Catching Fireflies July Controlled Spend Thread

[moneysquirrel]

Today was a total spend day. Got a lot of things on my needed list but picked up a few that were not. Hope all are doing well.

[DVM gone riding]

I am counting today as a cs. I went home for lunch like a good girl but then decided to do some grocery shopping-which I needed and is in the budget so 2ns/1cs days so far

[midjd]

I have not been doing very well this week. I may need to change my goal to NSD/CSD, since I have to get gas at least 3x/week and it seems like we have a bill autodrafted every other day... but even other than that I've been eating out or going to Sbux almost every day this week, so it probably wouldn't make much difference!

2 NSD, 5 SD, total monthly spending $1533... tomorrow is also going to be a spend, my cousin and her husband are coming over and we'll probably end up going out to dinner. Plus we're buying some fish for our fishtank. Saturday is grocery day and I'll go ahead and get another tank of gas. Hoping to make Sunday - Thursday NSDs so I can catch up a bit.

Also going to need roller skates and new elbow pads soon for derby, and some more striped socks. But those expenses are definitely worth it! ;D

[startsmart]

spruby- sometimes working too much is just not worth it, especially if it tires you out and leads to other things not getting done or more convenience shopping. Hope you get back to normal hours soon. Any chance they'd let you count monday's 8 and have a full 40 for the week?

gin- wtg on grocery budgeting!

definitely not spending today. after doing up the dishes I pulled out steak for dinner (4th of july sales!) and I'm going to make fruit salad

[3catslady]

6 NSD/CSD, 1 SD, 0 EOD. I did buy groceries.
bologna $3.62
Cheese $2.69
Pita chips $3.99
2 Gift Cards $20.00
soda $1.50 plus 9 cents tax
total spent $31.88
This will last me at least 5 meals with what I have on hand.
Not having a good day, week, or month right now.

[sapphire12]

Morning ladies -- today is definitely a spend day. I'm sitting in Merchants as I type waiting for my rear brakes to be replaced. The speed demon needs brakes. I replaced the front ones just before the trip, so hopefully nothing but oil changes and tire rotations the rest of the year.

Blk Hills Ladies -- My rug arrived yesterday. It was a pleasant surprise. Ladies in the quaint city of Keystone, SD, KCgal and I were walking around and came across a selection of beautiful rugs. KCgal and I bought the same rug. She was able to drive hers home and mine was shipped. Yeah. Kudos to the USPS!

MK -- Yeah for you being deemed essential and getting no stoppage in your funds for your DS. How is the traveling DS? He was such a joy.

moneysquirrel -- Yeah for a clean attic.

mizbear -- hugs to you and your family.

azmom -- glad you were safe, though I totally get being in the midst of something and not knowing about it until it is over. I've experienced the dust, though not on that massive level and the lightning storms; rather fascinating.

[muttleynfelix]

It is FRIDAY!!! And Payday!! Double woohoo.. I hope to be done with work around 2. After work, DH heads up to church to do the final prep for our VBS tomorrow. DS and I are going to go grocery shopping. DH is making the list right now and I'll have to decide which meals we are making next week when I get home (I have a master list for the month, I just need to choose 3 meals off of it) and add them to the list. I have wrap up like 3 projects today plus go out in the field. So it will be a little crazy. Today will be a spend day. I did not bring my lunch, plus grocery shopping, plus DH will likely put gas in the car tonight and I'll probably grab some breakfast on my way out to the construction site.

[shanendoah]

Yesterday should have been a gas only no spend. Except that we had bananas going bad, so I decided to make banana bread (I make all sorts of breads, but I'd never done banana bread before) and guess what? I'm out of flour. So I ran to the store to buy a bag of flour. It could have waited until today, but if it had, the chances of the banana bread getting made would have dropped significantly. That's just the way I am.
The bread turned out good, though, so I'm happy about that.

midwestern: So we all set our own rules here for what constiturtes a spend day. Before you change your goals, you might want to consider changing your rules. For me, bills never count. They might as well not exist as for as my NSD/CSD counts go. They are almost all paid automatically (or at least set up to pay weeks in advance), and are accounted for in my cash flow.
I also allow one day a week of what I call a gas only NSD. We run bio-d, so buy gas when we're near a station that carries B99. Currently, DH drives to school every day and on Thursdays, he fills the tank. Thursdays is usually (not yesterday, but usually) an NSD. So, if gas is the only thing we buy that day, I still allow it to be an NSD. Because gas is kind of like a bill.

