Blessings Darlings!
The Chubby Hubby is home from his business trip and visiting his mother (at this time she's NOT going into a nursing home). My barely-there garden is peaking, at 2 pounds of beans and 4 cucumbers a week. The weather has cooled down to merely summer from the incredible heat and humidity of this last July.
As is always the case after CH's summer trip, we're broke. We'll have to take money out of his IRA to pay bills, and the Spawn will probably be buying all our groceries. Luckily, they are understaffed at work so he's getting more hours than usual. Unfortunately, since he was at work for 15 hours last Friday, he's been hit by a summer cold and been out sick today and half of yesterday. I have the cold, too. My sinuses are like Dr. Who's Tardis - they may SEEM normal, but I assure you that they are far far bigger and more swollen than you can see from looking at them from the outside. They have swolled to house size on the inside.
Did you know that there is a Chinese dish that uses cucumbers as the vegetable? Well, there are probably several, but I'm referring to Bon Bon Chicken Salad. I'm making that for dinner Friday night. Because that's the veggie I have the most of. Tomorrow will be .... probably a pork or tofu stir fry with bean sprouts and cabbage and a carrot for color. I sprouted the bean sprouts myself, of course, and grew the cabbage. I did not grow the carrot.
I'm trying to figure out a way to afford high-quality 'facial tissue' to get us thru' the cold. I just don't think it's ethical to head to the store that has it on sale, use the coupon that requires we buy two packages of 3 packs each, and then return one of the 3 packs. That way we'd end up with only the one 3 pack we need, and use the entire coupon on it.
If I don't spend any of the house money on food, or pay the credit cards, then I can afford car insurance. I'm very glad the garden is peaking now!
Sorry about all the whining. I'll be more uplifting and discuss puff pastry based treats sometime soon.
Frondly, Fern
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
I want. I want. I want.
Blessings Darlings!
I'm having one of those days where my personal 'wants' list is growing exponentially.
I want a new used car (since our current only car is STILL not running in the rain).
I want a new bicycle, that actually fits my under 5 foot tall frame instead of being too big. And that has fenders so I can ride when it's wet.
I want a bike trailer.
I want to learn how to maintain my bike on my own.
I want to learn how to do my own at least basic car maintenance.
I want the hardware to do my own basic car maintenance once I learn how to do it.
I want to split another grass-fed organic steer with friends.
I want a share in an organic local CSA.
I want to own my own home.
I want to live where there is no HOA.
I want goats.
I want chickens.
I want a really good deer fence around my garden.
I want to lose 70 pounds.
I want to be able to bike 40 miles a day, on hills.
I want dental insurance.
I want my son to make more money, so he can pay off the university and then save money to pay for those two more semesters he needs to get his Bachelors Degree. In Psych. Which is marginally more useful than a BA in Philosophy.
Too many of these need money. But I'm working on the ones that need my efforts. I'm biking regularly .... even if today I could only do 4 miles on the local hilly roads. And I'm afraid to bike to Suz's, since the road she lives on is hillier than the one I live on! I'm exercising and eating better, which should eventually lead to weight loss. I've signed up for my first bike maintenance/repair class. I've looked for local (like, within 35 miles) classes on car repair and haven't found any yet, but I'm still looking. I'm taking the existing car back in to the shop this week, to point out that it still dies in the rain (but that's going to include money. OTOH, it will include less money that getting another car).
Oh, the car. I admit it only died in the INCREDIBLE rain we had, not a normal rain. But we haven't been driving in normal rain because we're afraid. This time the rain hit while the Spawn was at work. I suppose I should have driving him since there were thunderstorms predicted. He waited an hour after it died to see if it would start, then had it towed home. $90 for the tow. Should he have waited in the dark another hour? Dunno.
Spawn is applying for jobs in OUR town, instead of the larger/busier town he works in now, so we can get around the car problem. It's not like he's making a penny more than minimum wage, so if he gets one his hourly wage won't go down. And since the restaurant isn't getting much business he's getting sent home early a lot, so he's likely to get a job with as many hours. Since there doesn't seem to be any advancement where he is - heck, he hasn't even been allowed to watch all the training videos for HIS position since they don't want to have him on the clock due to their low sales - darn near any other job will have as much promotion potential.
