A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

Howdy y’all! I’m still alive and kicking, and not quite as stressed out as has been the norm for the past few months. Still having some trouble getting everything I need and want to do done, though. Like blogging.

We got our tax refund on Friday, which I thought would make me feel better, but as it turned out, it ended up making me a nervous wreck for a while. I guess it was because I knew it wouldn’t be enough to cover everything we need to pay out, and I dreaded trying to decide what to pay and what to wait on. But now that I’ve gotten some things taken care of, I feel a little better.

I did have a close call, though. I saw a truck from the electric company sitting in the road in front of my house today, and didn’t think anything about it, just figured they were doing some work or something. It’s a good thing Hubby pulled in the driveway right after it showed up, because they were here to cut off our electricity. I had totally forgotten to pay the electric bill. Hubby came in and told me what was going on, and I told the electric company guy that I would go pay the bill online right then. And he said okay and left. Whew!

I paid the bill, so we won’t have to worry about that any more. I just can’t believe that I forgot all about it after going to the office last week and making arrangements. Sometimes I think I need to read some textbooks on how to keep the bills (and everything else in my life) straight. There was a time when I did a good job of that. But now it seems like I can’t get anything done without a To Do list and lots of reminders and encouragement.

I’m still looking forward to the day when our income tax refund hits our bank account. But so are most of the companies that we owe money. We’ve made lots of promises for when that money becomes available to us, and we should be able to keep them all. I’m just wondering if there will be anything at all left once we get everything caught up.

I had no illusions of taking a vacation, or even doing any heavy shopping. But I was hoping to get a few things we need. One of the priority items was a pair of shoes for Hubby. Thankfully, that has already been taken care of. I used some of my Amazon gift certificates to order him a pair, and they should be here next week. But there are plenty of other things on the “Needed” list. Like some spring/summer clothes for Pumpkin – it’s hard to believe that she’s outgrown almost everything she could wear this time last year. And some ink for my printer. That stuff sure is expensive. I wish my printer was as economical as one of those receipt printers (such as the Epson tm-t88iv). They used one of those when I worked in fast food, and I don’t recall it running out of ink the whole time I worked there.

I haven’t done the math to see if there will be any money left over after the bills are paid. I’ve sort of been afraid to. I’m so glad that we’ll be able to catch up on the bills, I really don’t want to burst my own bubble. But once everything is caught up, I’m going to carefully budget anything we have left. I can’t afford not to.

I’m really looking forward to next Friday. That’s when we’re supposed to get our tax refund. We’re getting more back than we did last year, which is great. It’s not the largest refund we’ve ever gotten, but it will allow us to catch up on the bills and breathe a little easier until we figure out how we’re going to make it without Hubby working.

Our cellular phones have been cut off for about a month now, and it hasn’t been fun. I like knowing that I’ve got a way to get in touch with someone if I’m out and have car trouble or something. And the cell phones were also our only way of calling long distance, because we don’t have a long distance plan on the home phone. But I’m not sure if we’ll get them turned back on or not. We need to keep expenses to a bare minimum right now, and cell phones aren’t an absolute necessity. I would just have the house phone turned off and keep the cell phones, but that would be more expensive. Besides, I have my Internet service through the phone company, and I think they charge some sort of extra fee for customers that have Internet but not phone service through them.

But anyway, it’s going to feel good getting caught up on some things. We’ll also use some of the money to buy things we need, like some clothes for Pumpkin and a new pair of shoes to replace Hubby’s old, holey, worn-out ones. But for the most part, I’m going to horde it like crazy. The future is pretty uncertain right now, and we can’t afford to go on a spending spree.

I have seriously got to get some auto insurance quotes. Our current insurance company sent us a bill last month for over $400.00, and our usual price per month is around $130! WTH???

I keep meaning to call my agent, but there has been so much going on that I just haven’t gotten around to it. Hubby has had to make regular trips to the chiropractor, I’ve had tons of forms to fill out for this, that and the other, taxes to do, and so much more. It’s enough to give any sane person an aneurysm, and nobody has ever accused me of being sane.

But I’ve got to get this taken care of, because we can’t afford to be without insurance. That would be very, very bad. Calling my agent is definitely going on my to-do list for tomorrow… as soon as I get around to making it.

