Today was payday and I am happy to say that I was able to save 100%. I was able to save so much because I don't have any credit card debt. Sent in my last payment last month.

I was busy running a lot of errands. Combined them all so that I only had to take the car out once.

Used the slow cooker again. I made creamy chicken and egg noodles. Delicious. I foud the recipe on recipezaar.com

Today started off with the ususal...making hubby's sandwich to take to work,laundry,dishwasher and taking care of the doggies. I then sat down and began to write one of the three letters of complaint. I decided to write to my doctor first and describe in detail what happened to me the other day with regards to being turned away from having my procedure. The next letter will be to the vice president of the hospital and the third letter will be to my insurance company vice president. I made a new appointment today and the earliest they could give me was November 20, 2006. That will be a two month delay in treatment. I think that this is totally unacceptable but at this point I have exhausted all other means. I'm just hoping that the next patient that comes along will not have to go through this same scenario.

I then tried out my new crock pot. $19.00 brand new after rebate and it came with the little dipper. I made thai chicken in peanut sauce with jasmine rice. It tasted pretty good. Hubby liked it and so did DD. While that was ccoking I went out to do the yard work. Mowed the lawn. This will probably be the last cutting until the spring. Then I got up all the leaves and boy there sure were a lot of them. Next, I cleaned the walk to the front door. It took me about three hours to do but I didn't mind, the weather here was so beautiful today. It was sunny and about 70. When my hubby got home from work he complimented me on how beautiful the yard looked. He thought that I had someone come and do it for me. Saved a bundle doing it myself. When I got back in the house there was a lot of dog hair hanging around so I got out the vacuum and cleaned up a bit inside.
So, I have just finished cleaning up after dinner and I am relaxing making an entry to my blog.

Tomorrow is payday and I hope to be able to save a large chunk. We will see. I am a little tired now so I will say goodnight!

Happy Halloween! We had some of the cutest trick or treaters! Their costumes were really great. They were also very polite even the older ones. They all made sure they said thank you!( I love polite kids)Still have some candy left over but for the most part it went. My nephews came over to do their trick or treating in my neck of the woods and I have to say that they made out pretty well.

Made dinner and lunch today. Did a little food shopping saved about 25.00 instore coupons and manufacturers. My dollar trial is over for the grocery game and I only kept one of the stores on my list. This will cost me about 5.00 /mnth. I will try it for a little longer and see if I still like it. If not it is pretty easy to cancel.

Took Teddy(my dog) for his PT today he is really walking better. I am so happy. When I originally started taking him I was kind of skeptical about it. With only two sessions left he is doing great. His therapist is such a nice person. I will miss her. We gave her a thank you gift today for all her help. She was very appreciative.

Started looking around online for Christmas gifts and found some nice gifts for my daughter. Yesterday, Apple store had the ipod shuffle(refurbished for 29.00) I bought 2. One for my daughter and one for my nephew. I couldn't believe the price. I'm glad that I at least started. I hate when I wait until the last minute.

Kind of a do nothing weekend. I was kind of glad to get back to work today. The weather was pretty bad here on Friday and Saturday(alot of rain and heavy winds). Couldn't really leave the house and then Sunday it was really windy. Kind of ran out to do a few errands. I was able to catch up on the laundry and bake a little. I read the book A Rocky Road to Romance by Janet Evanovich. It was a quick read and it was a cute story. I took out a few audio books from the library on Saturday. I find them a little difficult to get used to. I think I need to pay attention more while I'm listening to them. I rented a couple of movies,Nacho Libre(What a stupid movie and a waste of time and money)Click(this was pretty good)total $2.18.
Because of this do nothing weekend I spent very little money. My brother did come over to borrow some. So, I am keeping a tally of his balance. He told me he will pay me back this Friday. I've heard this story before. I'm a softy when it comes to my brothers.

I'm thinking ahead to November...and I did not accomplish a few of the goals that I had set for October. So, I am going to cross my fingers and hope that all works out for this coming month. I'm talking about my investment strategy. I'll post, if all works out.

