I am a natural cynic but somewhere along the line I decided life was nicer when I thought the best of people so long as thinking the best of them didn't hurt me. As a result, I tend to be a fairly upbeat person.

Occasionally though I will encounter people in forums or real life that simply feel the need to think the worst of everyone and everything. Frankly, every time I encounter someone like that, I find it depressing. Unfortunately, I think it can also make me negative if I don't take a step back and realize that its happening.

So if I have been negative, I apologize. I think I am going to give up on the forums here for awhile because I really don't have anything constructive to say.

I'm a spender that is saving for retirement and trying to get out of debt and stay out of debt. I think the forums have really become more focused on the people who are natural savers to whom self deprivation comes naturally. Hopefully the blogs will stay focused on people's attempts to save money and pay off debt.

I was going to start hammering out the credit card payoffs starting this month but it looks like I will go easy on that. My husband informed me that there are rumors that the branch he is at will shut down in a couple of months. I am still going to start paying them down but I won't run things tight while his work situation is iffy.

I have been back at my job for about 2 weeks now and things are going great. Very happy and glad to be employed again. Looking forward to that first paycheck.

Have finally decided to go with T-Mobile's prepaid plan. I can buy 1000 minutes and they don't expire for a whole year, plus any refills add 15% of the minutes as well. That puts the husband's phone cost at about $8 per month and mine at about $30. We currently pay $71 now...

We did up our cash allowance to $250 per week. That way it can cover house repairs or other miscellaneous items as needed. This means we are on the 12 month plan to debt payoff instead of the 9 month plan (so long as husband stays employed) but also means we are more likely to stay within the budget. As natural spenders, all the deprivation gets to us after awhile so we are going to stop the sprint and go for the marathon. Think it will work better.

So thanks to the new firm starting up, I will be able to get my husband back on health insurance. The cost will wipe out most of his raise but not all. It should also allow us to remain in a lower tax bracket because of all the pretax deductions (HSA family plan).

I have also decided to switch to using only debit and cash. Its not that I can't handle the credit cards, its that they are much harder to keep track of the spending on and I am tired of having to track spending in multiple locations. Its simply not worth the rewards to do lots of small items on them. Especially since I can see all pending debits instantly but credit card purchases can take up to a week to show.

Its been awhile thanks to my being busy around the house while not employed.

My husband recently got a $3 dollar per hour raise, which will help the debt pay down (which is still on track for March 2010), the cash budget for food has worked out splendidly so we will be keeping that up and we just spent the last three days landscaping the yard so I will probably not accomplish much today. Next month once I have income coming in again, I will update the networthIQ.

Hope everyone else has been doing well. I think I will go catch up on blogs now.

Some of you may remember that I said that my job was probably secure so long as my firm didn't go under. Well, the firm is now just the owner and his paralegal (the office manager and one of the attorneys are there a little longer than the rest but that's about it). So as close to going under as a small firm can get (and who knows if it can last even at that reduced size).

So officially I am laid off as of April 30th but am currently at home burning through my PTO (otherwise they might not be able to pay it). I was on my vacation when everything suddenly went south but fortunately I received a call from a former coworker hiring me to basically be part of a new firm composed entirely of my section of the firm. So I still get to work with the people I enjoy working with.

However, since things went south a little faster than people were planning on, we have anywhere from 2-6 weeks before the new firm is up and running. That should give me plenty of time to work on the house. In a week or so I should probably have a more definite idea of what is going on.

I am just glad that we had my husband switch jobs earlier this year. He is already making more at the new job than he would have made at the old one and he is happier to boot.

I still need to paint the kitchen (seriously, this seems to be my avoid at all costs job, I have done tons of other things, I just don't seem to want to start this one) but the windows are in and boy is it a difference. Given that we have no A/C, they are going to be a godsend this summer. With the new windows in, the house only heats up if I open up the door and let the sun beat in on the floor.

Well, I have a room I want to finish rearranging so I am off and running. As to our finances, they are in good shape though the loss of 2 months income will result in a slow down of our pay off but life happens. My scenarios always were more optimistic than reality but that is why they are called goals.

