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I expected today to cost me at least $10. It was award ceremony day for our professional writing students, and I had to park in the ramp, haul the trappings for the ceremony upstairs and help set up.

But the barrier at the ramp was up as we were holding a fair for incoming students, so parking was free. There was leftover food which I patched together for lunch, and even coffee and a quart of cream. These small bonuses are so fun.

On a frugal front, I had to meet a new...
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Hubby had his scan yesterday..it cost $200 so not a great expense and worth it to not have to wait another 6 weeks..we get results next friday and hopefully a treatment plan...parking was free so no cost there. If he has to have daily treatments at the hosp he gets free parking as he has a disability sticker..so that will help...not sure what other kind of expenses we will be looking at so have decided against paying off the CC completely and just adding to our ice accout for now...
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I met with our CPA today to do our taxes. They aren't actually done. He and his crew need to actually do the work and then get back to us with the results. That will take a week or so, but my end is done. He has all of the data he needs.

I'm super organized when I go there, which he greatly appreciates, so we zip through the actual tax part of the meeting pretty quickly. We then move on to the discussion portion: How much do we have saved for retirement? Do I have a retirement...
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College funding is a priority for our family. I hate student loans so much – it seems like they hold young adults back right at a time in their lives that they should be future-focused and optimistic. We communicated to the boys early that we would do everything possible to pay for college so they didn’t need to start their adult lives fighting debt. In order to do that, there are things we sacrifice but we’re okay with it because our priorities are in line with our values....
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Yesterday I copied all the cards and ID's in my wallets (I have three) and filed them away. Now I'm ready, if someone steals my stuff! Why do I have three wallets? One is a little one that fits in my pocket; it contains my most-used credit cards and membership cards. The second is a large one that also contains my checkbook. It holds my driver's license, medical cards, AAA card, library card, ride-free card, and one store card. My third wallet is a zippered case that holds...
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Made the adjustments on my W4, and added the $50 per pay date to my 401(k) vs my IRA. Once CC10 is gone, I’ll bump the dollar amount to a $100 contribution per pay check.

Today is pay day, I paid an extra $200 to CC10. Finally, this card is under the $5,000 mark. Next month, I’ll be able to drop an extra $1,000 on it.

This weekend, I’ll be finishing up my taxes, my refund is about $600, I’m okay with that. I was hoping to break even but hey it’s better than owing....
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These are my to do lists for the next couple weeks. I will likely get all of the financial ones done this week and hold off on the more physical activities until next week. I am finally able to drive today to go to the doctor. I still have a full head and runny nose and exhaustion, but the worst from having the flu is behind me. I spent a good ten days in bed. That was the worst flu I've ever had and I am behind on everything.

1. Get ready for taxes
--gather my Youtube/Google...
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My 2020 goal #4 is “Pay no CC interest or fees”.

Since I have a balance on a 0% card that expires in May, I’ve decided to do a combination of paying it off and transferring to another 0% card with no fee involved. I applied for a Bank of America card (I mentioned it on Amber’s blog earlier.) that has a 0% rate with no fees for balance transfers before mid-March. It was approved and they just completed the balance transfer.

The original total amount parked on the...
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Yesterday was pay day. I paid my mortgage, my property tax, my Discover card, and my "car payment" to AMEX. I still have $2230 in checking for utilities and assessment fees, when they come due, and then to apply to next month's bigger bills, which include paying for the crown and car repairs.

It looks like if I can keep my spending under $340 from now till the 12th, when my Discover card closes again, I can pay off my bills next month without touching savings. I also have...
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Well good news today, my biospy came back normal no cancer present just sun damage which is great news..especially since my hubby has just been diagnosed with cancer...he has a scan tomorrow to see if it has spread or not and then find out next week treatment options etc...so that will be around $200-400 not sure till tomorrow...not looking forward to that but at the same time just want to start getting treatment started and knocking the cancer on its butt!!

