I'm trying to get smarter about both of these things.

Quite some time ago, I wrote about trying to pay utilities with rewards cards to earn more points. At the time, I was under the impression I couldn't pay either my local electric or water, sewer, garbage bill with a credit card without being charged a fee. Since then, I have learned the trick for both is to register as a user on their respective websites. I have registered with both now, and will be using rewards cards in the future.

Lately I have been using my Well Fargo Home Rewards Visa for things such as groceries. I use it instead of my checking account debit card, then within a day or two, log on and transfer money from checking to the Visa. This particular rewards card will only redeem in increments of $25, and I had $7 or so in rewards already, so I wanted to get to $25 and redeem. I'm still working on it, but I think when I get to $25 I will stop using it. The reward is 1% on everything, and redemption is a principal reduction on my WF mortgage. I will not close this Visa.

I have also been using my Chase Sapphire some lately, as I had $15 or so in rewards, and need to get to $20 to cash them in. Once I do, I will close this Visa. I opened it last year for the sweet 50k rewards pts bonus. However, this card has an annual fee of $95. They waived the fee the first time, but it has to be coming up and I am not interested in paying it.

My main "go to" rewards card is my Chase Freedom. I will not close this Visa either, but believe I am going to stop using it in favor of....

My American Express rewards card. I've had it for more than a year, and haven't even activated it yet. (!) The rewards are 3% on groceries, 2% on gasoline, 1% on everything else. That's a pretty good deal, so why aren't I taking advantage? Must be inertia.

I will still use Chase Freedom on occasion, such as when the 5% rotating bonus applies to gasoline, etc.

And I heard the other day that stamps are going up yet again. I don't have a whole lot of bills to pay by check, but I am about to have none. I am hanging up my checkbook. From now on, I will use bill-pay for all of my bills. I will still need to write the occasional check, but those will be few and far between. Most importantly, they will not be mailed.

I mentioned that the house next door to me recently sold. Zillow says it is worth 106k. It just sold for 120k. This seems like good news to me.

The man who bought the house is an investor who owns several rental homes in the area already. He seems rather astute.

The family who had owned the house previously had 4 young children. The house is a 3/2 with 1296 sq. ft. The family had made an extra room out of the garage. They had walled off, so that the garage door was no longer an entrance into the home, but the garage door was still in place. In other words, you couldn't tell from the outside that the garage was no longer a garage, yet the family had some additional living space. They did this without any permits. So the buyer knew he would have the expense of converting that extra room back to a garage. He was still willing to pay 120k.

So, I am hopeful that my home value may not be quite as bad as Zillow says. It doesn't really change anything, but does make me feel better.

My house is a 4/2 with 1441 sq. ft.

When Lucky Robin asked for an update, I realized one was overdue.

I sued the neighbors over the fence. (There is a law in California that both owners are responsible for shared fences.) I lost. The commissioner (no judge in small claims) said that law could not be used to force someone to pay for a fence. This is not what I have heard elsewhere, and have had quite a few legal type people express surprise. Nonetheless, that is what happened in court. There is no appeal from small claims.

I have decided not to pursue suing for the vet bill.

As expected, they were nasty and accusatory in court. They even claimed I had trained the dogs to attack them. (A ridiculous claim.) The commissioner would not listen and instead only wanted to discuss the fence.

Since then, they have not bothered me or our dogs.

In other fence news, the new owner on the other side and I have agreed I will pay $350 towards our new fence. I am quite happy with this arrangement.

Today I discovered that if I register my MID account on their site and log-in, I can pay my bill with a credit card without incurring a fee. So, I whipped out my WF Mortgage Rebate Visa and did just that. I'm going to do it this way every month from now on.

So far this month my spending is in check. My mom surprised me with a $300 check towards Nala's emergency vet bill. That was so nice!

Last Saturday I took my son and daughter and we took a little road trip over to Half Moon Bay for the day. It had been a while since just the 3 of us had done anything. We really had a nice time, talking and laughing and just enjoying each other's company.

