Thrift-o-rama

I am So done being pregnant. Two weeks to go and I feel like I am going to explode. So much pressure on my organs. Constant heart burn. Ugh! I guess this is how nature prepares you for the goriness of birth- by making you feel so terrible you don't care how the baby comes out as long as it's out!

That said, we managed to get through 90 percent of the to-do list. Thank goodness. Most of the stuff around the house is finished. We have all of our bathrooms working, we have all the light fixtures working and/or converted to ceiling fans. The cars are all in working order, oils changed, and all repairs big and small are finished (fingers crossed for nothing else to go wrong...). The firewood is chopped and stacked.

My reward for all the last few weeks of heartache and hard work-- I'm getting a prenatal massage tomorrow. Oh, I hope it's great. Of course, any sort of relaxation and quiet time would feel nice at this point.

On another note, I decided to bump up our biweekly automatic savings transfer by $50, to $300 per paycheck. It may not sound like a lot, but it would mean an extra $100 a month, which can really add up. I'm hoping we won't miss the extra $25 a week.

It also dawned on me today that our college savings will have to go up dramatically once the new baby arrives. we put about $5,000 a year away for Bean, and we'll have to do the same for Bean Two. Not sure how we will come up with the extra money, since the recession has basically killed my income, but we'll figure it out somehow.

I am seriously feeling the deadline pressure. Little Sid is supposed to arrive between Nov. 13 and 19 (hopefully not earlier).

I managed to knock some stuff off the to-do list this week:

We managed to get oil changes and new wipers on both cars, a muffler and new brakes, turn signal bulb, and serpentine belt on the cars that needed them.

We also got all the ceiling fans installed. The plumber is coming tomorrow to reseat the toilet on the floating floor (we had been unsucessful).

The giant pile of firewood is chopped, and the chimney has been swept.

I finally got my H1N1 vaccine, and have heard there is a clinic for babies next week so I can take Bean in for his.

Only things left on the to-do are seasonal flu shots for me and hubby. (Bean had his today), and H1N1 for bean and hubby.

Then, I hope, we will be ready for baby No. 2.

Of course, it would be nice to get most of the Christmas shopping out of the way too. I've done some, but getting all of it finished seems darn near impossible.

I'll also have to hope I can stock the freezer and pantry with easy to make foods before I go into labor. Last time, I felt like I was starving all the time, and I had never seemed to have the right food on hand. Not this time!

Well, it's 4 weeks until my due date for Bean No. 2. I have been knocking some things off my to-do list, because even though it's hard to move with a big preggo belly, it's more impossible to get things done once you have a newborn keeping you up all night.

So, we've been spending way too much:
$300, unexpected brake repair on car
$130, new muffler for car
$60, replace broken belt on car (see a theme here?)
$300, installation of ceiling fans in kitchen, 2 kids rooms (converted from recessed light fixtures a la 1957).
$400, cost of fans for rooms

I still need to get oil changes and new wipers for both cars, replace the door between my kitchen and garage with something that will actually block the cold air (and pay to have it installed), and pay a plumber to reseat the toilet in our guest bath. We can't seem to get it right since we had a floating floor installed and the flange is slightly below floor level now-- and I can no longer pick up and move the toilet.

Note to everyone: my hubby is so not handy. I do all the home improvement projects (dad was an engineer...it rubbed off.). So when I can't physically do the work, it gets expensive.

Also, while the light fixtures were being converted to fan boxes, I realized there is no insulation above one of the bedrooms. That explains why it is so cold in there all the time. I have no idea why, as I can see the batts and the cellulose above the other rooms, but all I see if roof rafters and no insulation in this one room. I may have to pay someone to go put something up there, as this is Bean two's new bedroom, and you can't have a freezing newborn.

I am currently two round to fit into the attic access panel, and probably shouldn't be breathing or handling insulation at this late date.

So, money money everywhere!! It never seems to want to stay in my bank account.

It's time to buy Beaner the next size up in pants and some sweaters for fall and winter. I had planned to just go to Kohl's and buy him pants, as they are on sale for 2 for $10.

But on a lark I decided to check two thrift stores first. I'm glad I did! I got him 7 pairs of pants, including 3 that are the same brand I would have bought at Kohl's, and three sweaters for $18.

Funny how we forget to check the cheap places first. I guess because it's faster and easier to make one stop at the regular store, where you know for certain they will have what you need .

