Put another 2$ in the tip box. I'll have to take a picture of it for Jeffrey's collection. It's been nearly two years since I started moving money through the tip box; since that time I've "rescued" nearly $1000 from my paycheck to my savings. Most months I collect 40$ or so. I had a couple of hot months above 50$ and I usually take a break from tip boxing in December, for obvious reasons.

Tip boxing is my version of the change jar, and now I have my habits with it. I keep my tip box at work, because 1.) I know that DH would raid it if it was at home, 2.) the bank is two blocks away, 3.) its useful for the 1$, 2$ surprise office collections, and a fourth reason below.

My tip box is tiny (3 inches square inside) with a nice hefty lid so it doesn't hold much change. Besides, my bank is one of those that doesn't have a change machine or handles change well. So while I do throw change and 1$ bills in to prime it, what really makes my tip box work is making reverse change, and shorting myself.

I pull a pile of 6-7 ones and a wad of quarters from the tip box and replace it with a 10$. It frees up space in the box for the next round of ones and change. I never have to buy a stick of gum or something to break a bill at work, I just break one from my bank in my drawer! (my fourth reason)

After I do my several cycles of getting $1s and making reverse change for a month, I count what I have. Anything above 40$ I deposit during my lunch hour; anything below 40$ I make up from my wallet.

Then my tip box lays empty, until the clank of the first handful of change... The frugal cycle continues.

We got word that supposedly our 403B calculations would be fixed on the 15th. We shall see.

One of my groceries declared bankruptcy. Drat,it wasn't Safeway.

http://tinyurl.com/gtof6

Put together a crock pot split pea soup this morning.
.88 worth of frozen smoked ham hock,
1/2 onion, chopped, leftover from a week ago
2 carrots, sliced
4 cups chicken stock
Dried parsely, 3 bay leaves
about 1 lb dried split peas
water to the level of "stuff"
(option) 2 chicken boullion cubes
salt/pepper
Turned crockpot on low.

A few groceries today - $28.51 for the usual, 2 jars of mayo, 2 cans of tuna, 2 lbs of frozen corn, 2 whole fryers, 1 bunch of celery, 2 lbs of carrots, bread, 2 lbs of fresh salsa, 1 lb of butter...and a very yummy pink frosted coconut flaked doughnut. Romaine lettuce prices are positively insane due to flooding in early April, but nothing is really a deal, according to my price book.

Yesterday, I woke up early (early for me) to walk to the nearest branch of my bank. I just wanted to deposit the $15,000 in person. All weekend, it was walking our errands - bank, weekend breakfast, library, 3 grocery stores, and a yard sale. I must have walked at least 5 miles total yesterday and today, and with buying groceries - 1 mile with 20 lbs of weight. Figured that I really didn't have to slip into the gym...I'm living the gym.

Oh yes, the yard sale - $1 shoes - they are those 1/2 tennis shoes, 1/2 clogs (they dip in the back). They were the rage a couple of years ago. They are bright white and looked like they were never used. Because I bought them, I tossed out a seven year old pair of sneaks with holes that I rarely wear. Also bought a $1 Burts Bee sample kit - 2 soaps, 1 cream, and the heavy plastic bag that I can use as a travel bag for my little soaps and shampoos. So 2$ total there.

Sounds like either an oxymoron or a cause of death, doesn't it?
What happened to him?
Frugal sushi.
Oh.

That really holds true with the all-you-can-eat, fixed price buffet style sushi. There's a pretty infamous place in Seattle that a couple of friends got excited about, ate there, and swore about in the bathroom 6 hours later.

I had sushi for lunch today, so I thought about the concept as I ate. With rolls, you get a small amount of raw fish sometimes gooped up with condiments (spicy tuna is raw tuna smashed in a paste with hot pepper) rolled with rice. If you like raw fish its really not the way to go. Nigiri is the style with the little pad of sushi rice under the thinly sliced fish, what most people associate with sushi - okay, but when the fish is sliced so thin that you can see the rice under it...well, that isn't the way to go either. Sashimi is the sliced raw fish, the best stuff, and you will pay.