Hubby got his new...
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We took a short trip to Atlanta this past weekend; the kids had a couple days off work, and we wanted to get a break from the cold and snow. It was only in the 50s and a bit gloomy there, but that felt heavenly to us!

Here's the spending totals for a four-day trip (left Friday night, came back Tuesday afternoon). Travel can really add up for a family of five!
Airfare: $994
Lodging: $655
Checked luggage: $60
Taxis & rideshares: $284
Food & drinks: $947
Tickets (aquarium...
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Dinner out with the boys last night was pretty inexpensive. I had a $5 coupon for Corner Bakery, and I used the balance of my gift card from the House Calls program, so I only paid $7 out of pocket. I had soup, and the boys had mac & cheese and linguine with meatballs.

My prescription was cheap as well -- only $3 -- but the CoQ10 is not cheap. I did remember this from previous flirtations with it. I bought a double pack of 100 mg tablets because it was the lowest unit price....
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I have chosen to cut a few things from our budget that have just come up (we pay most things annually) and that is our extra garbage can..we don't use it all that often so have cancelled it...so will save $145 for the year...also our chemist (your drug store) we get discount when we buy from them but not sure if we will continue with that it depends if they have one product i am looking for but is expensive if they do we will continue...if not we won't renew and will save $64 for the year.
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I start my part-time job tomorrow. I am looking forward to earning an income. My earnings are enough to pay utilities, food, insurance and my Roth IRA. We cut the cord with the cable company and my hubby seems to doing okay with just having Netflix. I watch TLC online through the kindness of my sister. I'd be crushed if I could not watch Dr. Pimple Popper (my friends think that I need therapy for wanting to watch that). I also like to watch 90 Day Fiance. What a circus!

Now...
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I'm having very mixed feelings about work and thinking about DD's educational plans. All of this has led me to finally sign up for the "Are You Five Years From Retirement?" seminar at work.

I think I probably AM within that five year window, and I also think I'd like to find out my options. It's not until March, but it's a complicated system with pension, 403b, unused sick days, etc. It will be interesting to see how things look.

I also signed up for the wellness screening...
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I can see that our federal tax refund is expected to be direct-deposited in two days. We’re getting $2606 back this year which means I had too much withheld, but next year we’ll lose $3500 in child/dependent tax credits so I’ll need to adjust withholding to prevent owing a thousand bucks, assuming all other things are equal this year. I’ll take a closer look at that during the summer after I know whether there is any increase in income and after I take some time to research...
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I had another no-spend day yesterday. In the afternoon I took a walk that took me over 6,200 steps. It was snowing in a very wet way, but it wasn't cold or windy, so it wasn't too bad. One of my feet got a little wet, so there must be a leak in my boot. That is a problem to be addressed later.

This time I walked a very big circle in my neighborhood and I saw lots of interesting houses and buildings I hadn't noticed before. Many houses that made my tongue hang out it in...
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I filed our tax return for 2019 on Sunday. The IRS and our home state where we file have both accepted the returns. My husband's income is exempt in our home state, so we owe nothing and since we didn't have any state withholding taken, there is also no refund.

We are getting a $1,308 refund from Federal. I had several years in the past where we tried to get closer to zero refund or owed, but I have skipped that the last two years because of tax changes and different credits...
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next friday we should have the grading and treatment that my hubby should be getting for his cancer, I was going to pay off the CC next month but we only have $2000 in our ice account so I have decided to pay $500 a month onto the CC and put the rest into our ice account until we hit a few more thousand as we don't know what our expenses will be in the coming months...it seems good to me we won't be paying much interest on the CC and our savings will grow. If we don't have a lot...
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It was a work-laden weekend. I read more instructor evals than I'd care to admit and wrote four evaluations/summaries of them. Three of them were outstanding, but it will be a difficult conversation with the fourth. I'm scheduling it for next week.

I had a great breakfast with my work friends on Saturday. Nothing like six women--all with complicated lives to take up two hours of talk time. But so so happy my friend with MS is doing so much better.

In other news, DD is...
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