We have a half bathroom off of the kitchen that hasn't been usable for two years. We had a floating floor installed in the kitchen and bathroom, and because the toilet flange was slightly below the level of the new floor, it leaked. Every time we flushed, it'd send water cascading into the laundry room below. That's why we haven't been using it.

I know. We should have fixed it. But at the time, we were pregnant or had a new baby and tackling those projects was last on the list. So, we closed the door and it's like that room has not existed.

Now that I am seriously nesting and staring down the barrel of a second baby, I am feeling immense deadline pressure to get home improvement projects done.

I called the flooring installers to get a quote for redoing the floating floor in the half bath. I was floored by what they wanted to charge me for such a small space-- $500!!! And that's with $100 off for me taking out the toilet and sink myself.

Uh, no, I'm sorry. I would have paid about half that. So, I began tackling the job myself. I spent about $95 on supplies-- new jigsaw blades,extra floor tiles, etc.

I started demo on Wednesday. I unhooked the toilet and hubby was gracious enough to move it now that I am too preggo to lift heavy objects. I also inspected all the damaged floor tiles and removed them. Also easy.

While the toilet was out, I repainted the accent wall in that bathroom, using leftover paint from the accent stripe I painted in the bedroom in February. Looks great and it cost nothing.

Last night, I used the jigsaw to cut the tile. It wasn't hard at all. All that's left to do today is click the floor tiles back in place. Supposedly, this is easy, but we'll see.

If it does work out, I saved us $410, which is enough to replace two of our kitchen doors with more energy efficient ones, but that is another story...

FINALLY! Some money to the tiki fund. I made a few sales on Etsy and this is the profit. I need to start working harder to replenish the tiki fund, since I emptied it to pay off my student loan.

Just an update. We managed to put $782 into savings this week. $550 of it was planned savings-- our $250 direct deposit every payday, plus the $300 extra for what used to go to the student loan payment. The other $232 came from a check from hubby's side work. A nice bonus, considering our side work has basically dried up this year.

I'm up to 39 pounds of veggies from the garden this year. Realistically, I am not going to make it to 100 pounds this year. It just didn't work out. In part, because I was super duper pregnancy sick and tired during planting time. But what we have planted has done well.

And, a lot of it doesn't weigh much-- like hot peppers-- so we really do have an abundance of produce, even if it isn't translating into heavy numbers.

Whew. This week was expensive on the health front.
Turns out gestational diabetes isn't just a pain in my butt, it's expensive. It's going to cost me a minimum of $100 a month PLUS the special food for my diet for the next 3 months. I don't know what we would do it we were more cash-strapped. If you're living paycheck to paycheck, how could you afford all the test strips and stuff?

Hubby also got glasses and contacts this week. Since he only goes to the eye doctor every few years, he got one pair of glasses and two pairs of contacts. Total: $600, after insurance. Insurance only paid for part of one pair of glasses.

After looking at how much we pay in vision insurance premiums and how much we actually saved, we've decided to cancel the insurance. Eye exams aren't that expensive, I don't wear glasses, and we'd actually come out ahead not paying the premiums. Sad, huh?

On a non-medical front, we canned 7 quarts of homemade pasta sauce yesterday. It feels nice to have something put up for the winter. When the next round of tomatoes kick in, we are going to try our hand at salsa.

I canned today for the first time ever-- 2 quarts of pasta sauce made with stuff straight from garden.

Usually, we make stuff and freeze it, but last year, we lost power for 5 days and lost everything, so I was determined to learn to can. I don't want to have AEP determine the fate of my produce. It really wasn't that hard.

I just found out I have gestational diabetes. I am totally blindsided, as I didn't have it when I was preggo a year and a half ago with the bean, have no family history and none of the risk factors. I don't know why this time would be different.

I'm really upset about it. I don't know how I am going to completely revamp my diet and do good knows what else while taking care of the bean and being exhausted from being pregnant.

I just feel like after the last couple years, with both my grandparents dying and my dad dying that I can't take any more emotionally, but that the crap just keeps on coming. It's like I just can't bear anymore, but tough luck, I have to,.

I put $550 to savings today. It felt great, like I am finally back on track after so many paychecks of saving nothing. I also paid all the bills.

Today was also the first month in 10 years where I didn't have a student loan payment deducted from checking. That feels nice. The decision to pay it off I think was a good one.

of course, that also is the reason we were able to put so much in savings!

I just added up how much our new rewards credit card has added to Bean's college fund: $195, in "free" money.

