Expenses This Past Week

Expenses last week-ish

Saturday $100.95 I ordered a different low-fat food for Milo the dog to try. Thankfully he likes it. 

Sunday $45.47 I ordered pill pockets for (you guessed it) Milo the dog plus a pack of wooden dowels for my husband to fix an old table we have.  We went by Lowe's and spent $6 for some brackets so the husband could also fix a rolling roller we have. 

Monday $0

Tuesday $85.32 WM and Kroger plus an unscheduled political donation of $11. Groceries, paper towels, mouthwash, dish soap.

Thursday 32.38 concert ticket for me.  Husband is not interested in going so I'm going to go support our little performing arts center here in town and watch a Beach Boys cover band.  I have good memories of the Beach Boys.  My dad was 24 when I was born and loved listening to and singing along with the Beach Boys.  As the only kid in the family for nearly 11 years, I mostly listened to my parents' music, which meant I knew a lot of 60's and 70's songs.  

Friday $94.25.  Big sigh.  My husband came home from work to go to Milo's follow-up vet appointment and parked outside the garage so it was easier to set Milo's steps up beside my car, which is the designated pet vehicle.  Remember, the Spleenless Wonder is almost 15, which  equates to 96 for a dog his size, and he can no longer hop up into my Rav4.  He also has trouble holding on in the backseat like he used to.  He loves to stick his nose out the window and feel the wind, which is fine except he doesn't need to be thrown around in the car.  So I bought a tether that connects his halter to the seatbelt.  And he went absolutely NUTS because he couldn't move around like usual.  So as I was backing out of the garage, I was focused on him and didn't pay enough attention to how I was backing out, completely forgot my husband was parked back there, and backed into his car.  I felt like a complete idiot of course.  My car "only" got the left brake light messed up.  The housing will have to be replaced, which I'm planning on doing myself.  (Cross your fingers--it looks simple enough.) Meanwhile I bought some red lens repair tape at Autozone for $7.12 which will keep it dry and hopefully keep me from getting pulled over.  The bulb still works.  I got the claim submitted for my husband's vehicle repair and we are getting an estimate later this week.  And then I went to Kroger and bought lots of produce plus ate my feelings a bit and bought chips.  $87.13

Saturday $0 My mom took the entire family out to lunch at a local Italian restaurant.  We had enough leftovers to for dinner too.  

Sunday $49.60 online for groceries and a 6-pack of RFID-blocking cards to go in every family members wallet.  No I'm not an overreacting conspiracy theorist, I promise, but I've just heard from some people lately that have had multiple cards cloned and the cards never left their wallet, so I figure peace of mind is worth a little bit of money. 

What could I have done differently this past week?  Well, certainly I could have NOT backed one car into the other.  But it was a mistake and I wouldn't continue to beat up on my husband if he was the one who did it so I guess I'll try not to beat up on myself about it.  

Anytime you change to a new diet and new meds, you have a lot of expenses up front.  And that's where we are with Milo.  Now that we have found a food he likes and have his meds down to just the two new lifelong ones (one for his liver and one for his gallbladder) we hopefully have settled into a nominal spending routine for him. 

Groceries are somewhere I'm sure I could always do better.  We do eat 100% of our meals and snacks from home generally speaking, and right now we are for sure.  I use coupons, watch sales, and try not to buy lots of junky foods but sometimes it sneaks in.  (See: chips.) 

Onward!

The Last Few Days

 Nothing much exciting has been going on around here.  Just the usual errands, housework, reading, spending time with the pets situation.  Our weekend was spent at home, which is how we like it most of the time.  We did get out to take my mil her groceries, do her meds, and pick up her laundry.  

Some of my seeds have started sprouting, so I guess that's pretty exciting.  Here you see collards.  I just went rogue and dropped several in a large pot instead of spacing out in a row in the planter.  

Norman has been enjoying his time on the deck.  

I'm still doing the "don't spent unless you really need to" challenge so at the end of the week I'll tally that up. 

Thursday and Friday

Yesterday was a day of errands:  I dropped all the food and treats that Milo can no longer eat at the humane society, did a pretty big grocery shop, stopped by the drugstore for a refill, and picked up a case of Milo's food at the vet.  

What I thought about buying

Since I was at the grocery store, I was tempted to buy things I absolutely did not need. I know some people swear by getting a pickup order but we get so much fresh produce that I really want to pick that out myself.  I did pretty good, though I did buy some gingersnaps I hadn't planned on getting.  

What I spent

142.05 at the grocery store.  This was all on food--no items for pets or cleaning supplies.  My husband has a bad habit of getting a drink out of the vending machine at work, and that adds up, so I bought drinks at the grocery store for him instead.  Gardein soup was finally on the clearance shelf so I bought all of those.  These were over 4.50 when they were full price, then went down to clearance on the regular shelf to 2.65, and finally were at 1.29 on the clearance shelf.  So I bought the last of what they had--7 total. Peet's coffee was on sale so I got 3 of those for the husband. I "saved" 27% and would have saved more if I had remembered to bring the $11 off coupon I had been sent.  Oh well, next time.  