Today is payday. I am fortunate to be able to say that I am able to save the entire check this week. My bills are not due until next week, so that check I will not be able to save anything from. I will however try to roll some coins so that I can put something into the savings department for next week. I am also counting on some money that is owed to me from my 2 brothers. One owes $40.00 and the other owes 50.00. My daughter also owes my 50.00. So hopefully next week I will see some of it.

Yesterday I did my food shopping for the week and did pretty well with coupons. I was able to save over 35.00 at Stop and Shop and another 16.00 at Shoprite. My cost for food and other incidentals came to 120.00 for the week. That is pretty good for me. Not too long ago I can remember spending about 400.00/wk just on food shopping. And I can also remember alot of it going to waste. I do quite a bit more cooking these days and fast food is pretty much non existent. My family and I usually eat out once a week on Sunday, at a very nice restaurant. That is our treat!
The gas prices in my neck of the woods has been steadily declining(2.21/gallon)I filled up yesterday and have been pretty good with stretching it out to about a week and a half. I have been combining errands more and this really helps.
I washed both cars yesterday inside and out. Saving myself about 20.00. I used to go to the car wash once a week 10.00 /car on Ladies Day which was a discounted rate x 2.
Still haven't had to turn on the heat. I'm sure that it's just around the corner though. It really is a beautiful time of the year.

The weather here on Long Island is still very nice. That's supposed to change tomorrow. We haven't had to turn on the heat yet.

Today was payday and I was able to save again this week. Hurray!

I had to schedule another 6 sessions of PT for my dog. He is not progressing as well as he should be. I think that is because of his size. He is a large breed and he weighs 112 lbs., he is down 9 since his surgery.

The grass seed that I put down last week is starting to sprout up. It's so cute and it makes me very happy. We took the heads off the Marigolds and the Petunias this week. We will save them for seed and start the seeds in February so they will be ready to plant next May. We have been doing this for the past 3 years and we get the biggest and bushiest flowers. They are really beautiful. This will be the fourth generation for the Marigolds. I don't need to tell you how much this saves us. The thing I like about the Marigolds is that when they are planted near the front door our ant problem goes away. In the summer we used to have a terrible ant problem. Not any more. Another plus is that the Marigolds have been attracting so many beautiful butterflies.

Went to the local supermarket yesterday, Super Stop and Shop. My total came to $175.69. My total after in store savings using my store card and my coupons came to $98.59. That's a savings of $77.10.

Today I will be going to CVS with a few coupons and I will be using my $15.00 in extra care bucks so I'm hoping that my purchases will be free.

My daughter was looking up the price for one way tickets from Burlington Vermont to New York. As of yesterday the price was 159.00. I told her to wait until Wednesday and she would most likely see the price drop. Sure enough, it did, the same ticket today is only 92.00 plus tax. I think what happens is the airlines see what is left over on Tuesday and the prices go on sale on Wednesday. This was the first time trying this trick and it worked. She will be purchasing her ticket later today. Thanks to good old Mom's smart savings.

Pay day today! Finally, able to save this week. It sure feels good. Was able to roll some coins too(25.00).

Checked my credit score today went up 9 points. I am in the very good range. I have a WAMU credit card and they give you your credit score for free for being a card holder. Pretty cool, it is usually updated every month. I hope things keep up this way for a while. I keep on having thoughts of Christmas in the back of my head and wishing it were a little furhter away.

Cut the grass and seeded it today.

Went to the drug store and two food stores. Used my grocery game list and coupons and had very good success. Took me a while to get the hang of it but I have it now. So using it in the future should be much easier.

Tomorrow is pay day and I should be able to save some of it. Which will make me happy b/c for the last two weeks I wasn't able to save a thing.

I wasn't able to sign on to saving dinner to get my Mega Menu Mailer but the people who answered the e-mails were very nice and helpful. They sent me the download. Which was very easy. Now I just have to plan on a day to do all that cooking.