He's not likely to get one locally until fall, when the students get back. But if he applies every fortnight over the summer they'll get used to seeing him AND learn that he's persistent. Okay, what they'll really learn is that *I* am persistent in kicking his butt out the door to apply for jobs.
Anything you want? What are you doing to get it/them?
Frondly, Fern
I'm having one of those days where my personal 'wants' list is growing exponentially.
I want a new used car (since our current only car is STILL not running in the rain).
I want a new bicycle, that actually fits my under 5 foot tall frame instead of being too big. And that has fenders so I can ride when it's wet.
I want a bike trailer.
I want to learn how to maintain my bike on my own.
I want to learn how to do my own at least basic car maintenance.
I want the hardware to do my own basic car maintenance once I learn how to do it.
I want to split another grass-fed organic steer with friends.
I want a share in an organic local CSA.
I want to own my own home.
I want to live where there is no HOA.
I want goats.
I want chickens.
I want a really good deer fence around my garden.
I want to lose 70 pounds.
I want to be able to bike 40 miles a day, on hills.
I want dental insurance.
I want my son to make more money, so he can pay off the university and then save money to pay for those two more semesters he needs to get his Bachelors Degree. In Psych. Which is marginally more useful than a BA in Philosophy.
Too many of these need money. But I'm working on the ones that need my efforts. I'm biking regularly .... even if today I could only do 4 miles on the local hilly roads. And I'm afraid to bike to Suz's, since the road she lives on is hillier than the one I live on! I'm exercising and eating better, which should eventually lead to weight loss. I've signed up for my first bike maintenance/repair class. I've looked for local (like, within 35 miles) classes on car repair and haven't found any yet, but I'm still looking. I'm taking the existing car back in to the shop this week, to point out that it still dies in the rain (but that's going to include money. OTOH, it will include less money that getting another car).
Oh, the car. I admit it only died in the INCREDIBLE rain we had, not a normal rain. But we haven't been driving in normal rain because we're afraid. This time the rain hit while the Spawn was at work. I suppose I should have driving him since there were thunderstorms predicted. He waited an hour after it died to see if it would start, then had it towed home. $90 for the tow. Should he have waited in the dark another hour? Dunno.
Spawn is applying for jobs in OUR town, instead of the larger/busier town he works in now, so we can get around the car problem. It's not like he's making a penny more than minimum wage, so if he gets one his hourly wage won't go down. And since the restaurant isn't getting much business he's getting sent home early a lot, so he's likely to get a job with as many hours. Since there doesn't seem to be any advancement where he is - heck, he hasn't even been allowed to watch all the training videos for HIS position since they don't want to have him on the clock due to their low sales - darn near any other job will have as much promotion potential.
He's not likely to get one locally until fall, when the students get back. But if he applies every fortnight over the summer they'll get used to seeing him AND learn that he's persistent. Okay, what they'll really learn is that *I* am persistent in kicking his butt out the door to apply for jobs.
Anything you want? What are you doing to get it/them?
Frondly, Fern
Monday, February 7, 2011
Money Magic
Blessings, Darlings!
Some of y'all might be wondering why it seems I haven't been doing money magic, given how our finances are going this month. No one has ASKED - but getting any of y'all to comment is like pulling teeth! Sheesh!
Anyway...
The answer is that, you're right - I'm not doing any specific 'money magic'. I've been concentrating on magic to help us as we learn to better run a business, better tweak our website, better do our product marketing, and investing time in honing those skills as well. For the record, I'm the one with the better copywriting skills, the Chubby Hubby is better at web design.
I don't recall if I've told this story here before ... but about 10 years ago I did some spellwork aimed at improving my husband's consulting marketing. It worked INCREDIBLY well. So well we had more business than he could handle. We ended up sued by a company that ran into a cash flow problem while we were working for them, as the work took so long. (We ended up getting our money from them, and they didn't get any from us, but all we got from them went to the dang lawyer!)