For lunch today I had the third way which I have been finding is the most frugal style of sushi: chirashi, strewn sushi, where slices of sashimi lay over a plate sized pad of sushi rice. And I got quite a lot sashimi for my buck. For 11$ I got 2 pc of egg, 1 shrimp, 2 lg pieces of clam, 1 pc octopus, 2 pc squid, 1 tsp of roe, 1 large hunk of salmon, 1 pc tuna, 1 pc herring, 1 pc yellowtail, 1 pc red snapper, 2 scallops. And the sashimi pieces themselves were about twice the size of what you would get if you got them as nigiri pieces. Nice.

Or maybe it was a reward from the sushi chef for not celebrating Cinco de Mayo.

Saving log - $3 in tip box.

Received the second advance of dad's estate. DH will research what it would cost to get the car fixed.

End of the third week and still no fix for the weird vest calculations on the 403B.

Last Sunday, I made chicken goulash. At least I tried to make chicken goulash. I grabbed what I thought was sweet paprika, a lot dropped in, and I thought...oh well, its sweet, no harm done. Unfortunately for me it was hot paprika. The dish was, quite frankly, inedible. Weaponized.

G*d I hate wasting perfectly good chicken.

Bites of yogurt between bites of weaponized goulash tamed the fire a little bit so I could eat some Sunday night. Monday night I caught a break - sour cream was on special at the very grocery I pass by on my 8th Avenue walk for $1.39/pt. I got two pints, mixed one in the goulash (keeping with the ethnic theme) and put a couple of tbsps on top. That helped quite a bit, but eating it is still a challenge.

Here's where the frugal tips come in:
1.) did not waste food
2.) culinary solution was a loss leader (yippee)
3.) tasty, but there is no way I'm eating seconds or have a ton of firsts.
4.) portions I'm taking of this are appropriate for a meal of an actual adult, not an eating contest champion.

I think I'll call it the hot pepper diet.

This morning I reached high for something in front of the bathroom mirror and I caught a fleeting glimpse of...the barest definition of the top two cans of an ab six pack. Maybe I'm imagining things.

Or omusubi. Rice, in a triangular ball with a filling inside wrapped by crispy nori seaweed. Don't make a face, they are great! I had several for the two lunches today - and generally at $1.29/musubi, ethnic frugal. I had a bbq ground beef musubi (a little more pricey at $2.39, but you want reasonable ground beef) for main lunch, washed down with a can of chrysanthumum tea $.59; the vitamin D I got from the sitting in the sun was free and priceless at the same time.

Then gym - crunches and balance, and squats with the medicine ball. The trainer is going on a M-F schedule, so no more Saturday gym unless I go myself. I've now settled in with the new bus route. Since the nights are now so sunny, I've been thinking about taking a different bus that will drop me off 7 blocks further.

Second lunch was a salmon musubi and a ume (salted plum) musubi for dessert. Yum - the only problem I have with them is that there is a trick to open up the package. The dried, crunchy seaweed is wrapped so that it doesn't touch the rice ball and get soggy. There is a way to open and unwrap it in one sharp, clever motion but I always tear the seaweed.

Oh well, it takes frugal skills to eat a frugal lunch.

Saving log - 1$ in the tip box. Deposited the $47 savings from last month yesterday.

Work is easing up. I'm swatting at big horseflies right and left, so I treated myself to lunch at the Uwajimaya Food Court and a browse in Uwajimaya proper.

Uwajimaya is a grocery/small goods store and a Seattle institution. Any Asian ingredient, and I mean any Asian ingredient, can be found there. One of the best deals in Seattle is the 3 for 10$ sale table piled high with very pretty bowls and sushi plates. Sometimes there's even a 3 for 5$ sale table - I snagged 3 small colanders a couple of years ago. What a coup! I use those all the time. Next to the sale table lay the regular priced bowls - its fun for me to keep track of when one set of bowls moves from one table to another.

I didn't buy anything. Just looking was relaxing for me - peeking at the little jars of wasabi infused fish roe, checking out the lamb patties for 4.99/lb (pricey, but 2$/lb cheaper than my usual grocery store), oohing and aahing at the fresh, real wasabi root for 56$/lb. Its nice to know that if I wanted to run a real Hawaiian luau, I've got the poi covered.

The paycheck got deposited today just like it usually did. At our workplace, the minutes of the management team are emailed to us. Today the email talked about retention and how they should recognize to retain the most productive staff. I wonder if they mean it, and whom they mean.

Put 13$ in the tip jar. Call it a do-it-yourself recognition program. With the advent of exercise, chiropractor, and trainer, I haven't put in my usual 40-50$/month for several months now. It seems so long ago, and I miss that.