I have been coughing my deep, dry, hacking cough for about 7 weeks now. Went to my GP right away, yet another Rx which did not help at all. I called back and said I want to see an allergist, please refer me to one. My GP said she would prefer I see a pulmonologist. So I am seeing one on Monday. Do you notice how she has never referred me to anyone at all, and it is only when I ask that she recommends a pulmonologist? Sometimes, I get the feeling that it is just fine with her if I cough for months on end.

This is the second time this year I have coughed like this. I did it last fall, too. I am so tired of it.

Yesterday as I was getting ready to leave work about 5:15, BF called and said "Where is your vet's office? We need to meet there." Nala (my nephew's beautiful yellow lab) was vomiting and seemed to be dizzy. She was slobbering and wheezing. Her head was soaking wet with some sort of chemical (BF thought it was pesticide, the vet said it was gasoline). Here is the thing: this happened to her in our yard. There are no chemicals, no pesticides, no gasoline in our yard. She went out the pet door the picture of health and was back inside 5 minutes later, vomiting and in obvious distress.

The good news is, she is doing much better now and it seems she will make a full recovery.

The bad news is, the vet bill was $624.53. They washed her eyes with a rinse, put her on an IV, and did some blood work. They kept her about 6 hours, then said she was OK to go home. They gave me some meds to keep her tummy settled so she doesn't vomit.

My conclusion is, the charming gentleman next door has made good on his threat to poison her. This is also eerily similar to the poisoning and death of my daughter's cat, which happened just a few days after said neighbor threatened Nala. I called the police and two officers came to the house. They took our statement, then called in to get a report number. Then they went next door to speak to the neighbor. I don't know how that went, but I suspect he simply didn't answer the door. He wouldn't answer the door to speak to the two officers who came out when he called to report my nephew was playing his music too loud, so I don't think he would answer the door when I called the police on him.

I am so disgusted. What a revolting human being he is.

I am definately suing his mother now, for her half of the cost of the replacement fence on our property line. The dollar amount she owes me is $630.

In other news, I read recently on the Boglehead's Index Forum that if you log in to your Vanguard account from a third party site (such as Mint or Future Advisor) and your account is hacked as a result, it is your problem. This caused me some concern, so I have deleted my Mint account. Wells Fargo has a budgeting tool on their site. It is inferior to Mint, but I am going to figure out how to make it work for me. As far as Future Advisor, I deleted the link to my accounts and then just plugged in my holdings manually. I will have to update it myself, but it will still analyze my holdings for me.

I need to post pics of Nala, Buster, and Bree, our canine tribe. Nala is beautiful, Buster and Bree are mutts, but so loyal and sweet-natured.

Still waiting for Ting to have a flip phone available.

J's phone arrived yesterday. I looked it over, and you know, I think it will be just fine for me. So I ordered one for myself.

I went to AT & T's website, and apparently I can switch my Mom to a prepaid plan using the same phone she has now. So that is what I am going to do in the meanwhile. Hopefully, Ting will come through with a flip phone soon.

I have AT & T for internet too. It is so slow, and I pay $48 some months and $58 other months. It is supposed to be high speed, but that is a laugh. I did a test, and I download at a rate of less than 1 mbps! Comcast is available in my area. I can get service with a speed of up to 20 mbps for $33 per month plus taxes, no contract. So a little less than I pay now and faster internet. Sign me up.

I called Ting's customer service line today. They don't know when the flip phone will be available. The man I spoke said it could be today, or it could be a few weeks. Apparently, they are having supply issues.

Based on that, I went ahead today and ordered the Kyocera Brio phone they have available now for my son. I haven't ordered any service, just the phone. The price was $70.00 plus tax, free shipping. It has a QWERTY keyboard for texting, and I didn't want to risk them running out of that by the time they get the flip phone in stock.

I decided to just get a simple flip phone for myself as well as for my mother. The Brio doesn't close, it's kind of like a Blackberry. I don't think it would do well in my purse. And truthfully, I will be just as happy with the simple phone.

So I will just keep checking their site each day for the flip phone. As soon as they have it, I will order two of them and sign up for service.

I saw this today. It made me chuckle, so I thought I would share.

