North Georgia Gal's Financial Awakening

The roads that I use to get to work were reported as being icy so I stayed home today. Love that I can work from home if need be.

Today is payday. Everything is on autopilot so there is nothing for me to do. Love online bill pay.

DD has decided to play soccer. We will go tomorrow and get all her equipment.

I got all of my forms online this year so I can file early! Unfortunately the IRS isn't ready for one of my forms so I won't see my refund until late February.

I am getting 1927 back from the Federal and $597 back from the state. It turns out that I could claim the high insurance premium on my Ga return as long as I didn't itemize, which I didn't. That gave me an extra $200. I don't know the time frame to get that back. I am having both refunds direct deposited into my checking account.

It appears that the dr's office charged my debit card twice for DD's visit today. I logged on line and discovered this in time to make a deposit to my account. I can make a deposit at the atm up until 9:00 to have it credited to that day. So glad they started that! Could potentially save me a bunch of overdraft fees. I transferred the money from my rental checking account and will pay it back on Friday.

Well, I had my self eval at work today. It went well. Although I get the sense that my boss wants me to get more education in order to increase my knowledge and capabilities. He is planning on the business growing and is afraid that I will not be able to handle the increased financial obligations. So he would be forced to hire someone else that I would report to. Not a great option for me. So I see some more college courses in my future. Don't know where the money will come from for that...probably have to take out some more student loans. That sucks.

I also went online at sallie mae and was able to get my tax information. Plugging in how much interest I paid for my student loans last year my refund went back up to $1900. All I am waiting on now is my interest statement. My bank doesn't have that online.

Thanks to CCF, I decided to see if my W-2 was online yet. And it was!

So I went and updated the information in turbo tax. My income was $1000 more than I had estimated which made my refund $200 less. Bummer.

I am waiting for interest statements. I only earned a few cents in interest but I want to make sure I include it in my taxes. I might also get a statement for my student loan that I paid on in 2012. Can't wait for all this information to get here so I can go ahead and file.

I work for a company that replaces the modern evaluations to a more humane process. The first step is for the employee to fill out a form listing accomplishments, disappointment for not completing something, and where I want to be in two/five years. I hate filling out this form. I don't know where I want to be in two years let alone five years. I don't have any work related goals. My job is kind of on auto pilot and I like it that way.

Anyway...I have to fill this form out and have a meeting with my boss where I turn in the form. I am not looking forward to it.

I got a very decent rate of $177 per night including taxes and fess. It isn't the Hilton, but the pictures looked nice and clean. I think it will be fine.

I found airline tickets for $253 today but unfortunately i won't have the money to purchase them until I get my tax return. Hopefully this good price will still be around then.

I ordered DD's yearbook today. I don't remember them being so expensive when I was younger! I used the credit card so I didn't use 70 of my extra 100 this week. I have already set up bill payments for $42 to come out this week and the remaining $30 to come out next payday. That way I will pay for it before interest is charged on it and it won't derail my plans to pay this card off.

I tried to go walking at the rec center today but they were closed for the holiday. Bummer. Will have to start my new walking plan tomorrow.

Went to Food Lion to get orange juice. They were out of the store brand that I usually get so I had to get name brand. I spent $12 on three cartons of orange juice and a pack of cinnamon rolls.

My boss took us out to lunch again today. YEA!

My sister bought me some Garcinia cambogia pills to try to lose some weight. I started them today. I also plan on walking after work.

I only spent $14 this weekend. That is great for me. The weekend are usually my weak spot.

I went to heat up the pizza last night and discovered that while we were gone my cat ate all the pineapple off of it. I left it in the box sitting on the stove. Crafty cat, able to open a pizza box and just eating the toppings off of it. I was disappointed because I was really looking forward to that pizza.

And I am okay with that. I have about 40 left in my eating out budget so I am good. Plus I will get 3 more meals out of it. I have passed on delivery though and went to pick it up. That saved me about 8.

Made pancakes for breakfast for my sick dd. She called me at 10:00 this morning asking me for medicine. She is downstairs and didn't want to get out of bed. So I found some tylenol cold and flu and took it to her. She is feeling a little better now.

Well, we didn't get any snow. I am a bit disappointed. I really wanted something. I waited until 10:00 to leave for work to give the road crew time to salt any black ice. I didn't hit any ice. They either did a great job salting or it didn't freeze to begin with.

Financially I am still coasting along. Nothing major in the next week until payday. I still have the $85 left in my account. DD is going to the chiropractor today but I already have that figured in to my budget for the next pay day.

I know that some of you have already had your first snow, but we are expecting ours later today. And when it snows here, it shuts everything down. People get crazy. The main concern is black ice that is expected to form on the road tonight. If it does than school will probably be out tomorrow. And I will come into work late.

I am feeling pretty good financially right now. I have $85 in my checking account to last until next Friday, not including my allowance which is in cash. I still have quite a bit of it left. This also doesn't include my gas budget that I have set aside. So all in all I am looking pretty good.

I was lost all day not being able being able to check the blogs today. I missed everyone!

I forgot to take my cream cheese to work with me so I didn't have anything for lunch. I had to get something. Not just a financial faux pau but nothing fast food sounds good. I settled on a ham and cheese sandwich. My bagel would have been better!