The platform on the waterbed slipped on my side. Why my side? I'm the thinner one! It didn't bust, but to fix the platform means that we have to drain the bed bag, rebuild the platform, then refill.

But I found a dime on my side of the liner. Woo hoo!

Seriously, I like the waterbed. It is its own heating and cooling system at night. In Seattle we have the heater on, in Tucson and in North Carolina we turned the heater off. I wonder if a waterbed supports bedbugs? Hopefully not!

The last of the corned beef is going for fire sale prices (Seattle, remember) at 1.19$/lb. Yum!

Sister already got her first disbursment of the estate, so I expect a check sometime this week. The first check in her words was "more than I make in a year." She asked me for advice. Mine was the Roth and to hold it in a short maturity CD to give her time to research and keep her from making an uninformed decision. Her first thoughts are to save it - but I reminded her that inflation and taxes will eat away at interest. We both have enough money to do something, but not enough to do nothing.

Lots of people out "sick" today.

Had a St. Patrick's Day lunch with a co worker/friend that I rarely see. We both had a hankering for corned beef and cabbage, and we both wanted to watch the drunks. We left for lunch at 11:15 am. First place we went to had no seating, and a table had been reserved for CBS radio. In order words, the green hair/green T-Shirt/drink green beer for breakfast people were already here.

The second place we had heard had a cover charge, so we went to take a peek. Open, but no one was out collecting money, so we walked in, asked a waitress if we could grab a table, and took our seats. There was a third person, another co worker, but she said she would be late. We waited.

Three minutes later the bouncer was at the door, collecting the 10$. Our third person came. She didn't have 10$, we didn't have 10$, the bouncer wouldn't let her in without 10$. Whoops. But we warned her...

Sometimes being frugal means you have to be lucky and be ON TIME.

We ordered hard cider at 6$ (we both could hole up and do something mindless while we were at the tipsy stage), corned beef and cabbage. The food was alright, nothing special, not really worth the 9.50$. But the company was good, and the thrill of drinking a cider at lunch was delicious in its own way.

Tonight, DH made more corned beef and cabbage in the crock pot. It was delicious, far better than the one at lunch. The whole pot probably cost less than 1/2 of my lunch.

Got the optional cash slip for my fourth DRP. Its a slip with the dividends; eventually the company tells you when you get dividends, so eventually you get the slip. Wrote a check for 500$ to kick start the account, and signed up for their online account so I can monitor it.

Vacation between the 3rd and the 9th of April. DH bought an exercise ball. We now have an agreement, I can use his ball and he can use my yoga mat and red band. The chiropractor tells me that my back is getting better - its holding the adjustments for several days - and he figures that I've put on about an inch because my posture has improved.

Put another 8$ into the tip box.

We have President's Day off, so I'm now listening to the sweet whirring sound of the washer working. We got the 20$ part today (thx United Parcel Service!), and DH installed it. The inside of the washing machine was interesting - the white box pulled away from the base like a very large computer box leaving the drum, the agitator, and the circuitry in the back. We apparently have a piece that was put in but has no dial and was sealed in. DH tells me its because we got the bare bones washer. "We get an another dial every 50$."

Took a fast 20 minute walk to deposit my BB refund into savings. DH sent me his bucks via PayPal.

Missed grocery shopping yesterday so I caught up with it today. No really fabulous buys; I bought a can of cream of chicken soup (the midwestern cooking genes are expressing themselves), bread, milk, and spinach. My downfall was bath salts. When its cold and flu-ey, I want the bath salts. But at $2.99/bath salt envelope, I might have to go 12-step on the bath salts.

Yesterday saw _Tristam Shandy_ at the matinee. Very, very dry, adult and funny. Matinee was 6$. I'm turning into a coot as I write that I remember when we thought 6$ was highway robbery for a regular Saturday night movie.

Spending log - 89$ groceries (49$ groceries/ 40$ money for next week).
Saving log - 20$ BBuy rebate + 40$ from DH

So for this fitness challenge, my trainer suggested (prodded!) me to get 30 minutes of cardio training each day. I can make it to the gym sometimes, but I don't want to live there. I finally figured out a frugal way to do it. I'm going to go home on a different bus than I normally do, which will drop me off about 1.5 mi from my house. My job is to walk home as quickly as I can, no cheating on the hills. I've tried it today. It definitely takes me 30 min and I'm breathing hard most of the way. I made myself a little laminated card of calisthentics so when I get out the yoga mat and the rubber band with the handles I can figure out what exercises to do.