Well, my new Simple at Vanguard is still sitting there with $0.00. Edward Jones has sold my mutual fund shares, and I have nothing but cash sitting in my Simple there. I am impatient for them to transfer the funds! So far in 2012, I have contributed $600 to my Simple, but that money hasn't been sent. I think my boss will write the check when he does payables on the 15th. I sure hope so! He will write the check to Vanguard, then give it to me. I will need to log on to Vanguard's small business site and print a deposit coupon, then send that in the mail with the check. Hopefully, he will do my 2011 matching at the same time. (They ended up filing an extension, effectively extending the deadline for 2011 contributions, since the Simple issue was still up in the air on April 15th). I'm just impatient for it all to be DONE already.

Over at the Boglehead's Forum, they suggested I use admiral shares of total stock market in my Simple, then adjust my holdings in my traditional IRA to compensate. What a smart idea! This will effectively reduce my costs even more. I view my traditional and Simple as one pot of money anyway, so that will work just fine. They suggested the same for my Roth, but I'm not going to do that. In my mind, my Roth has a different purpose, so should be invested for that purpose and allocated separately.

I charged the balance due to the travel agent for Hawaii, then transferred the money (before the bill came). With my refi in the works, I didn't want a 4k Visa bill showing up on my credit report (I assume they will check it again before closing). So airfare, hotel, and rental car are all paid in full. Everything left in Vacation Fund is for food and excursions.

My TIAA Direct accounts are open and funded, I have no money at all in Ally any longer. So far everything is fine with TIAA Direct.

I believe I will skip the insurance when I sign up at T-Mobile next month. That means my total monthly bill before taxes will be $80.43. With tax it should still be under $90, which is so much better than what I have been paying! My savings will go to....savings! My cash is getting much too low for my liking, so an additional $50ish per month will certainly help.

A few no frills gyms have opened up near my home and are competing with each other. I am going to investigate, but I believe I can trim a bit from my current gym membership of $25 per month. My girlfriends (reason I joined this particular gym) never go when I do, so I would prefer a gym closer to home anyway. If I can free up $10 to add to savings each month, that is just fine with me.

And the big news...my daughter and son-in-law will be moving back from Indiana next month! They will be renting an apartment before they get here, my daughter says. They have been pricing them online and it seems they have decided on a complex not too terribly far from my house, so I'm excited about that. Once it was clear and agreed upon they WILL NOT be staying with me, I was very happy with the news.

I am looking forward to a nice quiet weekend. BF was at my house for a week and just left Wednesday. He will stay home this weekend, as will I. J will have a friend over tonight, and I will likely take them to the movies tomorrow. They want to see The Avengers. I want to get some yard work done. I still (yes, STILL, can you believe it?) have an ugly front planter. I want to get it looking better this spring, so my plants are established before winter sets in.

I just stumbled onto this a few days ago. There is a new online bank called TIAA Direct Bank. It is affiliated with TIAA-Cref. Their rates right now on savings and money market is 1.25%, which compares very favorably with other online banks at this time.

I have opened accounts and intend to switch from Ally. I have no loyalty, I just want the best rate I can get.

Cancelling my landline resulted in a credit balance, and I received a check from AT & T.... in the amount of .05! Uhm, thank you?

Friday was payday, but I didn't make it to the bank until today. I did a wallet sweep and had $9.69 this time.

Both amounts were mortgage chips.

I have been thinking about my front yard, and have come up with a plan which I think will both look nice and give me some private outdoor space. The best part is...it will result in no lawn to mow! I am not certain what it will cost me, but I am thinking once Hawaii is done, a makeover for my front yard will be the next thing I save up for.

I am feeling a lot better, but still have not gotten caught up to my usual level of organization. However, I am making a bit of progress. In the past 2 days, I have:

1. Paid my electric bill. A day late! Thank goodness I thought of it yesterday. I ran down to their office, without my bill (can't find it) and paid. I am expecting a $5 late fee to be added to my account.

2. Paid my home telephone bill.

3. Called to cancel my home telephone. (With nephew gone, there is just no need for it.)

4. Returned my Chase Southwest card with a note to please close the account. (Opened for one-time rewards.)

5. Returned my Discover More card with a note to please close the account. (Opened for one-time rewards.)

6. Transferred the $1500 in my Chase checking account (part of my EF, opened to take advantage of a free money offer). It's been 7 months, and I was only required to have it open for 6 months. Once the transfer is posted on the receiving end, I will close the account.