Life has been really, really sucky (for lack of a better word) lately. Hubby has been very sick, and we’re not sure what the problem is. The doctor called it chronic diarrhea due to his lack of a gall bladder and muscle spasms in his back, but neither of us is convinced. He’s had to miss a lot of work because of it, and I’m sure they’ll let him go when he does go back. They’ve already fired him once when he came back from being out with an abcessed tooth, but he talked them into giving him another chance. I doubt it will work again, though.

Whatever the problem is this time, he’s been in terrible shape. He’s been in lots of pain, and has spent most of the time lying around. He’s even had to get his brothers to cut and split wood for him, and it’s about to drive him crazy that he can’t do it himself. At least his brothers are actually helping this time. Normally they would make up some excuse and he would be on his own.

We’re seriously scraping to pay the bills, because his pay has been next to nothing. And I haven’t been getting much writing done, either. My clients are getting less and less understanding, and really, who could blame them? There are plenty of crooks and liars on the Internet, and they really have no way of knowing that I’m not one of them. Sure, I’ve been honest in my dealings with them for years now, but people can change. I know that from experience.

My nerves have been in a shambles. Sleep patterns have been erratic – one night I’ll be out before my head hits the pillow, and the next I’ll lie awake for hours wishing I had some good natural sleeping pills in the cabinet. And I haven’t been very good company at all. But I’ve got to find some way to pull it together and get some money coming in. I don’t have any choice, because Hubby’s future is very much up in the air.

Today I’m feeling better than I have been in a while, so hopefully I can get something accomplished. Or actually, a lot of somethings. I don’t mind being the breadwinner at all, but it’s just a matter of whether or not I can pull it off.

And I’ve already started my Christmas shopping! I think this is a new world record for me! I’m one of those who tends to do a lot of my shopping on Christmas Eve, so I should probably mark this down on the calendar.

Okay, so you can’t exactly call it shopping, because it was free. You see, I was lucky enough to get in on Kodak Gallery’s big giveaway and get a $15 gift certificate. I had planned to use it to get a picture of my mom, my siblings and myself blown up to 16×20, frame it and give it to my mom for Christmas. But since I had to crop the photo, the resolution was too low to make it that big. So instead, I ordered 8x10s for all of us, plus 5x7s of Pumpkin, my brother’s daughter and my sister’s youngest daughter. I’m still going to frame Mom’s 8×10 and give it to her for Christmas, and will just hand the rest out as-is.

Once I get the bills paid, I just might do a little more shopping. I hear a lot of online stores are doing early Black Friday stuff already, so I’ll be sure to check that out. And I need to check on some Amazon gift certificates that I should have gotten but haven’t. I’m thinking if I spread my shopping out and take advantage of some more freebies (like the free photo book I just scored from Shutterfly this morning), Christmas might be a little easier to deal with this year than it has been.

Ever since I had Pumpkin, I’ve considered those credit/debit card scanners at the pumps at gas stations among my proverbial best friends. When you’ve got a baby in the car, it’s so much easier to just step out, swipe your card and pump your gas than it is to pump the gas, get the little one out of the carseat, go in and wrestle with your wallet to get the card or money out, and go back out and put the kid back in the carseat.

There was no pay-at-the-pump at my gas station of choice when she was a baby, so unless Hubby was with me, I would usually go to a different station then. They finally put card scanners at my favorite station a couple of years ago, though. And even though Pumpkin is half grown, they are still quite a blessing. If I’m just getting gas, I don’t have to take her in and contend with her running straight for the nachos and dip machine, or the Slushie machine, or any of the other overpriced stuff that’s irresistible to a pre-preteen.

Now if it were only that easy at the grocery store. It would be great if I could just print out a list on their website or something, stick that list and my debit card in a scanner outside, and have someone bring the groceries out and load them. Not only would Pumpkin not be asking for everything she saw, I wouldn’t be able to make any impulse buys, either.

As you probably know if you’re a regular reader, I have needed a new computer for a very long time. This one gets quirkier and less reliable every day. So I decided that if we got a decent tax refund this year, I was going to get one. If my computer dies, I can’t work, and if I can’t work, I can’t make any money.

Hubby has known this for months. He has also known that we desperately need to get caught up on the bills so we don’t have to worry so much, and buy some things we’ve needed for a long time but haven’t had the money to get. But when I got the taxes done, all he could think about was buying something he wants.