Thinking about Valentine's Day. Why oh why are all the holidays (except Labor Day and the 4th of July) at the back end of my paycheck? We have President's Day off and even that is in the back half of the paycheck.

A freakishly good deal on red onions - .33/lb. Still have a ton of sister's cheese and now I have some milk to get rid of fast. Time for some simple, homemade mac 'n cheese. Nothing like the box type.

Wisconsin Farmhouse Mac 'N Cheese

2.5 cup uncooked elbow macaroni
2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
milk
lots of grated cheese - sharp cheddar and colby for this. The drier the cheese, the better.

Preheat oven to 325F. In a casserole dish, melt butter, add salt and pepper, add elbow macaroni. Stir to coat macaroni in butter. Spread the grated cheese on top of the macaroni. Pour milk over the top, keep pouring until milk level hits the mid cheese line.

Bake uncovered 10 min at 325F, then drop it to 300F for 50 minutes or so. Ready when cheese is brown and bubbly and the macaroni is tender.

Let sit for 10 min after you take out of oven to firm up. Microwave leftovers with a little bit of milk.

Nice lazy, very rainy Sunday. Greens are on the stove.

Went to a small independent produce stand near home. Treasure trove of ethnic styles - part Russian, part Asian, part Hispanic. If you have a hankering for Russian branded cookies and very cheap produce here's your place. - .39/lb for cabbage, .29/lb for onions. Got the greens for .99/ bunch while other grocery stores are running about 1.99 - 2.49 bunch - yikes. I had lost the habit of going there over the summer because you really have to dig for decent produce, and I got lazy. Hit another grocery store on the way and got the wet cat food.

Mailed the checks for two DRPs. In this case, I know that neither transfer agent will get the check before Tuesday payday. Since I'm going to copay the chiropractor tomorrow, I withdrew a bit from ING. My saving's going backwards just when the ING deal demands new savings. Sigh.

Found an interesting author - Martin Limon, Jade Lady Burning. It's a police procedural set in 1970's Korea, with crimes solved by 2 GIs.

Worked out on Saturday and discovered what I'm sure is the most frugal piece of workout equipment ever: stretch cord. A big rubber band with handles. We did French presses - that rubber band whopped my triceps and nearly whopped my butt.

Tonight I do my taxes and I await Tuesday payday.

Miscellaneous: Last night I counted my tip box out and sent $42 into my brick & mortar bank to be later sent to ING. I sent $150 to PayPal for some miscellaneous payments. Wow - 4.3% without a hitch...might pay to shove a bit of ING money in there to incubate a bit. Sent 500$ to the credit card.

Used a Peet's complimentary card to get a latte, a nice break from the drip. Oranges, eggs, frozen green beans are cheap in the grocery store. I really like finding frozen green beans - they keep well and they very rarely are cheaper fresh.

The shocker news yesterday was that my trainer is moving up north. We made an appointment with another trainer as a transition. Apparently the trainers talk about me - that I work hard at this and how rare that is. Funny story - yesterday I was scheduled to do 15 minutes on the elliptical, making me 10 minutes late for my next appointment. I split the difference, only doing 10 minutes on the elliptical, and being 5 minutes late. All the trainers laughed at this; the usual thing would have been that the client would have completely blown it off. I'm not happy about the trainer leaving, but I'm philosophical - the trainer is the facilitator, but ultimately I have to be the one who loses weight and gets healthy.

Still have not lost pounds, but I am swimming in my clothes and my body fat dropped a percent, so something is going on. I figure that if I look thinner, I can always lie about my weight. Sister send another box of clothes - very nice ones, with tags still on them but now 2 sizes over mine. I'll put a little ad in craigslist before I send to the thrift store.

The next appointment was for the chiropractor. Most of my asymmetry on my workouts is apparently due to a wicked hunch and bad posture. The daily adjustments take 10 minutes, and they make me feel pretty good as long as I stand up straight. The only disconcerting thing during them is that my back and neck sound like a bowl of rice krispies over milk.

Collecting my 1099s and other papers for taxes - all I need is my W2 (or is it W4). Taxes are going to be different for me yet again this year. I used to Telefile it, last year I had to do paper because of dividends, this year it's online filing.

