The February 2012 Living off Your Stockpile Challenge..WINNER ANNOUNCED!!!

[jkeating]

Ugh, the bed saga continues...I'm home waiting for Sears to come pick up bed #2. I did not buy another one, so, will be out whatever $$ they hit me for the "restocking fee". I think it's 15%. I've been bed shopping like a lunatic the last few days and am SO confused and so scared to buy yet a third set that may not work out...I feel like I'm losing my mind...

Not sure what your budget is but have you considered one of those adjustable beds? My mom and sister both have them and love them. I have a friend from work who swears by her Temper-Pedic.

Hope you find something you love soon!

[to1drland]

ffa- I'm trying really hard to avoid another foot surgery. ( 2 already in the last 2 & 1/2 yrs.) I just about came flying up off the therapy table today when she pushed on the back of my heal.

I have some more oop to report-

Super Target-
2 pks. chicken hind quarters ($1.49 ea. AC)
2 bags Alexia sweet potato tots (.84¢ ea. AC's)
2 bags luden's drops
2 pks. MP mont. jack shredded cheese
-----------
$9.57 oop....saved $12.46

[jkeating]

Took my buddy Pete to dinner tonight at Friendly's. I had coupons and got $3 off our meal. I can't believe the amount of calories their food has. A burger had well over 1000 calories. I've been good about watching what I eat and didn't want to over indulge. I wound up having an apple salad that had walnuts, blue cheese crumbles and a balsamic dressing. It was under 600 calories and quite good.

Stopped at Target and they had the Iams!!! I got 5 bags for $1.00. There were 24 ounces of food in those bags. I'm delighted. Stopped at Wal-Mart and got 2 1 pound bags of Good Life Recipe for $1.27 a bag and 7 pounds of Purina Cat Chow. Their fruit was awful so I'll hit either Price Chopper or Hannaford. I need 1 gallon of milk and a jar of peanut butter from Aldi. Wet cat food from which ever store has it cheaper than $.50 a can. I do have coupons for the cat food. That's about all I'll need.

Tomorrow we're going to the movies. I have passes we'll use. We're going to see that movie Journey 2 with the Rock in it.

Taking my phone modem and DVR box back to cable in the morning.

Night all!

[vbc99]

Proud Momma Moment! Max won the "Lower Elementary Academic Bowl Bible Championship" today. Yep, that would be 1st place! Momma hen (me) is very proudly strutting around telling all of the relatives. LOL!

Great job Max!!

I picked up 15 more Powerades at Kroger tonight. It came to 0.67 per 32 oz bottle. I usually try to get 32 oz Powerades or Gatorades for 0.50 or less but we are all out. Updated my Wiki tonight. I'll have to watch my spending this coming week.

[suestuff]

Nope, the poster child for not wearing retainer. The installed a permanent one on the bottom, but my top teeth have shifted.

Our orthodontist has this on his ads and appt. cards:

Shift happens, wear your retainer!!!

I loved that. My kids do wear theirs. At least Lesley. Brian probably still is too. He is a real legal eagle and does what he is told, follows rules, etc...

Thank you to whoever posted about the IAMS unfortunately my store was all out :(

Keep looking. I found it fully stocked today and got 4 bags. Before today, no luck.

this is too cute..... DD4 is sitting inside her "cage" playing with this little cow and just laughing away. Too cute and I would love to know what's so funny.

Love, love, love this!!! The cutest sound in the world to a mom. She is so happy. You are a great mom!!!

And we struggle to make ends meet!

Its called earned income credit. Most of my clients think, if you have a kid the government should pay you $3,000-4,000 every year (per kid). But that is not the way it works. It is all based on how much you make.

If the government would get rid of earned income credit, then our national debt would be reduced significantly.

ok, here are the statistics from my experience. 95% of my clients are low income people. The average refund is $4,000-9,000. The average income is $8,500-$22,000. Now, I am a VERY small business with just a couple hundred clients. Imagine all of the people that fall into this category across the whole entire country. I would guess that if the IRS would get rid of the earned income credit, this country would save many Billions, if not Trillions of dollars. THAT's how significant this problem is.

Have you ever heard a reporter or politician mention earned income credit? I have not. They keep talking about taxing the rich. This is a WIDE OPEN free for all that should be nixed asap.

Oh, and get this. I know this is going on, but I can't prove it. If a chick has LOTS of kids, meaning more than 3. She "sells" them to relatives. Meaning, the relatives claim the "extra" kids on their returns so they get back the $4-8,000. Then pay the momma for being able to claim the kid. I've heard of people paying $1,000 for claiming a kid. I'm telling you, it will make your head spin, turn red, and pop off if you really think about it in the big picture.

First of all, I didn't know anything about this. We pay tons in taxes every year.

Second ~ my DH spends the dreaded day every year doing our taxes. He buys a tax program for about $30, I think. How can these people afford you?!!!

And selling your kid is crazy. That should not be allowed.