Now that my youngest is in her senior year of college, we are seeing an end in sight (of tuition payments). We had made a promise to all three of them that undergraduate school would be paid for by us. Graduate school would have to be paid for by them. It was kind of rough in the beginning because we had two going to college at the same time (there was only 1 year age difference)we didn't have a savings account for this at the time and we didn't qualify for financial aid butwe managed. It was difficult, things were tight and gradually we got used to having and living on less. Now that the youngest has one more semester left we are looking ahead to a few things for ourselves.

We have property in PA and we would love to put a cabin on it. It has always been my husbands dream to have a fishing cabin.
I would love to have a decent sized townhouse in FL. for retirement. With regards to the FL.property I would like to purchase something soon and have it rented for the next ten to fifteen years until I'm ready to retire. This way it will kind of pay for itself. Anyway, saving for these two properties is my third goal. They are only dreams right now but maybe someday....

Saved 63.00 in coupons between yesterday and today. Twenty dollars off at Office Max and saved $43.00 in CVS today. Made me quite happy.

On another note. My husband was given prescriptions for his Psoriasis the other day and we were both exasperated at the cost of the copayments. They were astronomical. One copayment was over 200.00. He needed four different creams. We checked out a website in Canada that sold the same medication and the total was 65.00. How is this possible? We are still debating on what creams we will purchase and which ones we will delay purchasing.

Bought my daughter two cute tops at Target today 23.00.

A friend of mine at work asked me when was I going to be getting a new car. I asked her why? She Said" Well isn't your car getting pretty old ". I then proceded to tell her, how much I loved my old car and all the benefits my old buddy provides for me.
1. No car payments. Haven't had one in about 6 years.
2. Decreased insurance premiums. Way cheaper to insure my old buddy then a new one.
3. All of the kinks are worked out. All my old buddy needs is regular oil changes and regular maintenance to keep her running smooth. My car still gets great gas mileage 23 around town and up to 30 mpg on the parkway.
4. Peace of mind...I never have to worry about where I park her,wheter someone is going to nick her or steal her(well maybe steal her). She's been bumped by plenty of shopping carts over the years.
I'm sure my list could be longer.
You see... I didn't even purchase my buddy new. She was somone else's beauty for two years before she became mine. I let someone else take the depreciation and then I scooped her up. I hope to have my buddy for at least ten more years. I sure do like not having to pay a car payment every month.
I don't think my friend will be asking me again,at least for a while about purchasing a new car.

My 2 year old Rotti finally had his 3 week post op visit. Good news, he is healing like a champ and will be able to start his physical therapy next week. The cost for this 138.00. His physical therapy will cost 330.00 for 6 treatments. Pretty Expensive! I'm just hoping that when all is said and done he will be able to walk and enjoy an active quality of life and go on walks.

I was able to place most of my pay into savings this week! I haven't been able to do that in about 3 weeks. Makes me very happy.

Ordered dinner in tonight(Italian)it was delicious. Wasn't too expensive and I have left overs for tomorrows lunch.

I know my neighbors and probably their kids think that I am cheap because I don't have one of the kazillion lawn care people taking care of my grass and yard.
It wasn't always the case. I used to have a lawn care company take care of the yard, in fact I went through three of them trying to find a company to do as I asked . Never happened. I got tired of throwing my money away and having my front lawn dug up by their heavy mowers. So, two years ago I bought an inexpensive lawn mower, weed wacker and a spreader and started to take care of the yard myself. I have to tell you that my grass has never looked better. On top of having a beautiful lawn, I also save a bundle,$50.00 per cutting. Not including fertilizing and seeding the grass, which is an additional savings. It really isn't difficult to do and it is not very time consuming either.

Today was another no spend day for me. Went to the library to check out Kiplinger's and Money magazine, had some good articles. I'm thinking of buying the two magazines, only if I can get a good price. Made lunch and dinner with stuff I already had in the house.

I was able to roll another $37.00 in coins today. That money will be deposited into my totally free checking account for me to tag at a later date.