1-20
Savings log - $42
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $5.00 lunch

1-21
Savings log - 0$
Spending log - 5.00$ lunch + 42.96 groceries

Grocery store deal joy - fresh pineapple for .67/lb, dried spaghetti/fettucine/linguine for .50/lb, mixed nuts for $1.79/lb. All beat what I'd seen in North Seattle in two years, based on my price book. I've stocked up, but now what I have do is eat what I have and stop buying!!!

I found a tax estimator:

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/calcs/n_tax/main.asp

Not that its perfect, but it should be able to tell me if I owe or am going to get a refund. With the IRA it looks like this year I will get a refund - first time in about 5 yrs. I aim with my withholding to owe a little, about $100. The estimator is giving me a refund of about $450. It gives me a little impetus to get all my forms together.

Ah...I have Monday and Tuesday off. Even though I was bugged a bit by co workers coming in and gossiping, I managed to get quite a bit done - everything done that I really wanted to get done, and that makes a four day weekend even sweeter. Think I will book my free hotel room this weekend. I'll have next Tuesday off too.

Broke down and actually got a chain-grocery store card - not Safeway. The grocery chain is going nameless - I only buy canned cat food there. When the card price for it was 20% lower, I broke down and got it. My dearest wish is that the data miner looking at all my canned cat food purchases will say, "remind me not to have pate and crackers at her house."

Curry place is back from vacation. Ah, lunch joy.

My trainer, stuck in traffic, was forty-five minutes late. He got a hold of me at the gym...so I ran through a warmup, ran through ab crunches, some weights, some exercises and stretches. He told me that he was very proud of me - I didn't play hooky. Came clean with him about the elliptical machine - he told me that we'll have to work on breathing and figure what level I should be starting from.

Saving log: Tip jar - 5$.
Spending log: lunch - 5$ (coffee card is still holding out, yay!).

I opened up a 2005 traditional IRA with Vanguard this afternoon, using money from the ING account. It was pretty straightforward to do from the website

www.vanguard.com. The site itself is pretty clean with a lot of good information.

Did a little grocery shopping and bought a $15.00 bag of groceries for a food drive the grocery was running for Northwest Harvest. Except for tomato ketchup and spaghetti sauce, not a trace of vegetable in it. Not a great respite from junk food.

Cheapest gas in Seattle was down to $2.09. For us out here in the far left corner: wow. With the sun shining and blue sky deep, DH and I took a little Saturday drive through the arboretium. We ended up near the University, so I showed DH my bubble tea place.

Saving log - $4000 to the IRA for the tax break
Spending log - $1.80 coffee + 35$ grocery (15$ to Northwest Harvest) + 3$ bubble tea

Not much today, thankfully. Trips to a couple of grocery stores to pick up milk, 8-grain hot cereal, brown rice, and bubble bath. I could have gotten away with going to one grocery but the holiday food samples were fantastic at the other, so I had a frugal lunch of samples.

Found the equation that tells me how to best invest in my DRPs - put it in my spreadsheet. When I want to deploy my lump sum into my DRPs I can figure it out.

But I should explore starting an IRA, to save money on my taxes. I've either done the 403B or been too poor for an IRA other years, not to mention that I thought that if you have one you can't do the other. I have too much dividend earnings, I think, to file 1040EZ this year while next year when dad's estate lands in my lap my taxes will be even higher. No matter where I invest 250K the interest, dividends, and capital gains is going to be high. (4% of 250K = 10K, and 33% of that would be 3.3K). Balancing that out every year with a 5K IRA contribution is only prudent. Roth or classic?

Actually, not quite true, I just bought needs: milk, onions, celery, and a cup of coffee from the grocery store; canned cat food from another grocery store. With me, its never a full blown Buy Nothing Day, but an eternal Buy Very Little Day. Saves money in the long run because you never binge.

Why do they call it Black Friday? Yeah, I know, but BF was the name given to the stock market crash in 1929. To my ears, today's nickname just sounds creepy.

The triggers were all pulled today:
Moved $250 to savings to buy the October I-bond.
Wrote a $35 check to DRP#3.
$3 in the tip jar.