7. Balanced my regular checking account.

8. Did a wallet sweep and chipped $3.29 to my mortgage. Compared what I have actually paid to what I have been scheduled to pay, and was pleased to notice that....I am nearly 1k ahead of schedule!

9. Got my bill book up-to-date.

10. Called Edward Jones (our Simple IRA custodian) rep to get my contribution deposited in Jan 2012 reclassified. They called it a 2012 contribution, so their records of my 2011 contributions did not match my W-2.

My balanced bill plan with my local electric company has just adjusted up, from $132 to $238. I'm not surprised, I knew $132 was too low.

My balanced bill plan with PG & E has just adjusted up, from $54 to $78. That one did surprise me, I thought $54 was plenty.

I'm hoping to be completely organized by the end of the month. We'll see.

I have been a bit under the weather. Two weeks ago, I had a cold and with it came a deep, hacking cough. The cold is gone now, but the cough remains. The more I move around and talk, the worse the coughing. It is constant. I have been to the doctor twice, completed a round of antibiotics, two different cough suppressants, and she even tried steroids to see if it was an allergy thing. I went for a chest x-ray last Wednesday. The doctor has still not called with the results. I'm annoyed about that. I called the doctor's office Thursday and the results were in, but the doctor still needed to read them.

I have been missing work, and while at work have not been as productive as usual. I am going to work tomorrow, but I am no better. I have no choice, there are some things I must have done before 3/15. It's going to be quite a challenge as I still feel awful.

Between missed overtime and co-payments, this has been costing me plenty of money.

I am way behind on my budgeting, bill-paying, and record keeping. I don't have the energy to catch up right now, either.

At a pre-trial court appearance, my nephew plead no contest to a misdemeanor charge. His sentence includes probation and he can no longer live in my house. He must remain at least 100 yds away from my neighbors for the duration of his probation. This is not a restraining order, it is a condition of his probation. At the moment, he is staying at my mom's house. It hasn't really sunk in yet, that he is gone and not coming back.

And lastly, I did something I hope I will not regret later. I lent my BF $6,000. He was on the verge of losing his house. It is his own fault for dragging his feet for so long. He had scraped up every cent he could, but was still short. Even in this market, the house is worth 500k or so. The mortgage balance was 30ish thousand. So the mortgage is now current. Additionally, he is borrowing some money from an old family friend to pay the mortgage in full. The friend will put a lien on the house in the amount of the loan. So there will be no more mortgage.

The house is a beautiful custom built house in a golf course community. It is an unusual house, modeled after a resort BF's mother and step-father visited in Mexico. There is a pool with a swim up bar in the middle of the house, and lots of tropical plants. The rest of the house is built around it, with views of the pool from every room. There is a master suite and a guest suite, living room, kitchen, home office, laundry, and a third bathroom. Not a lot of rooms, but all of them are large. There are a lot of upscale features. My favorite is all of the windows in the master suite are floor to ceiling. Outside each window are small gardens complete with fountains and a privacy wall. So as you look outside, you simply see lush tropical gardens.

This past weekend was like Mr. Toad's wild ride.

On Saturday, BF and I took off for a day trip to Bodega Bay. We enjoyed the beach and a fresh seafood dinner. We had a nice, relaxing time.

We started home about 7 pm. It should have been a 3 hour trip home. Instead, it was a 20 hour trip. I am going to summarize this particular fiasco quite a bit. It started with my car dying as we were driving down the road. We eventually got a tow into a nearby town and left my car at a Pep Boys, hoping they could work on my car Sunday. We had to take a cab to a hotel with a vacancy. The only vacancy we found was at a budget motel and the room had a broken heater. Better than sleeping in the bushes outside, so we took it. No clean clothes, no toiletries. That cost $65. Spent half the next day waiting at Pep Boys, and they were able eventually to get my car repaired (new alternator). That cost $389.