Starting tomorrow I can begin my project list for the house and get things ready for my week off. I am hoping to get a lot done but am trying to keep my expectations realistic. I figure tomorrow I will start on the kitchen. I have cabinets to line (we have a cork inset), stuff to sort, utensils to organize and edges to tape off for priming and painting. My hubby will be working tomorrow so I can work with impunity since he won't be there (if he sees me working, he instantly sets to work with me, a good problem I know).

The organizational freak in me is looking forward to sorting the whole house (don't really tolerate clutter and believe that if things are cluttered, you have too much stuff not too little space). The bedroom is done but the basement is atrocious because that has been our store all until we have time to sort.

I made lentils and carmelized onions for supper last night and they were fantastic. I am so sick of bread and meat right now that I need dishes that are filling and exclude those two items. Heck I don't even want rice and pasta right now because I am so burnt on the carbs. Will be doing au gratin potatoes this weekend for next week and may even need to do another batch of the lentils. I should also look up bean dishes and make a new one to try. (And yes, we are getting much better about eating at home, finally).

We are still (mostly) on track with the cash spending and definitely still on track with the debt payoff and the last of the home improvement projects that will cost lots of money.

I am going to be taking a week off and I already have a massive to do list for my week off so that it is productive. Hubby dearest must have been thinking that things were winding down because when he saw the list his eyes got as big as saucers.

I had to chuckle a little because I have known for awhile that the week off won't be enough to finish that list and that I still need to make another list of longer term projects. Most of these projects though are just labor intensive or use items we have already procured. Aka, cheap but time consuming.

As you can probably guess, I am the handyman in the house though hubby has been getting better with practice.

Is it sad that I am looking forward to the week off because I want to have things finished up?

I tend to spring clean. Tends to burn off the energy I build as I work myself into a frenzy. I ask because my mood is growing blacker by the moment and blogging and working on paperwork isn't exactly curing it. I wish I was at home so I could scrub floors, work on much needed projects and generally accomplish something with this foul mood.

You should see all the posts I wrote before this, definitely not nice. So what about it, what do you do for foul moods that just won't listen to reason?

and still going. Anyone who has read my food expenditures is promptly dying of shock now. This just isn't like me or at least not like us since we bought the house.

I wonder if this means we are finally settling in and are not feeling as overwhelmed by everything. We still need to tape, primer and paint the kitchen and add the base around the walls in the kitchen but everything else is basically done. (Window guys are coming during my week off). I have a huge list of things to do during my week off and am excited that I will get to finish up projects.

I am almost tempted to artificially extend the no eating out as long as possible to see how long we can get it except I am pretty sure that would backfire (weekends are big for eating out). So I am just going to hope I can manage to repeat this feat next week.

Oh and tonights supper is going to be chicken broccoli cheese and rice casserole. Yummy. Haven't had that in a long while.

And they are gorgeous. It makes a big difference in the kitchen because the lighter wood brightens the room. I will post before and after photos probably this weekend.

Amazingly enough despite all the work going on in the kitchen, for the past two days we have ate supper at home. Hubby's happy because he likes having me cook with him and I am happy because I had no idea I could be so disciplined, lol.

We had cube steak with broccoli and hollandaise sauce last night. Dessert ended up being a butterscotch pudding with dream whip. The night before had been a soft taco night. And tonight, we are doing beer battered chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and probably corn.

The one thing that gave between the cooking at home and the cabinet installers being here till 6 or later was that we didn't get a run in on either day. So running tonight is mandatory. Fortunately the runs are short and are invigorating for me so I shouldn't have any problem cooking afterwards.

Life is well. The cabinet refacers are currently working in my kitchen and I will have a week off to work on the house coming up in about 2 weeks. Still waiting for the phone call from the window guy regarding installation though he has confirmed that he has the windows now, just have to wait for the crew to be available.

