taught math at both a high school and community college in San Diego. The service was on his college campus and was attended by hundreds of colleagues and students. His mother especially was comforted that he had been so well liked, loved, and respected by those who knew him. Still, it is sad to say goodbye to someone so young. My cousin was not married but left behind a partner of 10 years. I had never met the partner before; he is a very nice man and is just devastated.

Seeing family I had not seen in many years was nice. Of course, this sort of thing makes you contemplate your own mortality. It is sobering to realize how many years it has been since you have seen cousin so-and-so; how quickly your life goes by.

This trip was a bit pricey. A group of my family were staying in a Marriott Suites hotel, so I stayed there too. I usually opt for more economical lodging, but I wanted to be where my family was. SB paid for the cruise, but the additional 3 nights of lodging is all on me. That is only right since it was my family and my desire to attend the service.

So my little CurveBall Fund at WF will be taking a hit. Otherwise, I would have to carry credit card debt and that does not appeal. I am not certain I will have 5k earmarked for a new roof this spring. I could maybe put it off another year, but I don't really want to do that. I am still not even certain 5k will do it. I used an online estimator tool which said my roof should cost 4k - 6k. More than a month ago, a local roofing company said they would be coming by to measure and then email me an estimate. I am still waiting for that. I emailed them again today.

I have applied for a HELOC at Wells Fargo. We will see what they say. I'm not certain I will need to borrow, but it doesn't cost anything to have the HELOC open and ready to go.

Well, I am off to my second job. This is my third night, and I may or may not need one more to finish up. The week I work at my second job in the evenings is always a long week.

Bill Fixers was able to reduce my internet bill by $13.96 per month. Not much, but something. I have to pay them half of it, so I am ahead $6.98 per month.

In other budget news, I cancelled my gym membership. A payment was due in July, and that is that. So, there is another $19.99 per month ahead.

I have added dvd service to my Netflix, and will probably keep that for a few months. Our list of movies we wanted to see which are disc only grew to the point it made sense to restart that service. I got the first month free, but afterwards will pay $12 per month.

So as you know, I recently switched to cash only for groceries, gas, and personal spending. Since I had previously used rewards cards for those things, in July I had to pay some of June's charges, plus pay as I go for July. (For budgeting purposes, I count spending when I make a charge, not when I pay it.) As it turns out, I am also parting with the cash for two electric bill payments in July*, which is further impeding my cash flow. It is a temporary bottleneck and will ease next month. However, July's savings account deposits are very anemic.

* My electric company bills me around the 5th or so, and I need to pay by the 20th or so. Usually, I use my Citi DoubleCash MasterCard to pay the electric company. The Citi billing cycle cuts off around the 6th of the month, so I typically charge the electric bill on the 10th. When I get paid on the 15th, I pay the charges which appear on Citi's statement from the 6th. In practice, I don't part with the cash for June's electric bill until July 15th. Which I have just done.

In the pursuit of credit card rewards, I have recently applied for and received the new Ally Visa. The sign-up offer is to spend $500 in the first 3 months and receive a $100 bonus. Since my electric bill is $252 per month, I decided to use it twice to pay my electric bill, thus I don't need to bother with it further. So, I used it this past July 10 to pay July's electric bill. And then the statement cycle closed, and I need to pay by August 12th. A bit inconvenient as that's 3 days before payday. So, I just paid it tonight. That $252 is coming out of my planned savings account transfer.

I will use the Ally card for August's electric bill and pay that in August too.

In September, I will go back to using Citi DoubleCash and won't need to pay that statement charge until October, thus picking up a bit of extra cash flow to throw into savings.

So there you have it. Other than that, just plugging along as usual here at Chez Petunia.

Have you Saving Advice peeps heard about this?

I am disgruntled with Ting at the moment.

My phone is older and has gotten to the point it has a fair number of quirks. For example, when I am texting someone it will stop, tell me it has "saved as draft" my text message, then it will begin calling the person I am texting. That's an annoying quirk.

So I have been wanting to get a newer phone, but I don't need all the bells and whistles and I don't want to pay for them. I have been considering my options.

On black Friday, I bought a refurbished Samsung Galaxy S3 from Ting for $147. When it arrived, I noticed the screen was a bit cloudy and it had a scratch. But over the next several days, I realized that the scratch is a crack. I will be honest, I am less than thrilled about them selling me a phone, refurbished or not, with a crack in the screen.

I charged the phone overnight, and the next morning it went dead less than an hour after I took it off the charger. It hadn't even been activated yet, so no phone calls or texts or data usage. I tried charging a second time to make sure it wasn't some sort of fluke, with the same results. So it came without a functional battery, and I will need to buy one. I'm liking the phone even less.

But here is the real kicker: it won't activate. I spent several hours total between two sessions with support trying to get it activated. I tried this and that and did everything they told me to do and...nothing.

I e-mailed customer support asking if I can return it and they have not answered. It has been several days so I assume they are not going to answer.

I had been without phone service as my old phone stopped working once I transferred my number to the new phone. Yesterday morning I transferred my number back to the old phone.

This morning I emailed the support guy and just said no to his latest request. I stated that I am unhappy with the condition of the phone, that I'm done trying to activate it, and that if they won't take it back I am just going to e-cycle it. He politely thanked me for letting him know.

So, I'm not certain what I am going to do next.

I guess the moral of this story is do not buy a refurbished phone from Ting. If it is not in acceptable condition, tough cookies.

J's phone has been acting up. Last night, it stopped working all together. Perhaps it will magically begin working again, who knows? I ordered him a new one. The phone was $149. I went ahead and bought him a car charger too for another $18 (was $20, but I Googled and found a 10% off accessories code). With shipping, it is setting me back $187.65.