mizbear: What you would have received (or what your mom/aunts/uncles received) was a NoMNC - Notice of Medicare Non-Coverage. You received this because gma is in a skilled facility or a skilled "bed" in facilities that do both skilled and non-skilled care. For Medicare to pay for a skilled bed, the person must require a certain number of hours of rehab/therapy work each day. If they do not, they don't pay.
Medicare does NOT cover custodial care - which is basically care that helps you with personal hygene and eating, etc. Medicaid will cover it, as will some Medicare Advantage plans or some Medicare Secondaries. However, the fact that Medicare does not (and never has) covered long term care is why people buy LTC insurance.
If you, your family, and Gma's doctor (talk to him right away) honestly believe that your gma still needs skilled care, APPEAL!!! Because of the timeframes involved when NOMNCs are handed out, you have the right to an urgent or expedited appeal, forcing Medicare to review your gma's case and get an answer back to you within 24 hours.
If gma does not still need skilled care, other options involve talking to the nursing home staff and seeing about getting her bed re-designated as non-skilled, and paying for the care out of her estate. Yes, its expensive. However, if she needs care that you and the family can't provide (even if its custodial) then this is your best option.
ETA: Or you can look at home care. There are a number of agencies that provide home care. Someone would come to your gma's house for so many hours a day to help with bathing, dressing, etc. Because of your situation, you probably wouldn't need someone overnight, and might only need the help in the mornings and evenings (getting up/going to bed). In that case, home health aids can be relatively inexpensive (compared to paying for a stay in the nursing facility). If you don't have time to research home care options, you should be able to contact your local adult protective services for recommendations.

[mizbear]

shan- She won't let anyone come to te house- especially since there is the option of moving me back in. I have already let everyone know that if I move back in, the will has to be re-written so that I get the house- my aunt has made it clear she doesn't want me moving back home. She would rather see the house go to foreclosure. And my grandmother in nursing home

[muttleynfelix]

MIZBEAR - Hugs

[shanendoah]

mizbear: Does one single person have Durable Power of Attorney? (and if not, folks, this is why it's needed.) If there is a DPOA, that person has the power to make decisions as if they were Gma, even when Gma is up and about (but being uncooperative). There are two types of DPOA - Medical and Financial. It's generally good to have both set up.
Medical means there is one decision maker for all your medical needs should you be incapacitated. WIthout it, the MDs must get all (in this case) Gma's kids to agree to a treatment/course of action before they can begin.
The same goes with financial. If there is one person, it can be dealt with and family politics can be ignored/someone can be told to go to h***. Without it, you're stuck in family politics of one person deciding to to be a PITA because they aren't getting their way.
If Gma is currently mentally capable, and DPOAs aren't in place, I would recommend getting them in place now. THe facility almost certainly has a notary on staff.

However, regardless of your aunt's reasons, I think I'd rather not see you move back in, either. You already have too much on your plate. If Gma refuses to let "strangers" in to the house, then she needs to stay in a facility, and her estate needs to pay for it.
You love your Gma, but at this point in time, your quality of life needs to take precedence over hers. I know that sounds mean and hearless, but you can not take care of anyone else if you can't take care of you.

[ses]

Mizbear-- I second everything Shanen said!! Very important.

Yesterday was a training day for my new job. Probably another day or two before the first day of actual testing (shadowing the current examiner) Details, details, details. Good thing I am detail oriented. Thank goodness the building is very well air conditioned, summer finally decided to arrive with high temps and very high humidity, for us. Upper 50s and 60 percent. This us supposed to be a high dry mountain air type of climate. What happened thus year?

I'm thinking this job will be good for me, besides the extra income, in that I will have to get a routine established and stop wasting so much time. As I am right now.

I need to get the bedding from the guest room in the laundry. Wednesday evening, during our every other night tornado-watch-trip-to-the-basement, I was panicking because I couldn't find Onyx. I eventually noticed the door to the guest room was ajar and looked in. Who should I find curled up on the bed with her head on the pillow KCgal used snoozing away. I guess all of the snuggling and petting from KCgal was remembered.

[azmom]

First Day of the Month Challenge! Woot!

Grab your calendar, your day planner, a calendar from the dentist office or just find one free online.

Look around the office and kids stuff for stickers, stars or just 3 colored markers

Every night write down your expenditures:
gas station $35, medical co-pay $20, vending machine $0.85

OR

NO SPEND DAY!

Every Friday when we have virtual happy hour (and tea for 3cats) look over that calendar and tally up your NSDs.