We did our first week of cash and did well and are now on our second week of cash. We will see how well this week goes. We have about $17 left but we did spend Sunday cooking so we should have lots of food to eat. (Ironically, it was groceries that were high this week, not eating out expenses).

As I told my husband, we will see if we stop spending when the cash runs out or if we are like our friend and whip out the ATM card as soon as we run out. I personally think we are going to learn to love the dollar menu this week...

On one hand, I am wondering if I am being too stingy with our budget but on the other, I would like to pay off everything as quickly as possible. Food is an extreme variable for our budget.

So I have a lovely Excel spreadsheet set up where I know the number of calls, number of days used, and number of minutes used per phone with all the averages as well for the past 18 months.

We are one of those marginal users who never use their anytime minutes but use the mobile to mobile and nights and weekend. So I have been debating switching to a prepaid since we are on the lowest level plan available at the moment.

I am thinking we will eventually do Net10. The reason I say eventually is because its not worth $255 to get out of our current contracts. It basically comes out a wash since the savings would end up only equaling the fee. So in December 2010, I will switch to a prepaid plan (there may even be more options then).

Last time I checked out prepaid it didn't make sense because we were using the phones alot to call each other, but that is starting to go down severely now that we both work downtown. Heck, my boy has two months where he used less than 60 minutes. Though he would be aghast to know that the two most recent months I had used less minutes than he had.

Anyways something for me to keep in mind. I still haven't decided on the DirectTV but that is basically locked in price wise till 12/2009 and another 6 months after before I can cancel completely so we will see. I suspect I will just drop down to internet only and call it good.

Me? Yeah not so much. Somehow my father and I got on the topic of laundry and I mentioned how rather than going out and spending hundreds of dollars on a dryer, I have a clothes line in my basement and we hang dry everything.

My father chuckled about his too frugal daughter. Is it really that weird that I don't have a dryer? I know the handyman we hired to put our ventilation in was deeply offended that we don't have a dryer but our handymen also liked to live the good life and have much more expensive homes than us.

Its just weird to me that anyone would think I am frugal. I have a lot of toys and I pay for them by not spending a fortune on things I don't care about.

I mean, I knew people who have cars thought it was weird that I lived without a car for forever (and still think its weird that I take the bus instead of the car to work) but a dryer? When did that become a necessity? Am I the only one who grew up with clothes lines (Dad claims mom grew tired of the work after awhile)?

Anyways, I know my dad isn't frugal (my husband was surprised he knew the meaning of the word) but I am a little surprised that so many people think a dryer is a necessity.

Spent most of the weekend playing video games and watching movies which we haven't done in a long while. Started the cash diet for food and it mostly went well. We had a processed food run (normal grocery store instead of our usual place which really only sells vegetables and fruits, not processed junk) so that made the groceries more expensive than normal, a whole $82. I put that on the debit card since I hadn't pulled out enough money for a stock up run.

I did pull $100 cash so that DH and I have lunch money and it will probably last through most of next weekend. We only spent $4 on Friday for supper and $18 for breakfast on Sunday. It will be interesting to see if the cash will make us more or less spendy. For the moment, simply knowing we pulled cash in an attempt to keep expenses down is in effect keep expenses down. The week should be the most telling.

If we keep being this cheap in the long run, we will definitely be in a good place.

Finally one of the companies released its hiring freeze so he gets to start one of the jobs.

I have already moved the budget from survival to debt payoff mode. Looks like March 2010 will be when we are debt free with a small EF built up. Now I just have to keep us on track.

So my husband has been "hired" for three different jobs but none of them have a firm start dates yet. Ahh the joys.

So while he is waiting for something to happen, he is working on the kitchen. We removed the tile backsplash this weekend so he needs to sand everywhere, patch, prime and paint. I figure it will take him all week though he seems to think he can get all of the first run of sanding done today. I think we still have another month before the cabinet refacing so we have the time to get everything done.

I have updated our ticker to reflect the cost of everything. From now on it should only go up though it will be a couple of months before there is any dramatic changes (need husband to be fully employed before we can make any huge dents).

