May 12 2008
Actually posted on May 16 — catching up with daily expenditures.
Doctor co-pay — $25.00
I decided to not wait my usual three months before going in to see why I’m feeling so yucky.
Safeway — $49.53
My mom is gone. Her car is gone. I’m back to driving The Tank again. At a whopping 15 mpg, it’s not the most fuel-efficient vehicle on the road 
I pumped 12.995 gallons at $3.539 per gallon. My odometer read 123,025.
Apr 24 2008
Total Spent Today: $211.57
Lavage appointment — $70.00
Kroger — $10.00
I picked up my monthly synthroid prescription at the pharmacy.
Kroger — $32.28
Safeway gas — $31.42
I took my mom’s car for one last fill-up. She flies in tonight. We’ll leave for the east coast in a couple of days.
Car Wash — $10.75
After tanking up, I drove across the street to a self-service car wash and gave it a thorough vacuuming and bath. It looks all sparkly and clean now — I’m sure my mom will be pleased at my efforts. It was the least I could do since she let us use it all this time. Having her car to drive around has saved us quite a bit in gas lately since her car gets about twice the mpg that The Tank gets. It’s also been nice having a third car. We’ll definitely miss that luxury.
Kroger — $7.62
Right in the middle of making hamburgers and oven fries for dinner, I had to run back to the grocery to pick up some ground beef. After getting the fries all prepared and in the oven I discovered that the package of ground beef I bought the other day had a small hole in the package. I couldn’t see the hole when the meat was frozen but I’d let it defrost in the fridge for a day and today it was quite noticeable — the meat was clearly discolored. I was seriously bummed and peeved.
Airport Parking — $2.00
School Lunch Caterer — $47.50
That’s for 10 hot organic lunches for The Daughter at school — two lunches per week (our agreed upon weekly allotment) for the last 5 weeks of school (May/June).
Apr 18 2008
Total Spent Today: $1,065.03
Costco Gas — $65.03
I tanked up The Tank today. I haven’t had to do that for over a month because I’ve been driving my mom’s car. Sure, I’ve been filling up her tank but her car gets nearly twice the gas mileage that The Tank does. I pumped 20.202 gallons @ $3.219/gallon. My odometer reads 121,884 miles.
Urgent Care Center — $75.00
Weeks ago The Daughter suffered yet another sports-related injury. She asked me to take her to have it x-rayed and I said no. What kind of mother am I? I wouldn’t be surprised if Child Services showed up on my doorstep next week. Yes, I told her to take Arnica and ice it. She didn’t. She kept playing and reinjuring it and expecting me to listen to her whining — which I did, though not will a full dose of compassion. Anyway, as you can guess, the injury hasn’t healed. It still hurts. Well, duh.
But you know what, the only other time she’s suffered an injury that I didn’t have checked out? Her arm was actually broken. And it took me three days to take her to the doctor. She was only 6. I’m still feel guilty about that one.
So I took her to the clinic this afternoon. It wasn’t broken. Just badly sprained. But they put a splint on it, closer to a cast than not, and told her no volleyball for at least a week. So what I really spent $75 on today was the privilge of having an authority figure give The Daughter the same advice I gave her weeks ago — and for free.
Deck Contractor — $925.00
The contractor showed up today and finished repairing and refinishing our back deck. It looks great. The project cost me $200 more than originally expected because we ran into a problem with the railing that had been removed by the handyman who tore down my shed. It was a legitimate change order, and as much as I would have rather not pay any more than the original contract amount, I knew it was necessary.
Apr 11 2008
Friday. A crazy-busy day topped off with crazy-expensive activities and a major grocery stock-up-the-fridge event.
Eye Doctor — $99.00
Today it was The Daughter’s turn for an eye exam. She, too, will best be served with bifocals. That’s three pair of bifocals to order and three eye exams to pay for. We have vision insurance but it’s barely better than nothing at all. I got itemized receipts from the doctor’s office and will submit them to the insurance company on Monday.
Of the three pair of needed glasses, The Son’s are the only ones paid for and ordered. We should have them in a week or so.