I've learned to be pretty specific in what I do magic for!
That said, I'm considering doing some work to help move the current batch of customers who owe us money to pay us more promptly. And to send the checks to the right address - SEVERAL of them have conveniently been sending the checks to our old address, delaying us cashing them for about 10 days each. This after we repeatedly gave them our new mailing address.
Oh, I'm going to be flogging a product I really like soon, and that we're an affiliate marketer for. I'll be up front when I do that. So far, no one has paid me a DIME for any products I like and have mentioned here.
Frondly, Fern
Other vaguely related blog posts: Smith & Wesson Protection Spell
Magickal Metrics
Curses
Some of y'all might be wondering why it seems I haven't been doing money magic, given how our finances are going this month. No one has ASKED - but getting any of y'all to comment is like pulling teeth! Sheesh!
Anyway...
The answer is that, you're right - I'm not doing any specific 'money magic'. I've been concentrating on magic to help us as we learn to better run a business, better tweak our website, better do our product marketing, and investing time in honing those skills as well. For the record, I'm the one with the better copywriting skills, the Chubby Hubby is better at web design.
I don't recall if I've told this story here before ... but about 10 years ago I did some spellwork aimed at improving my husband's consulting marketing. It worked INCREDIBLY well. So well we had more business than he could handle. We ended up sued by a company that ran into a cash flow problem while we were working for them, as the work took so long. (We ended up getting our money from them, and they didn't get any from us, but all we got from them went to the dang lawyer!)
I've learned to be pretty specific in what I do magic for!
That said, I'm considering doing some work to help move the current batch of customers who owe us money to pay us more promptly. And to send the checks to the right address - SEVERAL of them have conveniently been sending the checks to our old address, delaying us cashing them for about 10 days each. This after we repeatedly gave them our new mailing address.
Oh, I'm going to be flogging a product I really like soon, and that we're an affiliate marketer for. I'll be up front when I do that. So far, no one has paid me a DIME for any products I like and have mentioned here.
Frondly, Fern
Other vaguely related blog posts: Smith & Wesson Protection Spell
Magickal Metrics
Curses
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Frugal Remix
Blessings, Darlings!
During The Move, and during the packing before it and unpacking after it, we generated practically NO income in our home business. This is because the bulk of our income comes from doing consulting (paid for by the hour), and not much comes from online sales of our development tools.
Adding insult to the injury of6 weeks of missing income was that the move cost most cash out of pocket than we had thought it would. So, we're back to the frugal side of life. Or at least we're trying to live that part of life. Life has not been cooperating, tho, with car repairs, odd utility bills (first electric bill took our breath away, then we realized it was 'estimated' and did not reflect our actual electric use), etc.
Yule/Hanukkah/Christmas was extremely lean.
Even the Chubby Hubby is reducing driving.
We are giving up one of the two cars (the one that needs the most repairs) and keeping the one that only works in dry weather. We HOPE to get it fixed soon, but the weather has not cooperated - it needs a rainy weekday for a mechanic to find the problem, but it only seems to rain on weekends!
It'll all work out, but I really HAD hoped we were going to have a bit more breathing room. Maybe that's down the road a bit.
Ah, well. We plan, the Gods laugh.
Frondly, Fern
During The Move, and during the packing before it and unpacking after it, we generated practically NO income in our home business. This is because the bulk of our income comes from doing consulting (paid for by the hour), and not much comes from online sales of our development tools.
Adding insult to the injury of6 weeks of missing income was that the move cost most cash out of pocket than we had thought it would. So, we're back to the frugal side of life. Or at least we're trying to live that part of life. Life has not been cooperating, tho, with car repairs, odd utility bills (first electric bill took our breath away, then we realized it was 'estimated' and did not reflect our actual electric use), etc.
Yule/Hanukkah/Christmas was extremely lean.
Even the Chubby Hubby is reducing driving.
We are giving up one of the two cars (the one that needs the most repairs) and keeping the one that only works in dry weather. We HOPE to get it fixed soon, but the weather has not cooperated - it needs a rainy weekday for a mechanic to find the problem, but it only seems to rain on weekends!