I still remember my father telling me that as long as you don't have more debt than your yearly income, you are doing well. (And you wondered where I learned to pay for things on credit instead of with savings...) I am glad to say we are no where near that level even with my husband being unemployed. The best part is that once he is employed, it will only take a year to clean up the mess and be done with it. I am really looking forward to building our savings back up again.

Oh and for those keeping track, we have spent about $25k on the house repairs and furnishings in four months. $13k of that is for the cabinet refinishing and brand new casement windows so still up and coming expenses.

The right list is short but explains why I have never been in a bad financial situation since I have been living on my own or married.

I keep monthly expenses as low as possible. Our needed items including some not so needed internet, cell phone, satellite TV and netflix is still less than 30% of our net income. I would rather pay a lump sum than pay a monthly bill and I refuse to let monthly expenses get high. I am always looking at ways of cutting these down.

I don't believe in car payments. For the longest time we didn't own a car because gas and insurance cost money and, when we finally did buy a car, we bought it cheap and paid in full.

I have savings deducted automatically and gradually increase it as time goes by. As a result, I never notice the lack of this money.

I am not a hoarder. As a result, we only are allowed to buy things that don't take up a lot of space and are extremely useful. This makes shopping for random stuff a very unlikely thing because I don't want to have to throw things out later.

Now the list of what I do wrong.

Patience is a virtue I do not possess. If I want it, I want it now. Learning to save up is a challenge, especially if I know that something I want will only be available for a limited time at a good price. Case in point was my ps3. I got the model that was backward compatible when it went on sale and was being phased out. I don't like clutter so I wanted only one console instead of two to play the playstation games. I managed to pay cash but I definitely hadn't saved up for it or any other toy that I like.

I have always had cheap credit available to me. I have never paid more than 7% interest in my life and not even that for very long. I always have 0% interest available to me which makes saving up harder because I am already backwards in the way I pay for things.

Which leads to, I don't save enough outside retirement accounts. While retirement accounts have been a part of my life for a long time, learning to save for short term and semi-long terms needs is not something I was really exposed to until I came to this site. At that point, I was still paying off debt and was only focused on that. A year and a half later, I am still working on this. *Sigh*

I am going to get this right eventually won't I?

DH has a new job interview today and if they hire him, they will probably need him to start next week. This would be great because that was when he was supposed to be starting his new job anyway. Same type of position, same time length just a different company.

So maybe this won't turn into a set back after all.

May 2010 is a realistic date for being credit card debt free. As of April, we will have racked back up to 20k (paying no interest but still). *Sigh*

I am glad we have the house, but all the repairs will have set us back a whole year. It doesn't help that everyone is running deals right now in order to get business or that I have no patience.

The only remaining projects in the house are the roof and the furnace. Everything else (and I do mean everything that isn't a gut and rebuild) has been dealt with now. The roof and the furnace both should last at least 4 more years but I will be keeping an eye on them.

I want to get to the point where we are saving up the money and then spending it instead of doing the 0% deals but I suppose I will at least celebrate the victory of not having paid interest on debt in the past year or even in the future year.

At least I don't spend as frivolously as in the past.

That said, here are my goals. I want to get credit card debt free, I want to be maxing out our retirement accounts (at least this has been improving over time), I want to save at least 10% in our emergency fund/long term savings and I want to save 10% for our short term savings (vacations, things or projects that come up, etc).

I think I have a much better chance of reaching these goals from this point forward because I finally have a handle on the splurge money and the house repairs (both of which kept us running over, though to be fair, the house was the biggest issue). That May 2010 date will be reached with full employment and full splurge and house repair levels so it seems highly likely though not guaranteed.

For the EF, I am thinking a year of expenses keeping in mind the potential for needing to fix things should be good but I will have to mull that over. That would be ~41k. So probably 2 years to build that but probably 4 instead so that we can max the retirement at the same time. Definitely something I will be replanning when the debt is gone.

Home Depot was offering free quotes and it was definitely something we were considering in the long run (definitely not now) so tonight we are having someone over to look at our stuff, design the change (I already know what I want so that is not so much an issue) and give us a quote.