61.50 at the vet for a case of prescription dog food.  

Wednesday evening I went through my little garden and picked some peppers.  No they are not pickled.  The little red ones are lunchbox sweet peppers and the husband has requested I grow those again next year.  The red ones will all be eaten fresh, and the others will be frozen and used in dishes later.  

I've felt a little off the last couple of days and had about a degree of fever last night.  Just enough to feel slightly sick, so I haven't accomplished much of anything around the house.  

Today is the 25th anniversary of 9/11.  I am far away from NYC but of course everyone who was old enough remembers where they were when they heard what was going on.  My husband had the day off work and we had taken a computer to the computer repair place near us.  I waited in the car and had the radio on.  When I heard what was going on, I went inside to tell my husband, but he already knew because there was a TV at the business.  And then the owner of the business said something like "Oh no.  And I just invested money in the stock market."  He wasn't worried about all the people who had been injured or killed, that was obvious.  Needless to say we never patronized that business again.  

Wednesday: Spending it all on the dog

Yesterday was an easy low-spend day.  I only had two things I needed to buy, and it was for Milo.  Today will be different because I need to make a grocery run and stock up on canned food for Milo from the vet. 

Things I thought about spending money on:

I hate the cords that hang down from the TV that's mounted in the living room.  Ideally, we'd have an electrician come and install a hidden plug. But that is at the very bottom of the list of the things I intend to spend money on right now. 

Frugal things:

I sorted through all the books we've read in the last few months and have 10 all set to go to Thriftbooks tomorrow.  I'll get around $10 added to my account, which will come in handy either at Christmas or if I want to buy myself a book in the future.  

I redeemed my Purina points for a $10 coupon toward cat food. 

The Spleenless Wonder is on a new OTC pill that isn't cheap and since I added it to auto ship at Chewy, I got 35% off the first shipment.  

I sold an item on eBay and I'll make $12.69 after fees.  

Things I actually spent money on

Chewy $89.10, which includes one bottle of the supplement and one bag of low-fat treats. 

How much can I save?

Since we've had some unexpected costs, plus some expected but still expensive ones, I thought I'd give myself a little challenge.  We knew about the foundation work but didn't know when we scheduled it that we would need 4 new tires on my car, some work done to our heating unit, and our fence was going to need some work.  We have savings and an income that we can use for these items but I'd like to not have to dip into longterm savings if possible.  

My challenge to myself is to report everything I spend, starting Tuesday, September 8th.   How long will this go on?  I don't know.  Until I get tired of it I guess. Some of the bills are due this month, and some in October. This does not include regular bills such as insurance, utilities, or regular donations, but will include any discretionary spending. 

I thought something else that would be interesting would be to include the things I *thought* about spending money on, but didn't.  It's kind of amazing how many things popped into my head on just the first day. 

Tuesday September 9th:  

Thought about

 Because I looked at a bra ad, I am now being served up ads from endless companies who promise me the exact bra I need for my "type" of body.  

Leaving home this morning I thought "I really should get a car wash."  

Ordering a new low-fat dry food for Milo that he might like better than the current one.  This is on hold for right now. When it comes to family members (including pets) we don't skimp, so if it's necessary it will happen.

I'm currently really enjoying a new mystery series, and I briefly thought about buying the next 2 in the series since they aren't available on Libby or at my local library.  I do have credit at Thriftbooks so it's a possibility in the future, but not now.  I've got PLENTY of books here at home I can read first.  

I would love to get some more mulch to fix where the pollinator bed was messed up due to the foundation work, and for the bed on the other side of the deck too.  I'd probably need about 5 bags.

Spent

 I did spend $10.25 on 2 cans of the new prescription low-fat dog food for Milo.  He just won't eat the dry food by itself.  He's elderly and healing from major surgery right now, so it's not the time to play hardball on his eating.  He liked it so I'll be buying a case of it in a couple days.  

 

Tuesday

Tuesday was a regular ol' "work around the house" day.  I needed to do a bunch of little things:  

-small load of laundry (how did something that was sticky and looked like lollipop drippings get on my house shoe?)

-got together all the dog food and treats that Milo can no longer have so I can donate to the local humane society

-washed the dog food container and let it dry all day in the sun

-planted some fall seeds--broccoli, turnip greens, collards, lettuce, kale.  Will they grow?  I'm hoping at least the kale and turnip greens will, because my husband really likes those.  

-pulled a few weeds.  One type of weed has been trying to take over my pollinator bed so every time I'm near the bed I pull a few to try to keep on top of it. 

-I made a quick trip to the vet to get Mr. Picky Pants (aka Milo) some canned food that works with his new "protect the gallbladder"diet.  He hasn't always been so picky.  In the last few months he's decided he doesn't really love dry dog food.  I'm mixing the dry and wet together to make the wet last longer.  He will begrudgingly eat some of the dry food if he can't avoid it.  Ha. 