I worked on my budget through March. It is anything but final, but it is a work in process. One thing I added to the budget is $100 each payday to keep in my checking account for unexpected expenses. If I don't spend it it will stay in the account and go toward the next paycheck's 100. A little bit of a cushion for peace of mind.

I keep forgetting about the $200 I got from work. I will need to cash it in in March to make the budget.

Greatest apologies. We have been having some major issues with the site since yesterday and will be working to resolves them all day today. We are aware of them and apologize for the inconvenience.

I made my mortgage payment today. There was only $499 due but I had written the check for $535, the amount of the usual payment. I was going to pay extra but then I remembered that I only have $25 to last me until payday(not including the amount budgeted for gas). So the teller just gave me the amount over the amount due in cash. I deposited it into my regular checking account. I now have $62 until payday. This is only for things that come up at the last minute, like milk or something. I should coast into payday.

I would love to send this amount to the hospital bill but I am trying to think ahead and be smarter.

I had budgeted $125 for the grocery store and we spent $121.84.

I sucked it up and asked my mom to buy DD soccer equipment. She said she would. I just couldn't fit it into my budget. I have made an appointment for Friday to take the physical.

All this will change if DD decides not to play after the meeting tomorrow. They are going to tell her she has to take out her nose ring, but she doesn't think they will. Who knows what she will decide if they do. It would close up pretty fast since it isn't that old.

My gas budget came in $24 over this week so I sent a check to the hospital bill for that amount. So far this month I have sent $49 extra to the hospital bill. And it is only the 9th.

DD decided she wants to play soccer with the school this year. That means I need to budget in soccer shoes and shin guards. It also means more driving for me to get to each game. At least it will get me out of the house.

I have entered my check stub into quicken and my pay is about 30 less per pay period. I guess I can live with that considering some of you are getting hit with hundreds of dollars. I guess I just don't make enough money for it to matter too much.

Well, since my son and his friends moved into the rental property I have not had one month when the rent wasn't paid. There is one that I kind of have to chase, but it is always paid by the end of the month. Amazingly, the one girl that is in there is the only one with full rent on the first. I guess girls are just more responsible, at least in this situation. I take my son's rent directly out of his checking account on Fridays so he doesn't have to come up with it all at once.

One of the renters, the problem one, has said that this will be his last month. He wrecked his mom's car a couple of weeks ago and has to move back in with mom for a while. I told DS that meant that the rent was going to go back up unless they get another person in there.

He wants to talk to me about buying the property. I don't think it is a wise investment for him. The roof is 10 years old and it is fixing to need a new furnace. But once he gets something in his head it doesn't go away.

Not mine. My DS's. He apparently signed up for automatic renewal and it hit his checking account today for $64. This put his account in the negative. I transferred $50 to his account so that he doesn't have any fees but told him that I would need that money back. Right now it is just sitting in my account.

He is going to call the bank to see if he can get that charge reversed by telling them he didn't authorize it. We'll see.

I haven't left the house today so it has been an NSD.

The comforter set I bought with my gift card came in on Friday. It has been washed and just needs to be put on my bed. Will try to do that before I go to bed tonight. Nothing like sleeping on clean sheets.

DD cleans my mom's house every Saturday. My mom gives her $20 for this. Today my mom gave her two checks. She also gave her a check for her school lunches. Since I had forgotten to budget that it really came in handy.

I used the last of my allowance today to buy DD a taco at taco bell. It was only $1. But that wiped me out. I will have to be real strict with myself next week.

My boss took us all out to lunch today for our Christmas/New Year lunch. We went to a place that is okay but not one of my favorites. The food is too fancy for me.

He also gave us a Christmas bonus. I got $200. It is in the form of AMEX giftcards. In the past my bank has cashed them in for me. I hope they still do that.

I really want to send the $200 to the hospital bill but I need it for February when I am short for my budget. What to do...I could probably make some changes to budget and move stuff around but I hate to do that. I will have to think about it.

I referred my mom to ebates and at first it said I got a $25 referral fee. I thought this is great! Who else can I refer. But when I checked today it was down to $5. That is a bit more realistic. I will take it though. Better than nothing.

I was having such bad menstrel cramps that I couldn't even sit up straight. I stopped on the way home and bought a heating pad. I took some ibuprofen when I got home. They seem to be easing up a bit now. I don't usually have cramps like that. I don't like them one bit.

I spent 13 at Dollar General for the heating pad. I have about 20 left to get me through next week, not including what I have left in my allowance, which is about $15. I should make it just fine.

I called today to see about getting my children on a different healthcare option. Right now I pay $486 for the two kids. It is high because DD had some testing done earlier this year. Since that issue has been resolved I thought we could get a cheaper policy somewhere.

What I have found is that to insure just the children I have to have a seperate policy for each child. And the coverage stinks. No office visits or prescriptions until the deductible is met. I just looked a another option that is about the same money for less coverage.

I guess we will just stick to what I have.

I came home tonight and turned on the oven to cook my bagel bites. About ten minutes later I started smelling something burning. I opened the oven and after the smoke cleared I saw that I left my pizza in the oven from Sunday. I had forgotten to put it in the fridge to eat later. Stupid mistake. Not only did the house stink but I ruined potential meals. I hate it when a make stupid mistakes like that.

I budget for gas each week and if I go under it is almost like found money so I am calling the overage snowflakes.

I was $25 under budget for gas this week so I set up a payment to the hospital bill for that amount.