Happy Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day to all the wonderful moms out there.

I spent some time at my mom's with my daughter and grandchildren, my youngest son, and my youngest daughter. My oldest son was hidden away in a bedroom somewhere so I didn't get to see him but he did leave me a message on Facebook.

I spent approximately $33.00 on stuff for my mom. My 12 yr old and I got her a $25.00 gift card to Bed Bath n Beyond *her newest addictive shopping place* and a bunch of gorgeous brightly colored flowers for $7.50.

We had some various greeting cards that we inherited when my ex husbands grandmother died that we used for mom's day cards. I love them. They are truly vintage cards. The pictures and sayings reflect that and you can see the age of the cards. I love things like that. And they were free so that didn't hurt.

The past week has been interesting. I was dealing with a pretty bad sunburn (stupid me forgot the sunscreen when we went to the races last weekend) and money has been very tight.

I found out my 12 yr old has inherited bunions and flat feet and needs $350.00 orthopedics for her feet to help try to either prevent or delay surgery. I don't have the money. I have been fighting with her father to help pay for them. He says he can give me $50.00 every two weeks for 3 weeks. And that is all he is willing to do. While that helps a lot, it isn't quite the 50% he said he would help with for anything over and above the norm. That $350.00 doesn't include the cost of the new special sneakers she needs either. Those will run approximately $60-100.00. Goodie.

Insurance won't cover the cost of the orthopedics. It is excluded. They would rather pay thousands for foot surgery instead of preventative measures. Go figure the logic on that one...

Anyway, the rent was paid and this week is the cell phone bill. And hopefully the cable bill and part of the electrical bill.

I would so love to get to the point where the money just goes into the checking account and sits there for a month so I can then sit down and just pay the bills once or twice a month instead of trying to do it week by week.

It is very frustrating to struggle week to week.

At least my savings is growing. Slowly. Only $20.00 a week at this point but it is growing. I have a long way to go to get to my $1000.00 savings account.

I have a very hard time not going to Panera Bread in the morning. If I took the $10.00 I spend there every morning and put it in my savings account I would reach the $1000.00 quickly. Very quickly.

I did buy an eco friendly cup with screw on cap and very heavy duty plastic straw for $8.00. I plan on making my own Chai Tea Latte's for the morning. That will save about $6.00 right there. Then I just need to replace the bagels with either bagels from home or english muffins. That will replace the other $4.00. Then I could put $50.00 a week into savings on top of the other $20.00 a week that goes into it automatically.

I don't shop a lot for clothes, shoes, etc. I don't shop much at all anymore. It is all food. Quick meals out, breakfasts out when I don't make the time to have breakfast at home, lunches out instead of bringing lunches to work with me (or going home for lunch).

That is something I really need to work on. Badly. I make a pretty good wage. I should have a lot of money to go out and do things. I don't. Between bills and basically being too lazy to just make meals (even if it is late) I am killing myself financially.

I need to work on changing this part of my life.