(We pay off the card in full every two weeks, and use it for convenience.) It pays cash into a brokerage account we set up as a secondary college fund for the Bean.

If I had stuck with my former card, an Amazon rewards card, I would have netted less than $100, all in Amazon gift certificates. I really do think we made the right decision when we switched.

I picked 2 pounds of beets today, so my 100 pound produce challenge is up to just under 21 pounds. Not too shabby.

I went to the St. Vincent thrift store yesterday and did I make out like a bandit!

I got a really nice graco pack n play for $6.99. I couldn't believe the price. The one my mom bought used was $40, and that was a good price!

I also bought an extra little tykes chair for Ben's table set for $2.50, a complete Dr. Seuss ABC board game for $1, and a pack of 11 baby puzzles for free! (Buy one get one for games.)

It was a great stop.

I also picked all the beets from the garden today. I will wash them and weigh them and then update the garden challenge.

I still can't believe it. I have NEVER had cable TV since I moved out of my parents' house at 18. So for 16 years, no cable, and for 5 of those, no TV at all.

I'm still a little dizzy thinking about it. So what happened?

Hubby LOVES soccer. Unfortunately, he couldn't see the games he wants to see. He had to go to a bar or to someone else's house to watch games. He began lobbying for cable TV, with the Fox Soccer Channel, a month or so ago.

I finally caved and we had cable installed yesterday. It will be costing us about $50 a month extra on our phone/internet bill.

Hubby says it's fine, we can afford it.

We can. We have zero debt now, and we don't go out much because we have a bean and a second one on the way. (it's just too hard to get a sitter to go to the movies!)

We'll see how it goes. I am still skeptical. Mostly, because I don't want to be that guy who sits and surfs channels when nothing is on, which usually nothing IS on. I also don't want to raise TV addicted children. I want them to be out actually in the world, not sitting watching a virtual world.

Bean, at 16 months, has still seen NO television. He won't until 3, when we will start DVDs of Sesame Street.

My final payment hit today. My $40,000 in student loan debt is officially PAID IN FULL. I am now transferring my monthly payment to my savings account instead.

I graduated in 2001, and have been whittling away at that loan ever since.

When I got my first office job out of college, I vowed to keep freelancing and use all of my freelance money to pay down the loan. Some months, I was sending $1000 extra. When times were slim, I sent $50 extra. But as long as I had work, I always sent a little extra with the payment.

If I hadn't done that, I'd still be paying down that stupid debt 10 years from now.

My advice to those of you with loans-- always send a little bit more than you have to, even if it's $5. It does shave time off the loan.

So I'm just shy of 19 pounds of produce so far this year. My goal is to grow 100 pounds of my own food from my very small urban garden.

I was planning to pick and process the beets today, but it is pouring down rain. Again. I'm happy to have the free water, but Bean and I don't like being stuck in the house.

I'm happy to report that the zucchini plants have finally given up and died. Thanks god. Bless them for being such good producers, but my freezer is packed with zucchini, and it got so bad that every time I picked one I would be angry, because I didn't want to have to come up with something ELSE to do with a zucchini.

I did try an awesome veggie chowder recipe (with zucchini, of course) yesterday. It was quite good. I will have to thank mom for the cookbook.

In other news, I am waiting for my student loan pay-off payment to clear the Dept. of Ed. It left my bank account this morning, but there is always a couple of days lag until it is processed by the Dept. of Ed. I hate waiting!

Once that clears, I will shuffle things about so the money I would have spent on a payment will go to the savings account instead.

I also have to get back on the wagon and rebuild the tiki bar fund. I liquidated $3000 of it to pay off the student loan. I haven't been very good at building it up this year. I'm also not so sure how much money is really to be made in eBay. etc. this year. I think everyone is cutting back on discretionary purchases, and I think that will make it harder to earn extra dollars.

Thanks for sharing all of your thoughts on my student loan. The money from savings hit my checking account today, so I scheduled my LAST payment. It should take another day or two to process on the lender's end.

When it does, I will cancel my monthly payment debit, and then have the $300 I would have sent for the loan transferred to savings once a month.

I think it will be a great weight off of me. Many times I've thought of taking enrichment classes at community college but have talked myself out of it because I still had my loan payment. Maybe now I will be more free.

I have about $8100 left to pay on a student loan. Between the vacation fund and the tiki fund (yes, that one...), I have enough to pay it off. Right now, the payment on that loan is about $300 a month. We are expecting another baby in November, which means another college fund.

