Five full days now and I’m still incapacitated with some sort of flu bug.  The Son is in full-suffer mode along with me (he’s been sick for three days now) and today The Husband came home sick from work.  The Daughter has decided she’s not going to catch it.  I say more power to her if she doesn’t.  If The Son and I don’t feel a lot better tomorrow, we might have to end up forfeiting the tickets we bought to Thursday’s baseball game — wouldn’t that be a bummer? 

Being home sick with the flu has definitely slowed down my expenditures but hasn’t stopped them completely.  I promise a full accounting when I’m coherent.

Dear Readers,

First, let me express how deeply touched I am by those of you who reached out to me via email to see if I was okay.  It did my heart good to know that there are people out there reading my blog and who care enough to check up on me.

Second, let me put any fears to rest:  The Husband is doing just fine.  Most of my absence has to do with my own personal health issues right now.

Right now, as in at this very moment, I’ve got a bad case of the flu.  But on top of that and going back several weeks, my remaining 1/2 of my thyroid is so completely enlarged that it’s messing up my life big time.  I need to have it removed but that’s a long drawn-out process of doctor appointments and scheduling and, well, I’ve been so overwhelmed I’ve just been putting it off.  Everyone seems to concur that my goiter is most likely the cause of my sleep apnea.  Now that the goiter is so big, my CPAP machine seems to be completely ineffective which means that I’m not sleeping.  Or rather when I am sleeping, my goiter is obstructing my throat to such a degree that my CPAP machine cannot effectively keep my airway open thus my brain receives a signal about every two minutes that I have too much carbon dioxide in my system and I need to do something about it.  So my body wakes up just enough to start breathing again; just enough to keep me out of REM sleep.  When I wake up in the morning, I’m exhausted.  As a result, my Fibromyalgia has flared.  So I’m exhausted and in pain.  I drag through my days feeling overwhelmed, barely staying awake, feeling blue and frustrated and pathetic.

In Daily Dollar news, The Daughter is now officially a Junior and out of school (as of Thursday).  The Husband and I have decided that it would be a great experience for her to be the family budget keeper this summer.  On May 31 we sat down together for a few minutes with the YNAB software program* and walked through a quick overview.  Then she allocated our June budget dollars into categories.

My hope, once I recover from the flu, is to

1. share the how’s and why’s of having The Daughter be in charge of the entire family budget this summer;
2. catch up with all of my missing Daily Dollar posts;
3. journal a little more about the financial and emotional repercussions of suffering from chronic illness and having a terminally ill husband.

I managed to get about 1/2 way caught up with my missing daily $$ diary postings today.  Thank goodness I kept fairly good records in my YNAB software* along the way.

• Day 247  Gifts and Household Misc (May 5)
• Day 248  A No-Spend Day (May 6)
• Day 249  Earbuds and Plastic Clips (May 7)
• Day 250  Traveling Expenses (May 8 )
• Day 251  No-Spend Day (May 9)
• Day 252  PJ Pants & a Mortgage Payment (May 10)
• Day 253  Groceries (May 11)

Hopefully I’ll be able to fully catch up tomorrow and then get back onto my regular daily $$ postings from there.

Dear Readers (if indeed I have any readers),

I do most humbly and sincerely apologize for taking such a long and unannounced leave of absence from my daily $$ posts.  As you know, I spent two weeks driving my mom across country and, while there, visiting with my brother and his family in New York City and my sister and her family in the greater Boston area.

I flew home on Thursday, May 8th, and hit the ground running.  The Husband turned 73 on Friday.  On Saturday, The Daughter and I worked all morning and into the afternoon at a school function; Saturday afternoon I watched The Son’s team get skunked in a Mother’s Day tournament; and Saturday evening I chaperoned at The Daughter’s semi-formal school dance until after midnight.  Sunday found me at a very, very early baseball game and then came a mad and stressful dash to get prepared for The Husband’s birthday party Sunday evening with all of his children and grandchildren.

Mom’s Taxi Service duties certainly didn’t ease once the week started.  The Daughter’s got a role in the Senior Class Play this weekend, as do several of her classmates.  So far this week I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time driving and waiting on people who need to be driven here, there, and everywhere.

On top of it all, I caught some kind of stomach bug from my mom during our trip.  Most of that is gone now but I can still feel some of the lingering effects.  And I think I might have strep throat — or some other bug making me feel less than great.

As for blogging, I hope to be able to go back and reconstruct my missing $$ days as well as get back to daily postings.

I’ve learned a few valuable lessons during this chaotic time.  Though they’re not new lessons, they have served to strengthen my resolve to find better ways to deal with future chaotic times.