I browsed both Ting and Republic Wireless plans. RW is still the better choice for him, even though the $19 per month plan we had is no longer available. Because I am ordering a new phone, I have to choose from the plans currently being offered. We went with the unlimited for $25 per month.

My ex-husband has retired from the sheriff's department. Because he is retired, his share of cost for medical insurance has changed. Our divorce decree stipulates that he is responsible for providing J's medical insurance. The cost for J has risen to approximately $800 per month. We looked into adding J to my plan, and I can add him for just under $400 per month. Of course, that is what ex wants to do. So, we have submitted the paperwork. I will have the cost deducted from my paycheck, and ex will reimburse me. I hope he will regularly reimburse me promptly, but history suggests otherwise.

I wish we could insert spreadsheets into our blogs. I had posted my amortization schedule for my car note into a "page", but the spaces are eliminated and all of the numbers run together. I figured out how to insert an image into a "page". It took three images to show the entire schedule, but at least it is legible. (You load the images to a draft of a blog entry, then just never publish it. You can paste the image number into your "page", and voila, Bob's your uncle).

I received $3.75 from HauserNet, and so made my first tiny extra principal payment to my car loan.

Well, I bought the car. With sales tax and registration, it came to $16,493.71. I borrowed 16k from Wells Fargo and coughed up the 493.71. The balance of car fund is going towards car insurance.

Here it is:



J is so happy to have his own wheels. I am glad he gets to enjoy the rest of his senior year with his own car. He has named the Accord "Rose", since I bought the Focus in Roseville, and that event triggered the Accord coming into his possession.

I added a page showing the amortization of my car note as scheduled. I will edit and update it as payments are made. The first payment is not due until Dec 20th. I will make a full payment on Nov 20th anyway, which will give me a nice start. All extra bits of money will now go towards the car loan.

I keep checking every day to see if the loan appears when I log in to Wells Fargo's site. So far, it does not.

Where will the car payment money come from? I'm so glad you asked. The car payment is $248.65. I had been budgeting $170 for Car Fund which will now go towards the payment. Additionally, I have trimmed $50 each from budgeted E Fund and CurveBall Fund deposits.

I'm trying really hard to come in under budget on groceries, miscellaneous, and discretionary spending. After everything is paid for the month, if I have more than $500 in checking, I will sweep it to CurveBall.

My oven has been behaving badly for several months now. On Friday, I had MrsM180 pick up some take and bake pizza. Well, I had a heck of a time getting that dough to cook. BF was here, and he said I should look for a new stove on Craig's List. I pooh-pooh'd that idea. I mean, I don't want to deal with Craig's List people and looking at used stoves, not knowing what questions to ask, etc.

Sunday morning when I woke up and trotted out to the living room, BF was sitting on the couch with my laptop. He said "look at this", and I saw he had found a stove and microwave just listed that morning. They looked clean, and very similar to the models I have now. They were asking $100. (The microwave is the built-in kind that matches the stove).

I talked with the owner yesterday. He stated they both work perfectly, but that he and his wife had upgraded their appliances to stainless steel. He was working yesterday, but said we could come this morning (Monday) to see the appliances. BF said he would deal with it, and I handed him $100.

BF texted a bit after nine that he was on his way to my house with my new appliances. I hope the installation went well. I can hardly wait to get home and see!

Yesterday I received a check for $160.00 from my part-time job and have sent it off to E Fund.

For my new homeowner's policy and new auto policy, I charged a total of $1,068.90. Yesterday, I received a credit to my CC in the amount of $184.82 from the old auto policy. I have transferred 1068.90 - 184.82 = 884.08 from CurveBall to pay the credit card. I am still waiting for the old homeowner's policy to refund $912 to my escrow account. When that happens, I will request a refund of the overage, and that money will go back to CurveBall. I expect it will be at least a month before all the dust settles.

So many hoops, but worth it for the $300+ savings.

This is the downside to having an escrow account. However, I do find it convenient for the most part. Also, I enjoy the 2% interest it earns.

Yesterday I received $160 from my part-time job, which has gone off to E Fund. Inching ever closer to 2 months of take home pay.

My NFL rewards Visa statement closed yesterday. I had 10,550 rewards points available which I redeemed for a statement credit.

So, I had $1,408.15 sitting in checking with nothing due for the rest of the month. But, I have things going on. Namely, my new 6 month auto insurance premium (will be cancelling the old one with 3 months left, but still, that is 3 months out of pocket now), my new homeowner's insurance premium (will have to wait for refund from current company), the new vacuum cleaner I charged, the $75 gas cards charged at Staples (it will take up to 8 weeks to receive my $25 credit), and I am getting a 100k tune-up on the car today, which will be about $500. I don't have to cough up any of this money now, but it is only a matter of time.

Here is what I did:

$445.54 to NFL rewards Visa (balance less $105.50)
_280.44 to WF rewards Visa
__75.00 to American Express
___7.17 to CurveBall Fund

This left $600.00 in checking, so I am done.

Neither the WF nor AmEx statements have even closed yet, so the payments were VERY early.

Notice, I have ended up using my NFL rewards Visa sign-up bonus towards expenses instead of as a mortgage chip. I'm not thrilled about this, but keeping credit card debt out of my life is a higher priority.

Also, I have not sent much extra to CurveBall. But hopefully, I am making it possible to avoid dipping in next month.

I felt a bit of panic when CurveBall dipped down to $54 two months ago; it's offering more cushion now.