It'll all work out, but I really HAD hoped we were going to have a bit more breathing room. Maybe that's down the road a bit.
Ah, well. We plan, the Gods laugh.
Frondly, Fern
Friday, September 10, 2010
I'm a bad blogger
Blessings, Darlings!
I know - I've been missing in action, and not blogging. But it's because life has had SO VERY MUCH action.
I've been canning and drying food. I've been balancing paying creditors while my husband (and thus our business) has been working on bringing out a new product line instead of doing consulting which actually brings in cash. Yeah, new products will pay off 'someday' - but Baltimore Gas and Electric wants their bill paid NOW.
And - get this - our landlord stopped paying the mortgage a year ago April. The house we rent has been foreclosed on. We just got our formal notice that we have to move. By law we have 90 days. But we will lose consulting income during a move, since we have a home-based business.
Right now we don't even know what state we want to move to. Stay in Maryland? Move to Pennsylvania? West Virginia? Indiana?
I'm a bit overwhelmed, and part of why I've not blogged is that EVERYTHING I typed seemed too whiny to publish.
In good news, the spawn has officially dropped out of college, but has finally gotten a job. Part time, slinging chicken at Popeye's. It's a good thing. And the garden is producing huge amounts of tomatoes and cucumbers, as well as marvelous grapes. I just planted fall crops before we got notice to move, dang it ..... ooops, heading towards whining.... The torn meniscus in my knee is doing better, I'm working out on the exercise bike and regularly increasing the resistance.
But ... having a ton of canned food isn't a great thing for moving. So I'm stopping the canning and dehydrating instead, and we're going to push eating canned foods at every meal up to the move. Which is a shame to have to do when veggies are still cheap and available! Fresh beans are 79 cents a pound this week, and we're eating canned beans instead of saving them for when fresh beans are $2/lb or unavailable. Le Sigh.
Well, that's the summary. I've got all sorts of ideas for what I'd like to be posting here, but time's going to be scarce for the next few months.
Anyone have a house with some 2200 square feet of living space available to rent, for $1500 to $2000, east of the Mississippi and from DC on north?
Frondly, Fern
I know - I've been missing in action, and not blogging. But it's because life has had SO VERY MUCH action.
I've been canning and drying food. I've been balancing paying creditors while my husband (and thus our business) has been working on bringing out a new product line instead of doing consulting which actually brings in cash. Yeah, new products will pay off 'someday' - but Baltimore Gas and Electric wants their bill paid NOW.
And - get this - our landlord stopped paying the mortgage a year ago April. The house we rent has been foreclosed on. We just got our formal notice that we have to move. By law we have 90 days. But we will lose consulting income during a move, since we have a home-based business.
Right now we don't even know what state we want to move to. Stay in Maryland? Move to Pennsylvania? West Virginia? Indiana?
I'm a bit overwhelmed, and part of why I've not blogged is that EVERYTHING I typed seemed too whiny to publish.
In good news, the spawn has officially dropped out of college, but has finally gotten a job. Part time, slinging chicken at Popeye's. It's a good thing. And the garden is producing huge amounts of tomatoes and cucumbers, as well as marvelous grapes. I just planted fall crops before we got notice to move, dang it ..... ooops, heading towards whining.... The torn meniscus in my knee is doing better, I'm working out on the exercise bike and regularly increasing the resistance.
But ... having a ton of canned food isn't a great thing for moving. So I'm stopping the canning and dehydrating instead, and we're going to push eating canned foods at every meal up to the move. Which is a shame to have to do when veggies are still cheap and available! Fresh beans are 79 cents a pound this week, and we're eating canned beans instead of saving them for when fresh beans are $2/lb or unavailable. Le Sigh.
Well, that's the summary. I've got all sorts of ideas for what I'd like to be posting here, but time's going to be scarce for the next few months.
Anyone have a house with some 2200 square feet of living space available to rent, for $1500 to $2000, east of the Mississippi and from DC on north?
Frondly, Fern
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