One, it is absolutely vital that I log all expenses into my YNAB program every single day.  The activity only takes 5 minutes total — including firing up the computer, starting the program, and entering the data.  No matter how busy I am, I would think that I could manage to find a measly 5 minutes each day.  If I don’t log my expenses daily, it’s just too easy to make mistakes and forget transactions.  Particularly cash transactions.  I so very rarely make cash purchases — and the vast majority of those times are when I’m traveling.  Therefore it’s particularly important for me to log my expenditures on a daily basis when I’m traveling.

Two, daily expenditure tracking helps keep me honest.  Traveling and/or vacationing is a time when it’s particularly easy to let spending get out of hand.  Likewise stressful times, busy events such as holidays and visiting family are times when my grip on expenses loosens.  In situations like these, it’s easy to overspend and easy to hide the effects of my spending on my overall budget.  But if I take the time each day (see above) to log my expenses into my YNAB program, I can’t fool myself.  A simple mouse click takes me from the program’s register to the budget overview — and the budget overview is so simple and clearly laid-out that there’s simply no hiding from how the day’s expenses have impacted my monthly cash flow.

Taking a break from blogging has made me realize how much I’ve gained from the daily activity of accounting for expenses.  Also, I miss it and look forward to getting back into the routine of my daily posts — and irregular additional posts.  So if you’re a reader, thanks so much for sticking with me during my absence.  If you’re a new reader, welcome and I hope you’ll find my material interesting, insightful, or helpful.

As a follow-up to this morning’s post about offers put forth by Sears and Kroger, I have good news.  Kroger will not only accommodate those of us who expect to receive their stimulus as a direct deposit rather than as a physical check, they’re going to make participation easier and less complicated than Sears.

Here’s the email response I received from Kroger Corporate Communications contact Meghan Glynn:

Hi Elizabeth,
     Customers who do not have a hard copy of their government-issued checks may still take advantage of this offer with cash, a credit card or by presenting a valid personal check to the Customer Service center. Kroger Gift cards do not expire.  Bonus amounts cannot be used toward the purchase of alcohol, lottery tickets, pharmaceuticals or tobacco products.

     Amounts that differ from those outlined above will be turned into gift cards in $300.00, $600.00 or $1,200.00 increments with the bonus amounts added on and the remainder returned to the customer.  For example, if a customer has a tax refund or stimulus check of $415.50, the customer will receive a Kroger gift card valued at $330.00 and the remaining $115.50 will be returned to the customer.

My interpretation of Meghan’s reply is that once the program officially starts on May 2, 2008, anyone wishing to participate can purchase either $300, $600, or $1,200 worth of Kroger gift cards and receive a card valuing either $330, $660, or $1,320.   Apparently no proof of their actual stimulus check will be required.

I suppose that some of the fine print will put off a couple of people considering Kroger’s deal but it certainly won’t affect us.  In addition to the exclusions Meghan listed above — alcohol, tobacco, lottery tickets (of which we don’t partake) and pharmaceuticals (which we do buy on occasion) — the program, which runs only through July 31, 2008, “is limited to one offer per household with a limit of $1,200.00.”

I haven’t discussed this latest development with The Husband yet but I can’t imagine he’ll object to earning a quick and easy 10% bonus on his grocery money.  Stay tuned and I’m sure you’ll hear more about what we decide to do with our government stimulus check.

Through a typically serpentine path of following links this morning, I discovered that both Sears and Kroger are offering incentives to consumers willing to cash in their Economic Stimulus checks.

Sears Holding Corporations is offering a 10% “bonus to every customer who converts their government stimulus checks into gift cards at Sears or Kmart.”  The gift cards will have no expiration and no fees.  They can be used at Sears, Kmart, or Lands’ End retail stores or on-line at Sears.com or Kmart.com.

For some it might be a very attractive offer but since I don’t shop at any of those stores, I think it’s an offer that I will pass.

But the Kroger offer does interest me.  I’m practically a daily Kroger shopper.  Kroger’s deal, as shown below, is similar to Sears’ in value — it works out to 10%.

The problem is, we won’t be receiving a Stimulus check. We’re expecting a direct deposit.

Sears, apparently, has already addressed this issue.  Following is a quote emailed to me by The Husband (sorry, I don’t know the source):

Sears representative Kirsten Whipple said details for shoppers who elect to receive the fiscal-stimulus check by direct deposit are still being worked out, but they will likely be able to register online to receive a coupon to bring to stores.

I imagine that there will be more retailers jumping on this Stimulus incentive bandwagon, and, in an interesting way, encourage us all to do exactly what the government wants us to do with our checks — stimulate the economy.  I’m going to keep a sharp eye and ear out for other retailers’ incentives before making a decision (with The Husband, of course) as to what to do with our money.