Arrived home a little past 3pm. Missed work, that cost 8 hours of OT. Upon arrival, my nephew and all 3 dogs were not in the house. My nephew's bicycle was in the garage. He would not take all 3 dogs for a walk all by himself. His bedroom door was wide open, and he always closes and locks it. Over the course of the afternoon, two different people called to say they had my dog. I collected those two, but the third dog is still missing.

What happened to my nephew? Well, it seems Saturday night he played rap music really loud all night, upsetting the next door neighbors. The very same neighbors with whom we have had the fence isssue. Sunday afternoon, they called the cops. The cops came but heard no music (it was off by then). As they were speaking with the neighbor, my nephew came outside and began giving the neighbor a piece of his mind. He screamed "Im gonna kill you" to the neighbor in front of the cops. Brilliant idea? Hmm, perhaps not. Nephew has been arrested and is currently in jail. I went tonight thinking I could visit, but that isn't how it works. I had to fill out a visitor registration form and they will review and approve or deny me, I will hear back in a few days. His bail is $50,000. I will not be bailing him out.

I'm still pretty upset. I apologized to the neighbors for the disturbance. I don't care for the neighbors, but there is no reason they should have to put up with that.

It has been a full year of blogging and budgeting now. I started using Mint in December 2010 and started this blog for good measure. Even though I am 44 years old, 2011 was the first year I kept a written budget.

When I began, I had $4460.69 of credit card debt. Now I have $1523.00. If I had not enrolled in a CPA Review course and charged it, I would now be credit card debt free again.

(Have I sat for the exam? No. Am I ready to sit for the exam? No. So the books and I have a study date. I can't focus on that right now, but once another tax season is behind me, I have to hit those books. I want to pass and be done with the exam in 2012.)

How has it worked for me? Well, I feel both the budget and blog really helped me rein in my spending. It's not that I didn't overspend, it's that when I overspent, I recognized it. And overspending was typically followed by penny pinching to ease some of the fiscal pain. There is still lots of room for improvement. In 2012, I want to find more dollars for saving/investing/prepaying the mortgage. And let's face it, if I can penny pinch after overspending, then I can penny pinch without overspending. I still want to have fun and enjoy myself, but I also want to make more significant progress towards my ultimate minimum financial goals (600k traditional, 150k Roth, no mortgage).

I will turn 45 in 6 weeks, so I'm just 20 years away from the time I would like to retire.

A few days after we broke up, BF sent me a long email taking responsibility for his inaction and told me that he has been struggling with depression. Looking back, I realized that he had tried to tell me about the depression before but that I didn't "get" what he was saying. He doesn't seem depressed at all when we are together, but looking at it in that light, I can see that many of his actions (or inactions) fit with depression symptoms.

His life is a big mess right now, and much of it is his own making.

We are going to work things out, but on the condition that he seek professional help for his depression and stop procrastinating in....settling his mother's estate. His mother died 5 years ago, he is the executor, and this is still not done.

He is finally taking steps with both of those things.

Wish me luck!

Looking good on the spending front so far this month.

This was a good week for class action lawsuit settlement checks. In addition to the one from Dell, I got one for $18.04 from the credit card foreign transaction lawsuit as well. That one took a long time to settle. I went to Ireland in 2003 and was charged some foreign transaction fees on my Visa. I was notified about the lawsuit about 5 years ago. I have already tucked that into Curveball.

I received another $20.00 rewards check from Chase and will tuck that into Curveball today.

A few days ago, my niece and her husband drove down from where they live (Willits), picked up my nephew, and took him home to stay through Thanksgiving. This niece is his sister.

I have nothing else to report.

So I got my 3 estimates, and I took copies next door to my neighbor. No one would answer the door, even though I am pretty sure they were at home. So I wrote a note and left it along with the estimates inside their security door but outside of their front door. It has been about a month, but no response from them.

So one day BF saw the neighbor's son in front of his house, BF asked him what he thought about the estimates. The neighbor's son denied ever having seen any estimates.