I figure the more solid numbers I have, the easier it is to budget and decide between projects. This will be the only thing left in the kitchen not done.

Speaking of which, I need to pull out some soap and towels and scrub the heck out of the veneer we do have on our cabinets. The black stains from use over the years are not very attractive.

This weekend was totally nonproductive and it was glorious. We even tried a nice unpretentious french restaurant during its tapas style menu time and enjoyed trying a variety of items.

So as promised here are photos.



This one is a close up and does a pretty good job of conveying the color.



This one is just a larger swath.

We need to grab 2 more pieces to finish up and then we can move on to repairing the wall where the trim was located, removing the tile backsplash and begin the all encompassing job of getting the walls ready for painting. Ick. Once the walls are painted, we will put the new almond colored trim around the base of the wall.

This kitchen is interesting. At first I only noticed the lime green countertop. Then, once we replaced that, I noticed the pink flooring. Replaced that and now I am noticing the walls, the 1950's yellowed ornate plastic chime for the doorbell and the vent for the furnace about 2/3 of the way up the wall...

The walls I am already prepared for but the doorbell chime and register may need to get upgraded as well. Fortunately they are cheap. Most of the vents in the house have already been converted to a stained wood register so this is just one more. Reason we choose wood registers is because they look more appropriate in a house with original wood floor registers.

Ahh the joys of never ending projects. Believe it or not, we are enjoying the process. :P

Since I know how much you guys love pictures. Here we go.



This is layer one. Its a cream color with pink "grout" lines. The gray you see is the bottom side tearing off because it had been glued down.



This layer was meant to match the lime green countertop and looks very much like the tiles on the walls.



We have two layers of pressed cardboard associated with layers 2 and 3. So the total addition in height was about 3 inches.



Really don't even know what to say for this layer...



This layer is attached to the subfloor and is extremely smooth. We think we might leave it and just put the new layer over it since this gets us back down to an even floor and the actual layer is extremely thin and glued on.

This is DH's project while waiting for the new job to start. I look forward to seeing the new floor being put down.

This weekend I will have to post pictures for those who like to see the before and after shots. So for what we accomplished this week.

We have had our mortar repaired, the old (non working) kitchen vent removed, a new kitchen vent installed, a bathroom vent installed, an intake vent for the gas appliances installed and 2 gable vents installed in the roof.

We even managed to plaster, sand, primer and paint our bedroom as well as removed the old trim and added some new floor trim.

About half of the kitchen floor is ripped up and we need to finish that but all things in good time.

We did have a window guy in to quote new windows (since ours leak like sieves and are broken in multiple ways) and his quote was only $6500 for 8 of our windows (including the monster living room window). This would replace all but the bathroom window with casement windows and we want to eventually put a glass block window in the bathroom for privacy issues.

Normally I would just wait to get the windows but this guy is in high demand and will be booked through the rest of the year by mid year. So, one step back on the credit card debt since I will do a 0% 12 month offer so I have the cash for the windows (already included in the totals) but as far as I know, this is the last big job required for the house. (Notice my qualification there, lol).

It will also make a substantial difference in our heating bill and make us eligible for the $1500 energy efficient window refundable credit that is available this year.

*Sigh* I suppose its a good sign that I don't like racking the cards back up (even at 0%apr). What I find really interesting is that everyone else makes more excuses for me spending all this money on my house than I do. As far as I am concerned, spending is spending.

I was amused when the window company owner told me he would buy my house for 145k on the spot. I really only see my house as a home not an investment, though I am pleased that we paid only 137k for it.

Boy a lot of people I used to follow don't post anymore. When I went looking for one of the people to see if I had just missed their posts lately, I discovered I was number 37 for most entries :O

That seems very wrong. We used to have alot of prolific writers and quite a few have seemed to fade away. I understand that not everyone sticks with this forever but I really haven't been here that long.

Obviously I am far too chatty. :P

Equally obvious, I need to actually use the favorites to keep track of blogs.