Decided after several weeks of due diligence to start a 4th DRP (Marshall & Ilsley, a mid-sized Midwestern bank), so I ordered it from Temper Investment Services. I wrote a voided check and tried unsuccessfully to fax it from work. We have phone and fax issues - grrr. I found a Kinko across from where I eat lunch and it worked there. Now I wait for a few weeks. I bought it before the 25th, so hopefully I caught their schedule correctly. If not, my stocks are a buy and hold, so what's a few more weeks when your timeframe is years?

And lunch today was in the Uwajimaya food court. Uwajimaya is an asian grocery store on steroids, along with a bookstore, food court, and mini-shopping center. It was the 10th anniversary, so everything was 10% off.

My six month job evaluation went very, very well. I scored a 4 out of 5; 5 means we're gonna burn the building down if you leave. And I only had to get a 3, which means we have no complaints about you. The COO put a note into our HR department that I qualify for a % increase according to my offer letter. And its retroactive - my six months was due a month ago.

It will be interesting though. We got a COLA adjustment in August. HR could simply shoot back that they already gave me the increase. Of course, the offer letter didn't mention a phrase like "in lieu of other salary adjustments", so I might well get the rare and elusive double raise. (triple if count the original promotion).

Last night, to celebrate and to get out of the house, DH and I went to the St. Demetrios Church Greek Festival, and I bought $26 worth of Greek foods that I never can seem to find. Taramosalata, the marbled halva, kasseri cheese, the cookie/ baklava sampler (complementary insulin shot taped inside - just kidding), a Greek candy bar. I love trying stuff like that. Always a leap into the unknown. Usually I like to try to pick up one of those charity cookbooks - the church ladies recipes - but the production values are too high so you know all the recipes were written by a professional. We went to a wine tasting - 4 whites and 4 reds for 5$. A couple of bottles were tasty but nothing worth the 15$ - 20$ per bottle.

Hit and miss at the grocery stores - romaine was at good price, chicken stock was at a high. But November, time of cheap chicken stock, will come.

No heiress letter yet, emailed sister to ask whats up.

Had the urge for another bad-for-your-health-life-affirming lunch. Hit Dome Burger for the first time in three years. All their burgers are fresh, the fries were hot, and all the condiments you could want. I had a meeting today so I didn't load up on the onions. Took me back to high school and college; Dome Burger decor reminds me of a college dorm. Prices had gone up about .50 from last I went.

Bought a $300 I-bond today. You buy those at the end of the month because the issue date is set at the first of the month. Buying at the end of the month means instead of a year's wait before you can redeem them, its 11 months.

My $40 bought a 1/2 a share of 3M, so I have 19.66 shares of 3M. Tomorrow $50 will be taken out of my savings account to buy Coke. I should have 61.50 shares of that. (FYI - Dome Burger has a Coke fountain. Ka-ching!) On the first day of October the $35 I sent to Wisconsin Energy Corp should buy another share of that. I should have over 10 shares of that. Compared to my 403Bs, these stocks are a small proportion. I just thought I'd quietly add to my positions, reinvest the dividends (all pay a reasonable dividend and cost nothing to invest in their DRPs). Investing $40, $50 at a time feels way different than plunking down a $1000 at a time - it feels nice, like I'm sending my money away to earn money for me.

Waiting for the paycheck to come on Friday.

Spending log - 1.65 coffee (paid w/change) + 6.00 lunch + 2.75 bubble tea
Saving log - 4.00 tip box + 300 savings bond

Found a deal on the cat food cat likes - .50/can - so I stocked up. I have an 18 yr old cat so if he eats it and its a treat, who's it gonna harm? Of course stocking up for an 18 yr old cat is the very definition of optimism.

Found a good deal on bubble bath Saturday. I'll save the shampoo trick for later. I had been eyeing a stainless steel olive oil dispenser for a year now. My old one is soldered at the bottom and after years of use, it leaks and produces a ring of olive oil whenever I use it. I love my old dispenser, though. Its got a cool Italian lithograph on it.

Because I'm too frugal for cable, , but like The Sopranos, I made the trek to Blockbuster. To be honest, I hate the new no late fees policy. No one brings DVDs back. Here it is, 4 months from when season 5 first came out and no vol 3. And the library's worse. Oh well...eventually.

Sept 24
Spending log - 7.86 coffee and breakfast + 46.72 grocery store (includes bubble bath and that olive oil dispenser)

Sept 25
Spending log - 7.00 coffee and breakfast + 7.62 canned cat food

Paid $350 on the credit card; now I have $280 of debt left. Chipping away at it - my only purchase on it last month was a Katrina donation. I shudder to think that I'll be making Rita, Stan, Tammy, Vince and Wilma donations, too. Baring all that death and destruction, I should be able to clear it next month.