My glasses order is on hold because I have yet to decide on a pair of frames and because I’d like to string the order out onto a different credit card billing cycle — besides, now that I know what prescription I need for reading, I think I’ll try to limp along with a cheap pair from the drugstore; it won’t help with the computer work but it might be better than nothing and a whole lot cheaper than bifocals.
The Daughter’s glasses order is on hold, too, because she couldn’t decide on a pair of frames. The glasses woman (what a stupid term but I don’t know what else to call her) is ordering in a pair of frames, no obligation on our part, for The Daughter to try. They’re the same as a pair that looked quite good on her but in a different, possibly better, color. She and I decided that it might be best to wait until her grandmother, my mom, comes into town and can be consulted. I don’t carry much credibility as a fashion consultant.
Personal Training sessions — $150.00
The Daughter and I had our second of three private “personal training with a friend” session today. I debated for some time signing us up for this and incurring this type of expense.
The thing is, since my TIAs (mini-strokes) and my Fibromyalgia and hypothyroidism diagnoses three years ago, my activity has slowed down to about that of a three-toed sloth. I won’t say that I’ve packed on the weight because I haven’t, but I have put on a few pounds. A few pounds that I’d really rather not carry much further into middle-agedness with me. I’ve made a few attempts at getting back into an exercise routine but invariably I experience a Fibro flare-up and I go back to being a couch potato.
In The Daughter’s case, she gave up year-round competitive swimming two years ago in favor of having a life. Since then she’s played on her high school’s volleyball and basketball teams but the activity and exercise level of those sports cannot even begin to compare with the workouts she got while swimming. She misses swimming terribly and is seriously considering joining a high school team for her Junior and Senior years (since she has hopes of swimming in college too). She and I have taken trips to the gym before where we’ve done cardio work (ie, treadmill, ellipticals, stair climbers, etc) but she’s felt intimidated by the weights and other machines.
When the idea of a personal trainer first came up, The Daughter was very reluctant to sign up for sessions with me. By doing the “training with a friend” deal, we saved a considerable amount of money over what we each would have paid for private sessions. Plus we have the added advantage of her remembering what my exercises are and how to do them. When she realized it was either get sessions together or no sessions at all, she made the right call and said okay. No one’s ever accused her of being dumb
So tonight we both survived our second session. We’ll wait a couple of weeks now before setting an appointment for our final session. I hope that The Daughter will keep on track with an weekly exercise routine and not be pissy about finding days and times when we can go together. The good thing is that we’ve learned several core exercises that we can do at home with our own exercise balls and hand weights so we can still get in a partial workout even if we can’t get to the gym for our cardio workouts.
The $150 charge covers two people — three sessions each (or $75/person for three sessions). Not pocket change but doable. And hopefully worth it.
Kroger — $81.59
Our cupboards were literally bare. Neither The Daughter nor I felt like shopping after our workout (me because I had on workout pants and I felt very self-conscious and her because she was tired and wanted a shower — she gets worked out much harder than I do). But our desire for food won out.
Apr 09 2008
Ugh. I had a busy, expensive day today.
School Fees — $75.00
The Son and I finally got around to driving up to the main campus of the county-supported homeschool co-op program that he’ll be attending next year. We had to turn in his registration materials, his class requests for next year, and some fees. The breakdown of the fees I paid is as follows: $15 for next year’s yearbook (discounted price for early sign-up); $35 book deposit (enrollment entitles parents to check out curriculum materials from the program’s library — this fee will be returned when The Son withdraws or graduates as long as we’ve returned any books we check out); $20 for the first semester’s activity fees (a second $20 will be due in the second part of the next school year); and $5 “teacher appreciation” donation to the program.
Eye Doctor — $508.00
I knew that the kids and I all needed to have eye exams. And I knew I needed new glasses since I lost my pair of reading glasses during our move about 5 years ago.