We'd still have a decent-sized emergency fund. As long as hubby and I can stay at least partially employed, we will be in good shape.

The loan has really started bothering me recently. I paid too much for a virtually worthless degree. Journalism is no longer a profession. No one is hiring, the industry is in shambles, and the jobs I had had have never once paid as much as I made working as a Bourbon Street bartender before I got the degree. How sad is it that a bartender can make more than a reporter at a major daily newspaper??

So, I guess I am mad that I spent so much on a degree. and I'm ready to put it all behind me.

So, should I just go ahead and pay it off?
My savings accounts are paying about 1.3 percent, and I am paying 4 percent interest on the loan. We get virtually no tax deduction for it. I would automatically redirect the $300 I was spending back into savings, which would eventually replenish the money I am taking out.

Any thoughts?

A while back I did something I never do: I applied for new credit cards for me and the hubby. After some serious hard thinking, I decided we could do better with our rewards. We switched from an Amazon card to a Schwab rewards card.

We liked the Amazon card, but really, did we need Amazon gift certificates? we used them, but CDs, DVDs, and books are fun but not really getting us ahead. (It had 1 percent rewards)

The Schwab card pays 2 percent rewards, in cash, into a Schwab brokerage account each month. So, instead of a CD we'd actually be getting an investable asset as a reward. Much more our speed.

Caveat:This wouldn't have made sense for us if we didn't already have all of our investment accounts at Schwab. We do.

We already have one brokerage account but decided to open one specifically for this card. It is now the auxillary college savings account for our Beans. Any money we save for college that is above the $2,000 a year per kid we can deduct from our state taxes in our state 529 goes into this account.

After some serious math, we decided we could reach our goal by socking away $4600 a year per kid total in all accounts.

Anyway, I just want to say that after several months the rewards card is working out nicely. It took more than a month for the first deposit to show up, but since then it has shown up regularly.

We charge our day to day expenses and then pay them off every pay day. So far, the card has put about $100 into that account. I deem that a $100 bonus for money we would have spent anyway.

Hopefully I can figure out a way to grow that money for my Beans' college.

I don't know what it is about pregnancy. I feel literally deep down compelled and driven to fix up the house.

My main project has been clearing out the last guest room to transform it into a guest room/ nursery/ play room for the beans.

It had turned into the room where we moved everything that we no longer had room for somewhere else in the house. It's been a lot to go through.

I freecycled the full-size bed ( I have a futon in there instead), the old dresser from our master suite, and a 1960s telephone chair that had been sitting in the closet. I emptied the closets of almost everything-- a few odds and ends left. Tomorrow, I need to go through the cedar chest I inherited from my grandparents and decide what to keep, and where to put it.

I've also been cleaning out the garage and most of the closets trying to get rid of clutter. My new goal is to give what we don't use to the organizations and people who can most benefit, but that is a lot of work!

After this weekend, I am hoping to have the flooring replaced in our upstairs powder room (it is water damaged, from improper seating of the toilet). And, after I paint the new play room in an ocean theme, call the electrician to get a quote for some ceiling fans.

I don't know what's gotten into me. I haven't really felt the desire to fix the house since my last big project binge in February. Hubby took Bean on a week-long trip, so I redid our master bedroom and completely remodeled the bathroom that week and I was home -improvemented out.

But, these last few weeks I feel agitated and bothered if I'm not making progress. I suppose this is normal!

I noticed the basil plants were large and happy, so I decided today was the day to process it. I figured I would get something done before the next round of zucchini take over my life. So, Bean and I trimmed the plants (he supervised...) and then turned them into 2 batches of walnut pesto. Mmmm. It should be enough for a couple of pasta meals this winter. I still have some leaves left, but not enough for another batch of pesto. My sister is loaning me her seal a meal tonight so I can pack the extras and freeze them.

It seems like forever since we've actually been able to put any money in the savings account. It seems like every month we had a big expense that just wiped out all of the extra.

I had ambitious savings goals for this year, but let's face it. Thanks to the economy, our income has dropped off. My freelance income has dropped by 75 percent. My husband's side income has almost completely dried up, leaving us one pay check and not a lot of side work pay to meet the goals. We are treading water as a result.

We have a second baby on the way. That isn't helping. The Bean was such a difficult infant that we have been taking a lot of short trips and going out to dinner a lot, in anticipation of having absolutely NO life once the second baby arrives. I know that's kind of terrible, but we also know how hard it's going to be to have two boys under 2.

Maybe when Bean Too is born, we will be able to save because we won't be doing ANYTHING for 6 months or more!