Two weeks ago, a fence board from another section of the fence fell into the neighbor's yard. I did not know this, and let the dogs into the backyard one evening. When I let them back in, there were only two dogs. I went into the back and observed the fallen board. I went into the house and reported this to BF, we walked over to the neighbor's front door and knocked. The neighbor's son came to the closed door and yelled "who is it?" BF yelled back "your neighbor". The son yelled "I can't open the door." So I yelled through the door "there is a board down. I think you have a dog in your back yard." He yelled back "no, I don't". I yelled "I think you do. Do you want to check?" he yelled "OK". BF and I waited. And waited. And then we waited. He never came back to the door to say anything at all. Eventually BF and I realized he had no intention of coming back, so we went back to my house and got a strong light and looked into the neighbor's back yard. The dog was gone. I think the neighbor let my dog out.

An hour or so later, I got a phone call from a woman living several blocks away, she had the dog (he has a tag on his collar with my cell number). We went and got him so it turned out fine.

We upended my picnic table to block the gap in the fence from the fallen board and braced it. The next morning we went to the hardware store and got another sheet of plywood to nail up. Now we have two. The fence is so ugly with the two sheets of plywood nailed up, but it does keep the dogs from escaping.

So, I think this is a tactic to get me to pay for the fence myself.

Yesterday I used my county assessor's website to look up her parcel and name. I didn't know her name, but now I do. I made more copies of the estimates, I printed out a copy of California Civil Code Section 841 which states that property owners are equally responsible for maintaining fences, and I wrote her a letter. I am going to send it certified mail with a return receipt on Monday.

In the letter, I state that I would like to know when she will be able to afford her half. I tell her my opinion on the estimates and ask for hers. I refer to the law and state that we are equally responsible. I state that while the plywood is ok for now, it is not an acceptable long-term solution. I tell her she is welcome to come to my house, write me, call me, or email me.

I think she is going to be very surprised that I found out her name. I think she is ignoring me and refusing to communicate on purpose, thinking I will just go away.

If she does not respond, then I will know my options are to forget about her paying her half or sue her. If I sue her and she still does not pay, I can put a lien on her house.

They are such yucky people! Bleah.

Well, what do you know? Remember when I said I had opened a Chase checking account to get $150? Well, apparently when you have a Chase checking account, you earn extra rewards points on your Chase Freedom card. Instead of earning 1% on everything, you earn 1.1%, plus 10 extra pts on every purchase. I had no idea! They have really been adding up. Just cashed in another 3,000 pts for $30.

I am very frustrated with my BF. He has so many wonderful qualities, BUT (you knew there was a "but", didn't you?) he is very unorganized and he has a habit of ignoring problems in the hope that they will just go away. We decided early last year that he would move in with me in June of last year. He has moved in most of his clothes, some of his kitchen stuff, and a few pieces of furniture. In 16 months. The bulk of his belongings are still at his house. He will stay at my house for 2 - 3 weeks, then go home for a few days. I told him about 6 weeks ago that I am tired of waiting. He has made one trip to move stuff since then. Just one. He did have a matter come up recently which required his attention, and he was gone for 2 weeks tending to that. The matter is not settled, but he did put in work on it. I don't want to say too much about his finances because they are his and not really my business, but it concerns me that he isn't terribly motivated to tend to them. He told me over a year ago he has some pressing things he must do, but he has yet to do them. Meanwhile, he has a lot of free time. He has a small business which he is trying to grow, and he does book a job from time to time, but I wouldn't even call it "part-time", it is more like "sometimes". He could be 100% moved if he wanted to. He could take care of his business matters if he wanted to. He would rather wait for the good fairy to come along and wave her wand and magically do it all for him.

He did release my cell phone numbers so that I could put my lines into my name. (One is mine, one is my son's, one is my mom's.) So now I will be paying $133 per month for that. That was the only bill of mine BF was paying. He does buy groceries sometimes. We had agreed he would pay me $500 per month towards expenses once he has moved in, but doesn't have it now because he is still paying for everything at his house. The same house he told me when we first met 2.5 years ago that he needs to sell. The same house which is full of stuff and not even ready to list.

Tonight the BF and I are heading south for a concert. Journey, Foreigner and Night Ranger. My third time to see Journey, but have never seen the other two. Really, at this point, Journey and Foreigner are tribute bands in my opinion. Even so, should be fun!

What has this to do with my finances? Um, nothing.