Popped the signed waiver and consent in the mail. Sister told me that the next piece of paper was a certificate that I'm a legal heir(ess) to the estate, to be signed in front of a notary. We have a notary at work, so its a hop up some stairs. Now all I have to do is find the time.

I made some comments on another frugal blog about grocery shopping and how to select produce. One thing led to another and suddenly I was part of an email interview about how to keep vegetables fresh. If you're curious, here's the link:

http://money.happyhumans.com/2005/09/21/save-on-produce/

Spending log - $1.65 coffee + $7.00 lunch (bought enough for dinner, too) + $3.00 bubble tea + $350.00 credit card
Saving log - $5.00 tip box

Ah schadenfreude. Pleasure at another's misfortune.

I experienced it today in Safeway with my price book. Safeway is one of the those grocery stores with the club card that "entitles you to sale prices" but in fact over inflates regular prices then encourages you to sell your privacy down the river in exchange for a crummy card that entitles you to regular prices. I guess Safeway to me is what the bank is to sister -- it produces all sorts of semi-irrational long term grudges and hatreds.

I was cutting through in the double-decker Safeway -- they have an escalator and sometimes I just don't want to face the walk up the hill -- when I had an urge to pick up a couple of things. The so called "sale" price on every thing was more expensive than the mid-range of my price book. HAH!

Plus I got a fantastic deal on ground beef yesterday from my usual grocery store. Stocked up and rotated out the old stuff from the freezer for crockpot chili.

I also got a voicemail yesterday from sister. She received the letters that the bank executor sent, opened hers up and she let fly. The bank had checked off that they need an exclusionary clause in case the situation required it. That really set her off. It nearly set me off, but I'm fairly sure that this is boilerplate - a clause that nearly every estate gets. I mean, what if they find 33 dead bodies in the basement?

I had to call her back and ask that I get my copy. Ranting over the phone isn't going to help the situation any, and my lawyer-advisee needs the paper, not the pissed-off voicemail.

Yippee! One of my grocery stores had a 12 hour produce sale today. Nice. Except for the fact that it is soooo easy to overbuy for just the two of us, so a little strategy is in order.

Got 4 peaches at a good Seattle price, but I always try to buy them a bit under-ripe so I can eat them over the week.
I've overbought tomatoes, so it might well be raw tomatoes for a couple of days and then dress up tomato soup with chopped tomatoes and a little bit of cream. 1 lb of green beans. Terrific price, but they always sell them too wet. They shouldn't be dry, but if the mist drenches them and then you throw them in the refrigerator, its a mold colony waiting to happen.

And there's the problem of what to do with middle aged vegetables. They're not fresh, but they're way too good to pitch. I've got a whole head of cauliflower like that, so tonight I roasted the cauliflower and drenched it in homemade lemon tahini sauce. (Lemon tahini sauce in the summer, bechamel in the winter!)

Spending log - 1.75 coffee + 5.00 lunch + 16.70 groceries (produce, salad dressing, cheese)
Saving log - 0

I like routines, especially now. It feels good to follow a weekend itinerary that I've had for years. Saturday is chase day - grocery and the errands that piled up over the week.

I have a couple of grocery stores and price book. I use a price book regularly but it really only guarantees that you won't completely get ripped off. Sometimes you need what you need, no matter the price, so the price book can depress you a bit. For example, today is 20% off produce day at the first grocery store - got a couple of good deals on some produce, but I thought I'd wait to buy a couple items at grocery store #2, where they were traditionally a little cheaper. Big mistake - the items were pricier by .20/ lb. Sigh. My sanity, time and DHs gas are precious. Buy only what you need and move on.

Mailed a couple of light boxes and got stamps. Gotta check on postal service rates - UPS is getting to be seriously, seriously spendy.

We went to a late afternoon matinee at the $3 movie theater and saw the Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. It made me cry at the end. Haven't seen a movie in months.

I made gazpacho and blue cheese potato salad. Should hold us for a few days. We graze from the refrigerator over the summer.

Spending log:
grocery stores - 22.48+6.64, mailing boxes - 26.46, movie - 3.00

Saving log: not a darn thing.

Monday payday!