Anyway, it's time to be more careful and to prioritize again. I think we managed to sock way $450 this month because I was more deliberate. We also didn't go anywhere.

I'm hoping to keep that up. I am currently doing a lot of cleaning and decluttering around the house. I guess my maternal nesting instinct is kicking in. I feel compelled to get rid of extraneous belongings and to empty out closets to make room for another person. Luckily, cleaning and donating are free.

I do have some house projects that I would like to have finished before the new bean arrives, namely repairing our half bath in the kitchen. the toilet wasn't seated correctly, so the floor needs to be replaced and the toilet redone so it doesn't leak. And, I'd like to have ceiling fans installed in both of the kids' rooms and in the kitchen. More of a nice upgrade and a comfort thing than a necessity. I have no idea how much the fan electrical work will cost. They would be replacing recessed light fixtures. Is that a big deal? I really need to call the electrician!!

One ofy new year's goals was to grow 100 pounds of produce in my home garden. It's still early in the season for the things I'm growing, namely tomatoes, potatoes and butternut squash, but here are the numbers so far:

14.6 lbs zucchini-- all from 2 plants
1.35 lbs. beets
.18 lbs hot wax and banana peppers (8 peppers)

16.13 lbs. total A long way to go to hit 100!

The second part of the challenge is to not let anything go to waste. We have turned the zucchini into 6 loaves of bread plus 12-2 cup bags of frozen for later addition to bread or soup. (We also roasted and ate some and made casseroles).

One of my goals this year was to grow 100 lbs of food in my garden. So far, I am up to about 13 pounds. As you probably guessed, mot of it is zucchini so far, although I did pull 1.5 pounds of beets yesterday.

I have tried everything in the book to get rid of those zucchinis. I made bread, then shredded most of it and froze it in 2 cup bags (for more bread...). Last night, I made a casserole. It wasn't bad, but hubby was like "is this another clever way to hide zucchini?" Um... yes.

Well, there have been rumors of layoffs swirling around hubby's workplace for months. It looks like it starts this week. I am praying he is spared. My worst nightmare-- 5 months pregnant with no income and no health insurance. I can't even process it. Who knows how much the COBRA would cost. Probably so much that it would burn through our savings really quickly, despite not having any other huge monthly obligations.

I have always thought to myself that we could make it through this downturn we can just stay employed. If we can just keep that one income, we will be able to make it and stay on course. I guess keeping the job is the hard part.

Well, I had no idea how much work having a yard sale is.

After hours of prep, hanging signs, setting up tables and then sitting outside, I only made $100. After you deduct lunch and what I paid to put an ad in the local paper,(in addition to my free craigslist ads) I only made $40. How depressing.

The only positive is that I managed to get rid of some bulky items to clear room for the new Bean. The bad news is that I have a giant pile of stuff to still get rid of in the garage.

I am torn about what to do. Do I pull the stuff out again later in the summer and have another sale? Call the thrift store for pick up? start freecycling it one item at a time?

I'm feeling like a prisoner of stuff. I don't want clutter and I don't want stuff!!

Boy, I've been MIA on my blog for a long time! Things have been crazy!

I'm 18 weeks along. We find out next week if we are getting the baby girl we want. Beaner is, at 15 months, very charming and very curious, therefore a handful.

I have just recently emerged from my first trimester sleep-and-barf fest (ladies, you know what I'm talking about), and now I have a week to throw my very first yard sale.I have been putting things aside for weeks but still feel totally unprepared and overwhelmed!

I hope to make money, but my real goal is to just get rid of all this stuff that is living in our house. We have no time for cleaning and dusting with one kid, let alone when we have another to take care of, so if we don't love ir or use it, it has got to go!!

The guest room has become the yard sale staging ground. I have boxes filled to the brim practically everywhere. I have put prices on some of it, but have a feeling I will be out front at 8 a.m. saturday putting tags on a everything I forgot.

My worst fears: no one showing up and forgetting about a box of useless stuff and finding the day after the sale.

Am I crazy or what??

I'm having my very first yard sale this summer. We really need to clear away clutter now that we have another baby on the way. Plus, I really feel the need to minimize.

Do you have any tips on how to throw a successful yard sale?

Hi guys. I am thinking of doing away with paper towels, or at least trying to significantly reduce our usage. Do you have any suggestions for what type of washable towels might be the best replacements? I need something that is sturdy, all purpose and can clean up baby food messes.

Thanks!