Update: The concert was great! We had a rocking good time.

I saw this article this morning:

I have racked up another $20 in rewards from Chase, so I ordered a check today. Another nice little chip out of my debt.

My son-in-law is finishing up his service in the US Army. He and my daughter plan to move right back here. My daughter asked today if I would cosign for them to rent an apartment. Don't worry, I said no. They will be staying here for a short time while they look for an apartment. I will be glad to have them nearby, but don't want them living with me. They are married adults and need to make their own way, for their own good.

I have been doing a lot of window shopping in garden centers and taking long walks around the neighborhood, scrutinizing my neighbors' yards. I have decided I am going to buy 3 simple trellises and stake star jasmine to them. This will be done along the side of my house. I am going to purchase some agapanthus, some ornamental grasses, and some osteospermum.

While digging around in my rocks, I have discovered that I have a lot of sprinkler pipe buried shallowly under my front window. For this reason, I am not going to remove rocks and plant things in the ground right under the window. Instead, I am going to put some sort of rectangular wooden planter on top of the rocks and plant geraniums inside.

It is going to be several hundred dollars, but I will stick to my new lower budget of $400. I have to, I already sent the other $300 off towards credit card debt.

Speaking of, the interest posted yesterday. It was $1.50, the minimum finance charge. I thought that my rate was going up, but it must have gone down instead. I am not going to argue.

I signed up for my review course not knowing if I would be reimbursed or not. I was sort of hoping I would be, but I need the course either way, so I signed up. I used my Discover card (just a few days before Monkey Mama posted about that GREAT Chase Sapphire card deal, bummer!) for the purchase and have just been waiting to hear. The course is a bit over 3k. Today I learned that my employer will reimburse me for half now, and then if/when I pass they will reimburse me the other half. If I choose to leave them within 3 years after passing, I will have to repay the second half.

It is very generous, they don't have to pay a single cent, I know I am very lucky. They have really treated me very well since day one. (I've been there close to 6 years now.)

So in the meantime, I have more credit card debt to try to pay off.

I made my mortgage payment yesterday, the minimum amount due only. I'm not going to prepay my mortgage at all at this time. I enjoy whittling it down, but the credit card debt is more pressing. I want it GONE.

My son graduated from 8th grade on Friday! Where does the time go? He is a great kid, I am so proud of him. Friday he had 3 friends over and I picked up take and bake pizza for them. Yesterday he had 2 different friends over who spent the night. My Mom and BF were here too and we had a BBQ in son's honor. This morning the boys are up and busy.

Son and BF and I worked on the planter some more yesterday. I have decided I don't want to deal with Craig's List ad people any longer. I'm just keeping all the rocks. I can pile them higher in the center and move some more to the back yard. One corner of my yard is completely shaded by trees planted in neighbors' yards (one behind me, two on the side of me). Nothing ever grows in that corner but weeds, so filling it in with rocks will be an improvement.

I'm going with low maintenance plants. I have been offered some free starts from pink and purple geraniums (those are my favorite flower colors). I have always had great luck with geraniums and the price is right. I have also been offered some of these from BF's yard:



I would also like to get some alyssum to fill in between plants. I can get some starts from my Mom's yard.

So far, I have not spent a single cent on my planter makeover. I will need to buy some fertilizer and mulch, and may need to buy some plants to finish. But it is shaping up to cost much, much less than the $700 I had set aside. Whatever is not spent on the planter will go towards credit card debt.

I hope I am happy with the results when this is all done.

I deleted my Craigslist ad after receiving 20 or so responses. The first person who responded was supposed to come Sunday but called and said no, he would come Monday. Yesterday (Monday) he texted me about 4 that he was on his way (I had told him twice I don't get home earlier than 5:30). When I got home, he wasn't there and no rocks had been taken. I texted him at 6 to ask if he was still coming. He texted back that he hadn't brought tools with him and hadn't realized he would need tools to load the rocks. (Did he imagine the rocks would voluntarily jump into his truck bed?) I asked if he wanted the rocks and he did not respond, so I assume that means no. I have emailed the second person who replied to my ad, will see how that goes.

