Wow, the end of April is already upon me and I haven't even begun to polish up May's budget. I also haven't gone over all we spent in April. I'll be out of town for work on Wednesday and Thursday of next week, so I'm going to have to spend some time this weekend and Monday going over it all.
April appears to be shaping up about right. I know I am under budget on our Grocery/Household category, so that's always nice. I also saved money on our tax budget. We had a few unexpected expenses when Hoot needed a present for a birthday party and we've planned out our September vacation and I scored a major deal on our airfare. I've also paid one of my sister's bills. But, all in all, it's coming out just about where I wanted to be. I like that a lot!
May is an overwhelming month for us. There is so much going on and it's hard to pre-plan. We have Mother's Day, our 15th wedding anniversary, and DH's birthday all within a ten day mid-month span. I am also taking another small work trip right in the middle of that time frame. Boy, I'm really going to have to think it all through. And is it silly that I am already trying to figure out how we can get out to see the new Indiana Jones movie? We really miss going to movies and have vowed to not wait until this one is out on video.
May is also going to be tough on DH's income. With my two trips, our schedules are not going to allow him to work as much as he normally does. I've traded away a couple of opening shifts and I hope to trade away a few more. I had originally asked to open on Mother's Day, but was given it off. I'm sad about that because it is the week I am going out of town. It means one more day that I'm off where DH cannot work.
We have several bright spots on the horizon over the next five months. I discovered our Homestead Exemption was never applied to our house when we received a letter from a third party agency notifying us that for only $200 they will correct this error. Yeah, right. I downloaded a form and walked it into our county tax office for free. That should give us a nice chunk of money back from our escrow account and reduce our house payment. Last year, we received our escrow check in August, so I can only think it is going to come around the same time this year. I also make my last car payment in August. One of our debts was recently put to rest and our tax rebate is going to cut our back taxes in half. It's all looking up and doing well.
I'm starting to work on the plans for our September vacation. I'll have my vacation budget finalized soon and am already working on having it paid for well before we go. I am pre-funding a Wal-Mart gift certificate to use for gas during our vacation. Every time I go in to buy something, I'm going to add $10 to the card in my wallet. I really want to have $100 on it by September 1st. I've paid cash for our plane tickets and saved right at $250 from what I estimated. But, I'll blog my vacation plans soon. Maybe I'll get one of those snazzy savings tickers so I can watch my progress. Yeah! I love tickers.
On the home front:
Hoot broke the lock on DH's door to his music room. Then we fixed it and he broke it again. He was using shear brute force and snapped the chain! He also has a new trick where he moves my dresser out into the hallway. He's three and a half and moves furniture, and puts his shoulder to the door until the chain snaps. What am I going to do with this kid when he's big?
I also spotted a opossum. Awesome opossum! I don't think he is our opossum as he hasn't peeked in a single window yet. Since we had "Old Opossum" when we moved in, "New Opossum" who peeked into the window, we've decided to give this one a proper name. We shall call him Slinky.
No comments:
Post a Comment