FRIDAY UPDATE 6 CSD/NSD

July 1
$0

July 2
$16.53 (planned groceries)

July 3
$0

July 4
$4.02 (unplanned Starbucks)
$7.27 (planned groceries)
$1.00 (planned groceries)

July 5
$0

July 6
$0

July 7
$50 (planned eat out with friends)
$42.99 (planned gas fill-up my car)

Total Spent $121.81

I do not count our fixed bills like rent/utilities/debt because they are mandatory and automatic. Although groceries and gas are like bills, I count them as CSD as long as they are still under budget and for accountability. I'm trying to keep these cost down without depriving us too much. Obviously anything else counts as spending money and will only count as a CSD if I truly made a budgeted for it on pay-day. For example our eat out with friends. DH's BFF came into town yesterday and we have known about this for a couple of weeks so DH and I decided that we will allocate $50 from his paycheck to go out w/our kids and have dinner with his friend. (he is like a brother to DH and only comes into town once a year). Our bill came to $45.79 with an 18% gratuity already included in that figure DH tipped a little extra making our bill exactly $50 thus staying in our budget and that is why I count it as a CSD. Anyhow that is my story and I am sticking to it!
~Happy No Spending~

[dakota4600]

MIz Bear Hugs! Hope that you get things figured out so that it doesn't put you under more stress.

I'm sitting in surgery center waiting for them to come tell me DH is in recovery. I've never seen DH so nervous as he was this AM, he was pacing like a caged animal. They said an hour or so and I still have about 30 mins to go. I'm going to try and read the book I brought since this internet connections is really spotty.

[MittenKitten]

mizbear: Hugs. Remember your OWN health in all this stuff with DGM. I know you love her but if you are totally exhausted and ill because of everything it isn't going to help her any.

Sapphire: traveling DS#1 is doing well. He had a little adjustment to not being an only child. I think in some ways he is a little lonely not many kids around the neighborhood he wants to or can hang out with. He feels his best friends mom doesn't like him (remember the whole dog insindent) and he may be right. Next week he goes to day camp and we have a lot going on so he won't have time to worry about it then.

Yesterday my DOD invited DS#1 to go to the Rodeo. DD wanted to go also so the 5 of us went (DOD's wife also). Kids had fun, I wore DS#1s cowboy hat and DD looked adorable in her cowboy hat, jean skirt and boots. Next year DOD's wife is talking about DD doing muttonbusting or something where the little kids ride sheeps. Since they are a lot of talk and little action we will see.

midwestern: I second Shanen. It can be very difficult to count the bills you already have so many of us only count spending you do on nonessential things. Some count grocery spending, some only count it if they vary from their list. I never counted mortgage, utilities, vehicle expenses since those are all things I need and had no way of controlling them or lowering them.

[startsmart]

definitely a spend day. I went out to get my hair cut (finally!) and then groceries for this weekend. I'm so excited for the game! I think I talked my parents into driving to SF so we can tailgate it and spend some time downtown at the wharf.

I'm heading out in a bit to work on the volunteer website I'm building and take pictures. Then later this afternoon visiting with sbcalimom and her DDs

[dakota4600]

Midwestern- I don't count recurring bills as spends (mortgage, insurance, utilities, or CC's) I count the CC's as spends on the day I make charges, not when I pay the bill. I also don't count gas or grocery spends unless they are over budget.

DH is home now. Decided he didn't want to try making it up the stairs so he is in the basement on the futon. It is normally mini-D's play room. So I cleared the floor so DH doesn't have to worry about stepping on toys. He'll probably sleep there tonight then tomorrow when he feels a little better he can move up stairs.

[shanendoah]

dakota: Glad DH is home and resting comfortably

[ses]

Midwestern--I don't count bills and budgeted amounts as spends either, unless it is over the budgeted amount. My spends are unbudgeted money and frivolous things. Chocolate is not frivolous.

Even with the vacation, I came in under in all categories. I guess I set aside more than I realized. But now it is back to buckling down and being accountable.

[busybee]

This message has been deleted.

[mizbear]

busybee- Don't get discouraged. It can be tough getting that first no spend. And harder to hang on to. You also may have to define your NS days differently depending on your budget.

My mother and aunt share POA- DM is willing to invoke it, aunt, not so much. My POA (I have one because of the bipolar disorder and my pre-cancer surgeries) has very specific language so as to protect me but to make my POA easily enacted or disabled if I do not need someone handling my affairs (for instance we always use my POA when I have a surgery where I can not take my meds for x days before surgery).

I am seeing the doctor this week and I see my therapist again at the end of the month. I am also getting ready to take a "me" weekend whether they like it or not (nieces can come if they're here, but it's my time). I thnk I am going down to the beach and run go-karts. I have not been in a go-kart since right after my racing accident and both of the kids are old enough to run the fun carts. Plus I am singing in at least one talent show.
Posting first week update tomorrow or Sunday. Had an unexpecte EO today because Niece T (#1) had to go to the emergency room from my place with something in her eye. They still don't know what, but it left a scratch. I got to bed about 6:30 this morning because I couldn't sleep.