So calling all bloggers who haven't updated in awhile, what have you been doing?

Got the bid from the handyman and it was a little high for our comfort (not that he's overcharging, I just think we underestimated the amount of time involved). Asked him to rebid without the attic to see if that will get it low enough.

If the second bid is low enough, we will have him fix all the ventilation in the house so that will finally be finished.

So we have already spent over 10k on this house and that is before hiring anyone to do work. Wow. I knew it would add up, I just didn't think we would have all this accomplished this soon.

Unfortunately this cuts into our reserves. I hate pushing things this tight but we need that ventilation finished.

On a positive note, the Sears Card is being paid in full so now we actually own all of our appliances. :P I still haven't decided whether to pay the couch off in full this month or next but I think March might be safer cashflow wise.

We would have had enough by my earlier calculations but DH isn't very good at estimating debt and has twice underestimated his cards by nearly $200. As a result, he is getting rid of all the cards from his wallet except our main paid in full credit card which I can always see online.

Originally we were going to pass the budget over to him when things calmed down to help him learn budgeting a bit better but he really has no interest so I am going to keep control of the budget. Its kind of weird because he doesn't really like to buy himself a lot so you would think that he would be better with the budgeting then the person who likes to buy things but it doesn't work that way. Because I have always had things I wanted to buy, I have always done calculations to see when I can afford things. He just buys when he wants to buy but then has buyer's remorse.

Who would have thought that the spender in the relationship would be better at budgeting? My big issue with budgeting is that he doesn't really want or need an allowance but he does need splurge money for when he finally does decide he wants something. I need an allowance.

Right now I am feeling guilty because what he wants is a rather expensive trike and we would need to get 2 so we could ride together but we really can't afford it this year. He's okay with that but originally he was supposed to get it this year. We both agreed house repairs needed to come first. I need to come up with someway that his wants don't get backburnered like that ever again because its not fair for me to be able to get things and him not to.

Anyways, I am just thinking out loud at the moment and I am sure I will come up with some way to get them this year, I just need to play with the numbers and pray he gets a new job sometime soon.

Mainly because I was never one of those persons that could maintain their stress level. I have also come to the conclusion that we will deal with things as they come since I can't predict the future.

Had the handyman come take a look at our projects, he will have a bid to me today so at least we will get everything vital fixed soon.

Spoke with my friend who I helped to get established out here. Haven't chatted in about 1 month because I have been missing in action and she has been busy. She is doing well and has almost paid off her second credit card. Very proud of her.

Waiting for my Wamu now Chase statement to arrive. Need it for my credit card number so I can transfer the balance to a 0% till October deal. This will also get me down to just one card. This will be my first time since I ran up the debt that it would all fit on once card.

I am still on budget this month which is amazing given how nuts we had gone the past 3 months. Maybe getting back to a normal budget won't be so hard after all.

We are still spending copious amounts on the house though. Not as much as in the past but between the mortar guy and the handyman, there is another couple k to spend just this month. Fortunately that should finish off the majority of the house. Unfortunately, we still have yardwork ahead of us and that is not cheap.

We still need to clean out the old apartment, its practically a joke at this point because we have been putting it off for so long. Will probably work on it a bit this weekend.

Need to remember sometime this weekend to breathe. Our weekends of work are killing us.

Oh, still keeping up on the running. Its been working well. We are running the majority of the time now. Finally heard my husband panting at the end of the last run burst last night so I know he is getting a workout as well.

The pugs are doing well. Spencer is still the hyper one and probably always will be but he is learning quickly what is expected of him so its been a smooth transition. Its weird having an animal testing boundaries again though, lol.

DH knows someone at the place he is interviewing with so he is going to ask her to use her influence to help him get the new job. They are former coworkers so he knows she will be an enthusiastic reference (one of his coworkers gave him the number so he could harass her).

All and all, just plugging along, waiting for all the news to break.

I haven't blown the budget yet but another weekend like the last and I will. We definitely are trying to finish up the major jobs on the house this month so house repairs are still sucking up a lot of money.