I’d already made today’s appointments for The Son and I when I received a letter from the school district informing me that The Son’s vision test results were concerning (30/40 — isn’t that almost legally blind?). The Son’s not very communicative but you’d think the silly boy would have informed me that everything was fuzzy, wouldn’t you? Well, he didn’t.
The Son has worn reading glasses for years and, believe it or not, I walked in today expecting The Son to get a clean bill of health and sent on his merry way. After all, I’d paid an out-of-pocket fortune for his glasses and titanium frames just a few years ago. Imagine my surprise and dismay, then, this afternoon when they informed me that he not only needed a new prescription, but he needed bifocals. I could have gone the cheap route and gotten standard two-prescription bifocals with a line across the lens. But that would have left him without the needed mid-range prescription. So, I signed up for a pair of progressive bifocal lenses. The good news is that the new lenses can be made to fit into the old titanium frames. Sometimes it’s really handy that The Son isn’t a fan of change.
There’s still an expensive unknown hanging over my head — it might turn out that The Son’s baseball performance might be greatly improved by his distance prescription. Once we get the new glasses (lenses) back and he’s had a chance to get used to them and try them while playing, we’ll know whether we need to decide to get him a special pair of glasses for sports wear. If so, we’d probably opt to get a pair of special protective lenses in goggle frames. That would end up costing another separate small fortune. C’est la vie — just another potential expense of having kids. Thank goodness neither of our kids needed braces.
The other part of today’s bad news is that not only I need new glasses (I was prepared for that) but I, too, need bifocals. I need reading glasses but I also need mid-range computer lenses. As much as I’d like to pretend that I can live without the glasses — after all, things aren’t actually fuzzy — the amount of eye strain and headaches I experience tells me that I should just bite the bullet and get the darned things. But this time I can’t lose them. That’s something you’d expect a kid to do, isn’t it?
That awful total above does not include the cost for my glasses. Why? Because, as the mother of a 16yo daughter, I knew better than to pick out frames without her advice.
And now we come to the worst part of the news — The Daughter has her eye exam scheduled for Friday. All of my naivete has been stripped away and I know, without a doubt, that she too will need new glasses. And I know that there’s no way she’ll duplicate The Son’s situation and spare me the expense of new frames and require only new lenses. Why? Because she hates her current frames. And the vanity factor in this particular 16yo female is way too high to even consider wearing frames she hates for the sake of saving me some dough. Sure, I could put my foot down but I won’t. What’s the point in spending money on glasses I know she won’t wear? I’ll buy her new frames and then I’ll expect 100% compliance as far as wearing them.
Vitamin Cottage — $22.95
Wendy’s — $6.54
Dinner for The Son — he ate a Baconator and a medium vanilla Frosty.
Apr 08 2008
Apria Healthcare — $98.49
I had to pay the full price of my recent order of CPAP equipment(new mask, hose, and filters) because we haven’t satisfied our deductible yet. Within the space of a few days we received two invoices from Apria — the first for $24.24. The second invoice was for $97.32. Both invoices itemized exactly the same items. When I called to inquire as the discrepancy between the two bills, I was told that my actual bill was yet a third amount, $98.49.
The customer service representative was not unfriendly. But she was certainly not the most impressive customer service rep I’ve ever spent time talking with either. After waiting on hold for over 10 minutes before being connected to a real person, it only took us another 5 or 6 minutes to come to a mutual understanding of the basic difference between the first and second invoices. Apparently the first (smaller) invoice is what I would have paid if my insurance had been kicking in their 80%. The second invoice represents what I actually have to pay (100% of the charges — though the math doesn’t actually work out right).
But that’s about as far as we got. We spent another 5 minutes or so trying to clarify the difference between the second invoice and the amount her computer showed me as owing. In all honesty, I finally just gave up. The bill was due, I had to leave the house to pick up The Son, and I was clearly not going to get an intelligible explanation of the additional $1.17 charge. You and I know full well that the whole system — the interminable wait times, the horrid Muzak, the oft-repeated message about how important our business is and appreciation of our patience, the barely understandable strongly-accented phone rep, the complaints of computer issues (have you ever noticed that they’re always experiencing computer troubles?), and the perfectly reasonable “explanations” in faux technical terms that mean nothing to normal citizens — all of this is designed to subjugate, humiliate, bamboozle, and confuse us into submission. Well, in this case it worked. I paid with a credit card over the phone and hoped the whole thing would just go away.
