Wednesday, August 6, 2008

A post in which I talk about chaos, money and medicating with ice cream sandwiches...


What to report... hmmm... NOTHING. The last couple of weeks have been taxing and wonderful completely sucky with a large sprinkling of delight. As far as work goes, I can't wait for the weekend. When contemplating the weekend however, I'm totally overwhelmed with the chaos that we're scheduled to be apart of. On Friday night we're farming out a couple of dogs and taking one (Rocko) with us to our nephew's birthday "camp-out" party which is of course over in "America" where you have to take the ferry and spend a billion dollars on gas... After spending the night we'll hurry home (on the ferry after waiting in a ferry line) to collect our left-behind-boys in time to participate in a fund raising event for the local off-leash parks followed by an evening production that my sister is in at the local playhouse. There is supposed to be a visit from my brother and sister-in-law with their delectable little ladies too so that they can also see my sister's show, but with all the sickness I'm nervous for them to possibly change their plans. It would be great to have time with them too and I suppose that would translate to dinner since that seems to be the only hour left in our very packed day.

Phew!



Normally being busy is not so bad, but it's the busy before travel that seems to be more overwhelming. I still have to fit my cleaning job in to the weekend and allot of packing and laundry and house chores too. I can't wait to take off, to get away. I leave Tuesday and my lovely husband is taking ALL of next week off so, he's getting excited too!

I have a new favorite thing in the whole universe (which means grocery store): The Skinny Cow Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwiches.

Holy Moly! These babies are SO GOOD! I had one the first night and within a half an hour, despite being completely full, I was peering in to the "office" at my husband asking, "would having two make a Fat Cow?" They're pretty ginormous especially compared to the old school ice cream sandwiches that I never cared for, but I'm officially addicted and wish that I would keep them in my pocket for work day "emergencies." For now, they are my end of the day treat and skinny or fat I had two tonight.

Busy, busy summer bees running around doing this and that, but all the while bending around what the pups require. (I'll miss them when I'm gone, oh boy will I miss them.) The other major activity in our household I suppose... budgeting, but more than that (because we've made allot of budgets over the years) we're working on spending. And more than spending, we're working on me NOT SPENDING. Ugh. It's so hard to stay in those "lines" sometimes! We're going to attempt a new system that seems as though it may work better and it actually takes a little pressure and work in regards to bill paying off of me which will be nice I think. With three mortgages and gas/commute expenses going up like they have we have to watch our pennies so closely now, I needed a better way to be forced to keep track and cash seems the most logical for now. Does anyone have a great system that works for them? How does one keep track and make sure to save and plan and all that jazz? Are you even keeping track? Do you share this responsibility with your spouse/partner pretty evenly? I've always been taught that finances should be a joint project and effort and certainly something that's communicated about well. While it's a little humiliating, I have no problem admitting that I need help from my other half to manage all of the things we have going on and support to resist the urge to pick up this or that when we simply cannot live that way. We're doing pretty well for a young couple I'd say, we own two homes and have a used car loan and only a tiny bit of credit card debt with some reserve money in the bank, but I want to keep going in the right direction and not be dipping into savings every month as has been the tendency when I was "in charge" of the checkbook. I don't carry a credit card and now it looks like I'm going to give up my debit card to our main account and just use my own account for a smaller list of budget items while the hubster will take charge of paying bills. I'll be interested to hear what others are doing and hopeful that this is a better method for us.

It would be tragic if my Skinny Cows didn't make the grocery budget cut, I think I just might consider giving up cream in order to have them... well, maybe.

3 comments:

Raven said...

You own two homes? That is amazing! Wills handles all the money stuff. He is super anal and I am super not so it makes sense that he is on top of everything. We have two savings accounts, one for taxes (we opted not to escrow) and one for trips (I mandate that I get to travel) and then he has a 401K with his job. We have more credit card debt than we would like and our goal is to start working some of that down but he went and bought himself a fancy new car instead. Sometimes even the anal can be dumb.

always sunny said...

skinny cow rocks.

IndianaJones said...

i have been known in the past to have a skinny cow obsession....they are certainly tasty.

As to financial advice. You know us well enough I think to know to basically do the opposite of whatever we do cause somehow we've failed miserably.
Let me know if you find the perfect solution:)