Now I am thinking, maybe I will remove the rocks from the areas I want to plant bushes and flowers and just leave the rest. I won't need to buy pavers and sand, and it will be much less work. So the planter would be a capital C of plants, the inside part would be rocks. It wouldn't look as I had envisioned, but it would still look much better than it did.

Yesterday my son, my nephew, my mom and myself hauled many wheelbarrow and wagon loads of rocks from my front planter to my back yard (I intend to use them in one corner of the yard to keep weeds down). We could all see that there are more rocks in the planter than are needed in the back. We had not moved even half of them and the area was getting full. My mom remarked "I bet a lot of people would love to have these rocks." Isn't she brilliant?

So I came inside and posted a "free rocks" ad on Craigslist. I had 4 responses within 30 minutes. I called the first person. He is coming by tomorrow evening to take some rocks home. I will see how that goes, then contact the second person if I still have rocks in the planter.

I took these pics today of my front yard, which is just awful. My project this year is the large rectangular planter. A previous homeowner saw fit to fill it in with river rocks. They are piled too high and spill out on the sidewalk constantly. My first year here, I bought some lavender and some lamb's ear and planted it, deciding to see what would happen. As you can see, this is what happened!





The lavender has long since died, the lamb's ear is scraggly and uneven. I have sprayed the weeds, so they just need to be pulled out. My plan is to remove several inches of rocks, put in sand in the center, good soil along the edges, fill in the center with pavers, and plant some low maintenance things along the edges. I picked up a book at the library called "Low Maintenance California Gardening". I hope to do this as inexpensively as possible.

So this past week I did something I have been putting off. I enrolled in a CPA review course.

Why have I been putting it off? A couple of reasons. The first reason is that the last one started 1 week after I graduated. After 5 years of working full-time and going to school at night, I wanted a break longer than 1 week. The second reason is that I am nervous. I'm worried I won't be able to pass.

To be honest, I like what I do right now, and am unsure I really want to be a CPA. However, it seems foolish to stop at this point. Also, my two bosses want me to take it and pass. They have both been very supportive of my educational goals, and a few years ago volunteered to start paying my tuition. Maybe I just have performance anxiety.

So I am starting the course June 11th. It is from 8 - 5 on Saturdays, and will take until the end of October. Doesn't that sound like fun?

If I do become a CPA, my earning potential will shoot way up. My intention is to avoid lifestyle creep and get myself in great financial shape.

Wish me luck with the course and that pesky exam!

This morning over breakfast, I browsed last Saturday's newspaper. I spotted a fairly new house for sale for 67k. It is cute and on a cul de sac. I nearly choked. The first thought that pops into my head is...I could pull 67k out of my IRA, pay cash for that house, then concentrate on repairing the damage to my nest egg.

But a quick check on Zillow revealed...undesireable area. Like put on your body armor to go out and check the mail undesireable.

But I do mull over the possibilities of buying another house for myself. If I bought a house for 120k, put 20% down, I'd have a mortgage half the size of what I have now. That's very appealing. The problem is my current house. What to do with it?

I have been a landlord in the past and it doesn't appeal much to me. Also, I bought the house to live in myself. I put in beautiful reddish wood laminate floors. I LOVE them, but they do require care and some common sense (wipe up spills immediately, do not drag furniture, hot glue small pads onto the bottoms of chair legs, etc.).

Or I could come up with 60k + selling costs in order to get out from under, thereby negating the advantage of buying an equivalent house at a lower price.

Or I could just let it go and allow my perfect credit to become history. This is not so appealing either.

And so, I do nothing but choke on my breakfast when I spy a cute house in the newspaper listed at 67k.

Perhaps the best solution is to cancel my newspaper subscription and stay off of Zillow.

Yesterday I saw one of my favorite clients. She is witty, fiesty and very interested in a variety of things. She is always doing something.

So far, so good, right?

She also lives on a pittance and is constantly hustling to earn some money. She has several part-time jobs and several self-employed endeavors.

She is in her 70s. She cannot afford to stop working. She is fortunate that so far, she still can.

I do not want to end up like that. I will never be wealthy and that is fine. But I do not want to constantly worry how I will eat and put gas in my car when I am in my 70s.