One thing I can tell you about this experience — tomorrow I’m going to start researching alternative sources for my CPAP supplies so that I never, ever have to deal with Apria again.
[What I cannot explain, and didn’t bother asking about, is 1) why the original quote for the supplies was approximately $200 and 2) why the charge wasn’t applied to my card immediately, as I’d been lead to believe it would be. Maybe I should be feeling grateful — at the price difference if nothing else, but the experience was so outrageous that I feel strongly motivated to seek out a new equipment supplier.]
Costco Gas — $36.81
I’m still using my mom’s Ford for about 90% of my driving, leaving The Tank sitting idle in our driveway. I’ll tell you what — my gas budget is definitely benefitting. Still, the difference between our monthly gas expenditure for my mom’s car and The Tank isn’t nearly large enough to justify getting rid of The Tank and buying a car with better gas mileage. The Tank is paid off — we’re talking pink slip, baby. It has over 120,000 miles on it but there’s no reason to believe it won’t keep going for another several years without requiring major mechanical work (I have heard a nasty rumor that V-8’s only tend to average 150,000 miles before needing significant engine work but I have no proof of the rumor’s legitimacy).
It’s my strong hope that we don’t even have to think about replacing The Tank until June of ‘09 — which is when we’ll be done paying off the two-year, 1.9% loan we took on the new Subaru.
Son’s Teacher — $20.00
Two minutes before we walked out the door this morning, The Son handed me a permission slip for a field trip to see a Shakespeare production (the same one that The Daughter will be going to see with her high school class later this month). I grabbed the household checkbook, wrote the check, signed the permission slip, and still got The Son to class on time. I’d been hoping to see this one myself but I guess I’ll have to settle for having the kids tell me all about it.
Subway — $13.97
On the way home from a baseball game (The Son’s team lost), The Son and stopped and picked up sandwiches for him, The Daughter, and The Husband for dinner. At The Son’s request I upgraded his sandwich to a meal including a soda and two chocolate chip cookies — one of which he very generously offered to his sister. I made do with two leftover biscuits and a carrot. We’re all out of milk and I didn’t feel inspired enough to cook anything for just myself. I fear I might wake up in the middle of the night hungry but if I do, it’s my own darned fault.
Apr 01 2008
Woot — $19.99
My first-ever Woot purchase. I usually start out my on-line day by checking out the daily Woot deal but I’ve never seriously been tempted to buy anything until today. This morning’s deal was a Tuesday 2-fer pack of Black & Decker CP120B Backup Batteries. The purchase price was $14.99 with $5 shipping.
These battery packs look really cool — you plug them in at home to charge them. Then, carry one with you if you’re traveling or out and about. The packs can then be used to power and recharge any of your small electronic widgets — cell phone, digital camera, iPod, etc. In effect, it’s a pocket-sized, free-standing electrical outlet where you can power and/or recharge electronic equipment.
Safeway Gas — $49.59
My mom’s car is still in town. She’s gone but her car is still here. We’re in the process of making plans for driving it out East — probably sometime in May. Until then, I’m enjoying driving it around town on my errands. It doesn’t get great gas mileage but it gets about twice the mpg that The Tank gets. I pumped 16.053 gallons at $3.089 per gallon.
Costco — $16.36
A hardback copy of John Grisham’s latest novel, The Appeal. This is a book that The Son had expressed an interest in. We put a hold request on it from the library but he’s number 532 of 609 holds so we’ve been thinking he wouldn’t get a copy of it anytime soon.
On the way home from taking The Son to class this morning, I stopped by Costco quickly to talk to the guy at the Verizon kiosk. On my way out of the store, my eye landed on the book and it occured to me to pick up a copy. I’d just finished making a lavage (colonic) appointment for him and I knew he was going to hate it. I figured the book would give him something to look forward to this evening.