In the end, I’d have to bet that if we do any sort of retailer gift card exchange, it would be with Kroger (provided they come up with a way to entice those of use getting direct deposits) because it wouldn’t, in any way, be encouraging us to spend money that we wouldn’t otherwise spend in a place we wouldn’t otherwise spend it.  Otherwise, my guess is we’ll do exactly what the government doesn’t want us to do, stick it in savings.

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.

The Husband’s been bugging me for months now to downgrade our Netflix subscription.  I’ve always resisted because I’ve liked the flexibility that our 3-at-a-time subscription allowed.  With 3-at-a-time, I could keep up a steady flow of The West Wing discs for me, have a weekly movie that The Husband and I have picked out, and allow The Son or The Daughter to request something or bring in a family movie or documentary — all at the same time.

Now, however, I’ve finally watched every single episode of The West Wing (all 7 seasons).  That frees up one out of every three discs requested.

Also, The Daughter is down to only two sports practices a week but The Son’s practice schedule just got heavy leaving us with only one night together as a family with any sort of movie-length free time.  The thing is, none of us like the idea of using that night, every single week, to watch a movie together.  Often, The Daughter has homework.  Or we feel like playing a game instead.  Or, as happens most frequently, there isn’t anything that we’re all interested in seeing together.

So I finally gave in to The Husband’s wishes.  I couldn’t bring myself to downgrade all the way to 1-at-a-time so I only dropped us down one level to 2-at-a-time.  That will save us $3.00/month.

We’re open to upgrading again for a while this summer when The Daughter’s out of school and has, potentially, more free time (and, as a consequence, we parents will have more free time too).  Last summer not only did we have the 3-at-a-time subscription but we had three different queues — one for The Daughter, one for The Son, and one for me and The Husband to share.  We might well go back to the same arrangement this summer.

Then again, we might not.  The Daughter’s been talking a lot lately about getting a job — an idea that The Husband and I are both encouraging (as long as it won’t interfere with her studies).

Also, now that The Daughter has a driver’s license, she might spend more time with her friends this summer and find that she has less time and less interest in watching rental movies.  On the other hand, now that we’ve done the basic work necessary to convert the big basement room from a “playroom” into a “rec” room more appropriate for teenaged “hanging out”, maybe The Daughter will spend more evenings at home entertaining friends, playing foosball, and watching movies on her “new” TV.

However things pan out this summer, for now we’re a 2-at-a-time Netflix family.  The Husband is happy, we’ll save $3 each month, and we’ll still manage to watch plenty of movies.

May I take a moment to shout out a word of thanks to my subscribers and regular vistors?  It’s been a particularly long week what with picking up and flying out to my mom’s house with less than 24 hours notice.  I appreciate all of you for sticking around even though my more “interesting” weekly posts have been suspended until I get back home and my life returns to some semblence of normal.

My mom has sold her house and is about to embark on a somewhat scary adventure.  She’s giving up her life as she’s known it for years — living on her own in her own little house — and moving across the country to live with my sister and her three children.  Apart from a few piece of furniture, her clothing, and some personal possessions, we have to liquidate a whole household full of stuff.

I have two more full days here to help get work done and then will return, most likely with The Daughter in tow, later this month to help my mom and sister stage a huge estate/garage sale.  Boy, doesn’t that sound like fun?

If you’re new to my blog, you might consider checking out the archives.  I’ve written some household maintenance tips and several articles on Kids & Money.

Well folks, back to the old drawing board.  Surely you didn’t think it would be that easy?

I put the Alfani briefs into the wash last night (don’t worry, I had a full load of whites to run).  This morning I got the report:  the waistband fit fine but the actual briefs were loose.

You know, I really don’t get clothes’ manufacturers.  Do they not use real people to come up with the designs for their clothes?  I’d honestly forgotten how difficult it is to find clothes designed to fit human beings instead of mannequins.  All of those years of dressing my kids in Hanna Andersson togs really spoiled us.

The Son, though slim, has a fairly classic physique.  He’s not overly skinny (like his cousin) and, unlike so many males (including his own dad), he has a rear end.

I can only imagine what this Great Underwear Search of ‘08 is going to entail — both in time and money.  :-(   At least we’ve already done the work of ensuring that classic briefs are definitely the style of choice.  Traditional boxer shorts were rejected several years ago — loosey, goosey is simply not for The Son.  I have to admit I still don’t fully understand his rejection of boxer briefs — they’re so similar to the sliding shorts he wears for baseball and basketball and he’s had no trouble adjusting to those.  I would have thought that boxer briefs would be perfect:  the same fit without the cup.  But no.

If anyone out there has any brand suggestions, please speak up.