[spruby]

dakota - glad DH is home and OK

mizbear - please rethink moving in with your DGMA - you need to focus on you and take care of yourself. Even if the will changed - no house is worth the drama and toll on your health.

startsmart - I'm a fed and have to cover 40 hours a week (leave/holiday/work). Monday was an 8 hours holiday and because of travel on Wednesday and staying late Thursday for a call - I had already covered by 40 hours this week (8 holiday and 32 work). But I don't have a real 40 and I'm done job. I sit on a couple of unsecured creditor committees in corporate bankruptcies (think Delta airlines) and have a number of cases. I'm overly responsible so I won't just leave because I've put in my time. I get comp time and use it up on vacation - but I can't take the vacation fast enough! I feel bad complaining about too much leave - but I really have too much work to take more time off. I have 5 weeks of vacation scheduled over the rest of the year - so that will be good. I'll schedule a couple more weeks so I don't carry over too much. I've had much worse problems.

[3catslady]

7 NSD/CSD, 1 SD, 0 EOD. Doing good so far, but I may still go to Pizza Hut this month. I don't want to eat out this month but we will see.

[mizbear]

Pizza- mmmm, making a pizza sounds sooo good... (I'm too cheap to buy pizza)

I have been really thinking about his about moving back in- bouncing it off the few (very few) true RL friends I have. No one thinks it is a good idea except my mother. Even my DGM has her doubts. She has no doubts as far as my ability to care for her or her home or any of that- she is afraid my DM will wreck my finances with her own reckless spending. My second mom has suggested that even though it will cause a further rift, that I seriously consider moving away again after DGM passes away (not there is a set time frame there, but because it will force DM to be self-sufficient and play well with others). Some of the family has even suggested that I consider leaving my home town again simply because my mother won't.

I feel like I should be competing against Susan Lucci for a daytime emmy....

It will get better.

Back to th homework- I am out of Peppermint Patties.

By the way- no happy hour tonight???

I need a drink!!! Jack- straight- coke on the side

[muttleynfelix]

And relax. Work did not go as well as I had hoped and I didn't get everything done before I had to leave. But I had to go because DH needed to get to church so I had stop being Muttley: the Engineer and go be Muttley: the mom. My boss was pretty understanding. He knew was pulling me in about 50 different directions this week. DS has the runs. Fortunately we were able to run our errands in town wtihout an episodes, but his bum is so so red. I did stick the list in town. That did mean I spent $30 on new rechargeable batteries (we've had the same ones since I've known DH .... 7 years) and a new memory card (old one was 16 MB .... no wonder pics weren't the best quality ... new one is 8 GB). I was hoping to spend a little less total, but I've get everything for 3 great meals next week, 2 of which utilize things from our garden: Cheesy Zucchini Bake, Turkey Taco salad, and Chicken Paremesean.

3 NSD for me so far. Even though I ate out lunch only 2 days this week, I did out breakfast all 4 days. We are day 4 of the war against the Aisan and Oriental Beetles. So far we have a very high body count, but the end of the war is a long way away.

[mizbear]

muttley- What time is dinner??

Bad news- The news tickers have announced the passing of Former First Lady Betty Ford at age 93. RIP

[3catslady]

I could go for a strong, maybe double strength, Iced Red Rose. I stayed away from Pizza Hut and the beer they sell. I have no strength to resist today.

[moneysquirrel]

Update: 1 NS and 5CS days
Hope everyone had a good day today. I had a CS day as I met some friends for lunch which was planned and budgeted for and that was my only $ spent.

Dakota, Muttley, mizbear -- hope all will be healed soon.

MK -- I think the attention traveling DS#1 received was worth it to him. He was a delight to share adventures/fun with even if it was hard to get a photo of him w/o the cheesy faces. Hope he is enjoying his birthday goodies. How is your mom feeling? The truth not her usual "I'm fine".

SES -- I would love to have 50-60% humidity instead of my usual 90-100%. How is the fastest cat on the planet?

[mizbear]

DGM comes home today. We will see how things go.

[MittenKitten]

Oh anyone who likes PF Changs you can get a coupons for free lettuce wraps if you like them on Facebook. The coupon is good through the end of July. YUM! I see a spend day in my future!

money: The adventure was great for him. Especially when he is ALWAYS around his siblings or his friends and really doesn't get a lot time with me alone. His sister loves to tag along. Hmmmmm may need to work on that some, DD gets time alone while the other kids are in school. Maybe I will start doing a once a month date with DS#1 alone. We are having his family birthday party a week from tomorrow, a little late but what worked for the family. One of the things I put on there was "Growling with the Grizzlies" at the MN Zoo. That would probably be DS#1 and myself. We did Dusk til Dawn with the Dolphins a couple of years ago and it was a lot of fun.

The kids can be turkeys but I actually LIKE my kids so hanging out with them and doing things with them is no hardship. Just got free tickets for the MN Zoo also. Am looking forward to taking DD and DS#1.

Mizbear: here is luck with DGM coming home. Take care of yourself.

dakota: glad DH is doing well.