His argument? That I’m making something that I “want” top priority. As in my new computer. I’ve tried calmly explaining to him that I wouldn’t be so adamant about it if I didn’t need it for my livelihood. I’ve tried bringing up the fact that I bought him a 4-wheeler that he certainly didn’t need, not with my “share” of the tax money, but with money I worked my butt off for. And I’ve tried telling him to f*** off. But he’s still being a big baby over it.

Things always get hairy when we get our tax refund. Every year, it never fails, I want to put it toward things we need and maybe save some, and he wants to blow it. So far we’ve always divided it down the middle and used our halves as we saw fit. But if we do that this year, I’ll be buying a computer and using the rest of mine to pay some on the bills without making much progress. And he will waste his half. We can’t afford to do things that way.

It’s not like I want to use all of the money to go on one of those wild weekend getaways without him. I just want to be able to do my work without sitting around waiting on my computer to cooperate half the day, and without having to worry about losing the articles I’m working on (yes, that has happened a couple of times). I have every intention of making sure he has some money to spend after doing that and paying the bills. But he just wants to be a big baby about it.

Am I being unreasonable? I know a properly functioning computer is not too much to ask, especially when it’s what enables me to help pay the bills. And as far as the bills go, I think I should be able to get them caught up without any static. After all, I’m the one who has to juggle them constantly. He might earn the money to pay a good portion of them, but if I didn’t send it in, they wouldn’t get paid.

I hate being in charge of the finances. It’s a completely thankless job, and one that I’m not particularly good at, but I do my best.

We’re not having a good week at my house. Hubby was supposed to get a bonus on his last paycheck, but it wasn’t on there. He says they are definitely going to get it, and that’s great and all, but there are bills that need to be paid now that we don’t have the money to pay.

I racked my brain last night to try to figure out a way to come up with the money we need to get through until he gets paid again. And I came up with nothing. Well, actually I did find some writing I can do, but by the time I get it finished it will probably be next week before I get paid. And, besides the loan company bugging us to death, the car insurance will be canceled by then if it’s not paid.

I’m trying to get in touch with the pawn shop to see what they’re taking right now. I hope they’ll let me bring in some CDs, DVDs and maybe a couple of small electronics. I’d be willing to take in both of the TVs and Hubby’s guitar too if they’d let me, but I would have a hard time getting them down the hill to my truck without falling and busting them because it’s icy out there.

I wish I could solve all this by cutting some fat from the budget, but there’s really nothing much there to cut. Our budget has been on Leptovox for some time now, so to speak. I just need to get more money coming in. Especially since Hubby is not going to be getting any overtime for a while now.

Oh well. Enough feeling sorry for myself. I’m not going to drive myself crazy with this. At least not until I’ve exhausted every possible option.

Hubby finally talked me into it. We went to the loan company earlier this week and refinanced my truck, and added a little to the loan. Emphasis on a little. We could have used a thousand or two to get Christmas gifts, buy tires for his truck and get mine worked on, but we didn’t go that far.

He got rained out of work on Wednesday, so we went out and did a little Christmas shopping. We got about half of the shopping for his side of the family done (big family) and got a few things for Pumpkin. I managed to get one gift for my side of the family, but I’m having trouble coming up with ideas for everyone else.

I also got a nice deal on a LeapFrog Didj for Pumpkin on eBay. I had looked at them at Walmart, where the system was $60 and games were about $30 each. The one on eBay had 4 games with it. I had hoped to get it for about $65, but when it was all said and done I ended up paying $80 including shipping. Still a pretty darn good deal if you ask me.

She had been asking for a Leapster 2, but I didn’t want to get her one of those because it’s more for preschoolers. She would get tired of it quickly. So I started looking for a deal on a Nintendo DS. Good luck with that, right? Then I saw the Didj at Wally World, and when I told her there was something similar to a Leapster 2 for kids her age, she seemed interested. That combined with the educational aspect got me started looking on eBay, and I found one in no time.

So the Didj is going to be her big present. I also found a killer deal on a Hannah Montana game that’s similar to Guitar Hero but plugs into the TV at Amazon.com, so I may get her that too.

I hated to refinance, but I suppose it’s not so bad. We don’t have to make a payment this month, and my monthly payments will be a little lower now. And it only extended the loan term by a few months. And now I can buy a few Christmas gifts.