-cooked a dinner of tempeh, brown rice, and broccoli.  The tempeh was in a marinade for several hours, and it was poached before that, so the taste is more mellow.  

-sat outside on the deck to read and got bit by a red ant for the first time ever.  It climbed inside the leg of my shorts and got me. I don't know the difference between a fire ant and what I would use call a red ant, but I know the dang thing hurt like I was stung by a wasp, although it went away a lot faster than when I was stung by 2 wasps last year.  

Didn't See That Coming

We had an interesting end to this past week. First off, the foundation work is done for now.  We have one more area that needs some steel under it, but that will wait until we get the encapsulation done in our crawlspace sometime next year hopefully.  Quite a bit of my flower bed was destroyed but I knew that was going to happen.  This year was a transition year in that bed anyway, as I am converting it to a pollinator garden.  Hopefully some of the perennials I planted in that now-blank area will come back next year.  

On Friday, we went to a vet appointment for Milo.  He has been showing some cognitive changes for a while now but lately there has been more pacing and panting, so I wanted to make sure he wasn't in pain for another reason.  Our vet started checking Milo out and immediately said he needed an ultrasound.  It turns out he had a tumor in his spleen the size of a softball!  It was pushing against his intestines and I can only imagine how much pain it was causing.  Splenic tumors are very vascular and his was a ticking time bomb, so he was in surgery about an hour later. We got to see him for a minute before surgery, and tell him we loved him and what a good boy he was.  He's an anxious dog anyway, and now at nearly 15 his hearing is gone and his eyes aren't great.   

The day after surgery 

The biggest worry was that they would open him up and find a cancer that had spread.  In that situation, we would have made the decision to let him go.  You can imagine how it felt sitting by the phone and waiting for a call.  Thankfully they didn't find any other tumors, he did well, and only needed to stay one night.  

He does have an enlarged gallbladder and removal in a dog is a risky surgery with high mortality, so we are doing all we can to avoid that possibility.  Milo is now on a low-fat prescription food and 2 meds for life.  He's also got 4 other new meds right now (2 antibiotics and 2 for pain) so we are still getting used to all of that.  The splenic tumor has been sent off for pathology so we can see exactly what it is.  If it's benign then we don't have to worry that it could be what is going on with his gallbladder as well.  He goes back in a little under 2 weeks to have his sutures (there must be 20) removed and we should find out the pathology then.  

3 days after surgery

My husband had to work Labor Day weekend but was off Labor Day, and I spent the weekend at home making sure Milo was OK.  Hopefully this week will be a quiet and boring one!

 

This Week

 This week we have been having foundation work done on our home.  We knew for a while this was coming, and decided it was finally time.  Apparently the people who built the house made the spans too wide, so it allowed the house to sag.  Ah, the joys of home ownership.  

The men have been working hard for 3 days out in 100+ degree days with jackhammers and shovels, and installing steel beams in the crawlspace, so I am definitely not going to complain about noise and/or expense.  Milo the dog will complain about strangers walking in HIS yard and coming into HIS house though.  He can't hear anymore but he can feel the vibrations.  Apparently they dig underneath the foundation, and then they insert steel until the house is back to where it should be.  

The cats are also freaked out.  They walk around quickly and low to the ground.  Norman spent the first day hiding under the bed covers, as he usually does if there's any kind of stranger in the house or working outside.  

Here I am checking on Norman, after he's been hiding for 5 hours. Please note the panting of the anxious dog in the background.  

After they left yesterday, it still felt like 105, but I was determined to get some time out on the deck.  I had my patio umbrella open and brought the fan outside to give a little air circulation.  

 Reading is a big love of mine, and I especially enjoy reading outside while watching the hummingbirds zoom around the feeder that's a couple feet away from my chair.  One often will fly right by our heads when they are chasing another hummer off.  We call that "buzzing the tower."  

Currently I'm reading "The Good Life" by Scott and Helen Nearing.  I've had this book since we went to our very first Vegetarian Summerfest in PA.  It's pretty good.  I'm about halfway through.  I'm also reading the most recent Thursday Murder Club on Kindle from Libby.  I try to have one fiction and one non-fiction book going at the same time.  

Also this week, Cosette, 13 years old and mom to the 3 "kittens" who are now 12 years old, and also big fan of the RBF, had a dental.  In the end she needed 7 teeth removed, including all 4 canines.  Three had cavities and one had an abscess.  With an abscessed tooth most of us would be begging the dentist for antibiotics and pain meds but Cosette never drooled, stopped eating, or acting like anything hurt.   Cats:  hiding pain and/or sickness since they evolved probably.  She is currently zooming around the house due to the transdermal opioid pain med she has.  Yesterday she loved up against me over and over in an aggressive way.  Ha!