Lavage session — $170.87
The Son’s lavage session. Unfortunately, he inherited my digestive weaknesses. He’s always had chronic constipation issues. Interestingly, I’ve read that Asperger’s people very commonly have gut problems. The Son doesn’t qualify as Asperger’s but he does have many Asperger’s-like symptoms. He’s a quirky kid. Make that a quirky kid with gut troubles.
Along with the lavage session, I also bought some supplements that hopefully will help alleviate some or even most of his chronic gut troubles. One of the supplements is a supplement I also take but was starting to get a little low on. The others are things that will help him that I can’t or don’t take myself.
The session was predictably awful for The Son but it did give him some relief. He’s not feeling too fabulous right now but I hope he’ll feel better tomorrow. He needs to go back next week for another session. He informed me today, after leaving the office, that it was going to take a bigger bribe to get him back in that office than the one I offered today (the book, above, and the Starbucks, below).
Starbucks — $3.55
A medium vanilla bean frappachino for The Son as part of his bribe (see above).
And now for the bad news….
The insurance agent’s office called today with the quote for adding The Daughter on to our auto insurance policy as a new driver — almost $1,000 every 6 months!! Apparently that does not reflect her good student discount because they have to write the policy before they can discount it. Me thinks perhaps it’s time to do a little insurance comparison shopping. Those of you with teen drivers, is that in line with what you’re paying?
Mar 27 2008
Lavage session — $70.00
It’s expensive. It’s painful. But the effect it’s having on my IBS is both undeniable and fabulous. This is the longest stretch of symptom relief I’ve had in about a decade.
Old Navy — ($40.87)
I returned the baseball jersey ($3.49) and the hooded jacket ($34.50) that the son rejected the other day.
T.J. Maxx — ($34.39)
I returned the four sage green organic cotton towels I’d picked up. I really liked the color. The towels were a gorgeous, thick cotton. The price was perfect. And I loved the idea of organic cotton towels. Still, I returned them.
The way my master bathroom is set up, I have three hand-forged metal hooks screwed into a cherry chair-rail. The hooks hold one towel for me, one towel for The Husband, and a bathmat we use when showering. And there lies the problem — the towels hang right next to the bathmat so the towels and bathmat have to look nice together. It’s harder to find towel sets that include matching bathmats than one would think. I returned the organic cotton towels because I could not find a bathmat that looked good next to the towels.
Bed, Bath, & Beyond — $58.02
[I looked at towels at Linens N’ Things, Ross Dress for Less, and T.J. Maxx before stopping at BB&B.]
I bought 6 towels and 2 bathmats. They are a pretty cream color – it’s a pretty color but not one that I’d typically consider or gravitate toward. I generally prefer a medium-dark color for bath towels. However, the cream looks very nice in my bathroom. And I’d really been hoping to find a textured towel instead of the more traditional single-texture terrycloth towel. I thought that a texture would add visual interest. I could have gone with a multi-colored or striped towel, but in my opinion stripes or decorator colors become outdated quickly and I expect these towels to last me a good number of years. The final benefit of buying cream-colored towels is that, unlike dark colors, they can be washed in hot water without fear of fading.
I can’t say it’s the best thing, but a very nice thing about these towels is that they were on sale — for 40% off. I saved a total of $36 off the full price of the items I purchased.
Without a doubt, the very best thing about these news towels is that The Husband likes them and approves of the purchase. He agrees that it’s time for new towels and he liked the ones I’d chosen. Doesn’t get much better than that 
Wild Oats — $7.05
Feb 28 2008
Supplements – $30.12
Doctor — $25.00
Co-pay to my doctor — they fit me in last minute because my poor lungs are so stressed and my body is so worn out with this wracking cough. She gave me three prescriptions but I didn’t have any time today so I didn’t get any of them filled.
Speech Therapist — $120.00
Two session payments — today’s and last week’s.
Cash — $3.00
Given to The Daughter so she could buy herself a Starbucks drink after school today.
Vitamin Cottage — $23.36
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