We lost the deduction for Brian because of his age. But we are allowed to declare Eleonora a dependent*, because she is. There is no other monetary benefit for hosting an exchange student. It was never in our consideration of whether we wanted to do it or not. We were much more concerned about privacy and having another kid and how it would effect our daily lives.

Well, we are so happy we have done this. I think I have said this before. She is just like a daughter to us after only one month. I think nothing about doing for her as I would do for Lesley.

*ACT ~ what will this mean? Is this why people who shouldn't be host families do this? Because Eleonora came from a family who didn't seem to really want her. I just couldn't figure out why they volunteered for it. But they didn't want her and didn't want her to leave. Made her walk to Walmart to buy her own food. Totally against the rules.

[belinda2]

Back in the land of the living. The flu is bad this year. Thank goodness for my stockpile but we've been eating out a lot. Went to a dog show a couple of weeks ago and showed my little Boston Terrier. She was the most undisciplined dog there. It was her first show but she could barely walk on a leash. I've been spending time with Dad because of his illness and not much time with her. The organization is IABCA and she got her IntCh plus won a best of breed and 3ed in Group. My DH and I were so sick and we couldn't enjoy it as much as we wanted. Next weekend where trying the UKC.

My tax season has started and managed to keep up with clients but haven't done much shopping. Tomorrow hope to hit a number of Target's and find more One Beyond. I'm getting caught up with laundry and trying to spend time training Leelu. On the table with the Judge she looks like a 50 year old virgin at her first time. The Judge touches her and she crunches up looking over her shoulder jumping out of her skin wondering what the heck the Judge is doing and will it hurt.

I'm almost caught up with reading this list and filing q. Sure haven't missed much in the way of q. Grocery store sales also are bad which is good for me.

[actvmom]

Ok, first of all, how old is Brian????? You can claim him no matter what age he is. I know you don't fall into this category, but you can get earned income credit for him as long as he is in school and under age 24. You can claim his education credit too, even if he gets a free ride (scholarship), he will still have a 1098T from Alabama. And you can claim that on your taxes.

I don't know about the exchange student. We don't have many around here that I know of. But, yes its probably why the original host family volunteered in the first place, they saw $$$ signs. I hope you claim her before they do. If they are like that, then they are probably shady enough to send in their taxes before you do, so they get the deduction.

And finally, if their refund is $4,000-8,000 or so, they don't care how much they pay to get their taxes back. A couple of years ago, I offered the Advanced Refund Anticipation Loan (where you get a loan on your refund, and they get it within a day or 2). They were paying about $400 to get it back fast. THEN, they go to the check cashing store aNd pay who knows how much to get the check cashed. So, my guess is they were probably paying close to $1,000 to get their refund. But again, they don't consider it "their money", meaning its free money, so they could care less how much it costs them to get it.

The government put a stop to the 24 hour refunds 2 years ago, and I lost about half of my business. They were going to places that told them they wuld get the refund in 24 hours, and then were told that they were not approved for the refund. I was honest & told them the truth, they were dishonest & got all the business. Grrrrr!

[a_tyson8]

Have any of you seen the video going around of the dad responding to his daughters Facebook rant about how 'horrible' her life is? I thought it was hilarious and I don't even have kids! I'm sure you all will get a kick out of it.

I can't believe that I was 15 only 4 years ago (almost 5 now). But, unlike this girl, I had a job at 15. I DID have an iPod, but I also had a job, and I bought it for myself! It was the first big thing I ever bought with my own money and I was so proud of myself

Anyway, I don't know if I can post a link to the video or not, but I'm sure a quick google search will lead you to it.

[vbc99]

Hope everyone has a good Saturday! I'm off to work. I wrote out where all the kids need to be at what time today for my DH so he can cart them around. I also told both kids they could have one friend over tonight but said we were having frozen pizzas for dinner because I am NOT cooking dinner for everyone after working all day. I have to figure out some meals for this coming week. This week went alot faster than last week.

Savings - We got a light dusting of snow but really not anything to amount to. It's just COLD here.

[jkeating]

Frantically watching my DVR'D programs. I'm returning my box today and might see what cost difference is between non HD/DVR and DVR. I had a HD TV hooked up to the box but now Peter has it in his spare room. If I can justify the cost I may just get a non HD/DVR. I love not having to watch programs as they are on. I go to sleep so early that I miss shows. I also like to tape while I'm sleeping. I'm not going to miss my landline. I don't think I make more than 5 calls a month using it. Will nice to have some extra money each month.

Price Chopper is having 5 pounds of sugar on sale for $2 which is a really good price. I have to make some more jam because what I made in the summer is gone. Does sugar store well? I don't see the price going down in the summer and might get a few bags for summer jam making but if it's going to get rock hard it would be a waste of money. Right now I store my sugar in quart size canning jars. I have a few larger size but only 2 of that size. So, just buy for the jam I'm making now or buy a few extra bags?

Right now watching Harry Potter and the half blood prince. Why can't I sleep past 4:30 even on my day off?