On a positive note, we managed to get our new countertop installed and the spot for the sink carved out. Next time I have to buy a kitchen sink (should be never, but who knows) I will make sure it doesn't have weird notches in the underside that stick out. Why on earth would I need to clamp a granite composite sink into place? Haven't they heard of silicon which I have to use anyways to seal the edge? Because of the "custom" fit, that sink can't so much as move a millimeter, lol.

Tonight we will finish screwing in the hardware and securing the countertop. Probably next weekend I will fix the wall around the countertop (think plaster and paint, they badly abused the wall for no good reason). Once its all finished, I will post before and after photos.

I think next weekend though I will take more time to relax. This working on all weekend on the house is beginning to get old. We need down time...

and probably the last one I will ever get from the federal government, lol. So payment in full for our couch, our appliances and our kitchen stuff which was all on 0% interest credit cards.

Once that is done, we will have about $2700 to add to the EF fund and 2 last credit cards with approximately ~9k. It amazes me that I am having a hard time paying off the last 10k of debt. Its almost like having gotten this close, we just want to spend. I am sure the purchase of a house at this juncture had nothing to do with that difficulty. :P

DH wants us each to have the ability to spend $150 so that we don't feel deprived. Is it sad that I am just going to count mine towards the cost of the handyman who is going to fix things for me? I just want the odd jobs done and we seem to be getting further and further behind (maybe because we keep adding projects, lol).

DH though should at minimum buy himself a charcoal grill because he has been wanting one ever since we moved into an apartment complex that wouldn't let us have one (used to own one).

So my frugal month (started 1/26) is going well despite the fact that we ate out a lot with the acquisition of a new pug and with my DH having a job interview on Monday night. Weekends are still our major spend time but we haven't needed as much groceries so that helps to offset the expense.

Course what will be really interesting is that we are going to have a half of our week off fall in our frugal month so I can imagine how that will turn out. During our week off we will be getting some tuckpointing (mortar repair) done on our home which we have been quoted $475 for (hurray, thought it would be worse) and we need to finish up the apartment and the kitchen. Ah the joys of home ownership. Its a good thing we enjoy this stuff.

Oh, on a very positive note, we paid our last rent payment this weekend so now it will just be the last couple of utility payments.

On Saturday, we met with a coworker of DH's to introduce our two pugs. The coworker's pug had been mauled by another of their pugs about a year ago and ever since they have had to keep all the pugs mostly crated to avoid a repeat.

DH and I had already discussed the possibility of adopting said mauled pug if things went well (we were going to dogsit the mauled one while they went on vacation). But we obviously hadn't been the only one thinking about it. Coworker brought it up when we were walking them together. She admired how well trained our pug was and how well both pugs got along. Mauled pug had issues with other dogs for obvious reasons, hence this get to know each other visit before the vacation.

Visit goes so well that she asks if we would mind keeping him for the night. They are currently moving into a new house and would have had to crate them if mauled pug was around. We keep him and the next day she checks in with us and we tell her he can just permanently stay if she wants. So she will be calling tonight to discuss things but said she can't think of a better home for him.

So we now have 2 pugs. The mauled pug has managed in that time to teach our pug to make noise when they play and our pug has taught the mauled pug how to box. Its hilarious. Mauled pug is a natural dominant which is what probably caused the mauling by the other dominant but our pug is the ultimate submissive so our pug just follows where the other one leads.

The two areas that need work are learning to walk on a leash and learning to share toys. Both are progressing very well. Helps that he thinks that humans are the center of the universe. The toys are partially helped by the fact that our pug won't try and fight him for it but backs away if he gets the least cranky about it. So he is learning just from our pug that he doesn't have to fight for anything. Long ago when I had a wolf hybrid and a lab mutt, we had a much harder time teaching share than this.

On Sunday, DH got called by a headhunter and asked to do an interview for a full time contract position of 6-9 months. Its an excellent opportunity for DH and he has the interview tonight.

We even managed to go and collect some more stuff from the old apartment. Wow, I need a weekend to recover from my weekend.