Even though I have to work today, I am thankful for it. We desperately need the money, and I make double-time today so I am happy to be working. At least I get off at 6:30 this evening so I can come home and have a nice meal with my husband. Now I just have to pray he doesn't ruin the turkey before I get home, lol. Happy Holidays everyone!

Well, yesterday DH and I sealed the window in his office wit plastic. We have gotten really good at it and you can't even see it from the outside at all. All we have left now are the sliding glass door and the front door. We put some of the tube insulating stuff around the front door, but I still see lots of light coming in around the top and side of the door. We have one of those plastic strips that covers the drafts on the bottom but I know our heat is being sucked out by the gaps around the door. The problem is, we can't put anymore of that piping stuff around it because then the door won't close. I don't know what else to do, but it's really frustrating me.

I'm excited for Thanksgiving. This will be our first year just the two of us. I have to work till 6:30pm on Thanksgiving, but we can still have a late supper. I bought a small frozen turkey breast, generic stuffing, a cheap bag of cheesy mashed potatoes that DH loves, got some oven bags for $1 after the sale price and coupon, crescent rolls ($1.42 after sale price and coupon), cookie mix (had a coupon, it was less than $1), 1/2 carton of eggs and smart balance (to make cookies with). We already had peas in the cupboard. Now I just have to figure out how to cook a turkey, lol. It says there's instructions included on the turkey so I hope they're good. I'll check them out tonight after work.

Oh, I did spend a little bit yesterday. I figured out we only have 1 pot, and we have so much to cook for Thanksgiving so I got worried. DH is so great at finding deals though, he somehow picked up a pot by itself on the back of the shelf that was clearanced to only $6... we couldn't find another for less than $15!! Good job DH!

Oh that reminds me, my work is now giving discounts on all foods now until Jan. 1st... although we aren't a supercenter so our grocery dept. is very very limited. I do luck out on milk though. It's usually $2.93 or so a gallon (over $3 everywhere else) and I get a discount on top of that. Unfortunately they're doing this instead of giving us our normal Christmas bonus of a coupon for 20% off any item in the store. We had been waiting for that coupon to get a new microwave and now I don't know what we'll do. Ours is really being weird. It used to just do this with popcorn, but now it does it with everything. The lights like flicker while it's running and it makes a really loud grinding sound, and sometimes smoke comes out of it. I have been trying to avoid using it, but I hate to use the stove so much b/c it uses more electricity. Maybe they'll have some good sales on them after Thanksgiving. We'll see. Well, gotta go get ready for work.

Well I'm still doing well with keeping expenses low and working on my debt. I talked to my manager and am now working full-time. I explained to her that if they can't give me full-time hours then I'll have to limit my availability there and get a second job. We'll see what happens. I know next week she gave me 38.5 hours, but the week after she gave me 5 days, but only 33 hours total. That is B.S. I'll have to talk to her again. If I work 4 days of 9 hour shifts I'd get 32 hours after lunches... so 1 extra hour for a whole extra day of being there isn't worth it. I'd lose more than that in taxes anyway. She just shortened all my shifts and spread the hours out over 5 days... So not worth it.

I've been working hard still keeping our expenses low. Lights have been staying off and appliances/computers unplugged. We've been eating in a lot and I've been using lots of coupons to try to keep our grocery bill down. I'm going to stock up on more Ramen today. DH signed us up for a free trial of Netflix the other day. If we like it we'll switch to that and drop the Blockbuster subscription. DH won't give up the movies though b/c I already made him give up cable a few months back.

I've been a little frustrated lately with DH. Let me just start by saying DH is very, very into video games. Usually he keeps his spending down by doing "flips" where he buys games at one place and trades them in to another for a profit and so on. However, sometimes I feel like he overdoes it on purchases. Just last night he was talking about some amazing deal where he can get a season of a television show for like $2. Yes it's a good deal, but seriously the show is "Gilmore Girls". When and why would we ever watch that show. Especially when we already have the movie subscription through blockbuster. I don't care if $2 is a good deal, it's not a good deal if you're just throwing it away because that's what I feel we would be doing in spending it on something we'll never even watch or give as a gift. I told DH this last night and I think I made him mad. He is just so obsessed with the great deals he finds, he doesn't stop to think,
"do we really need this?".

Anyway, I was gonna peruse the classifieds for jobs in case I do decide to get a second to supplement my first job.

Still doing pretty good. Monday I gave in and went to Taco Bell after work. I felt really guilty afterward. I have to be stronger. I finally talked DH into letting me go Full Time at work, but then when I asked about it at work, they said they aren't hiring any full timers anymore and I probably won't be able to. I'm still going to ask MY manager tomorrow night at work though. I'm already working 4 days a week, so 1 more day shouldn't be such a big deal to them. I ended up taking my full hour for lunch yesterday because I realized with my extra day this week and coming in early and taking short lunches, I'm already up to 36 hours for the week. I'm only supposed to get 31 max... so I don't want to get in trouble.

I did end up making a couple of purchases yesterday. Oh actually Monday I bought some weather stripping for the door to help seal out the drafts... I swear our door looks like it's crooked. Anyway, yesterday I bought some plastic stuff to help seal the windows and keep our heat in. I'm trying anything to keep the heat off for as long as possible. Not to mention we have 3 blankets on the bed so far, and lots more. We wear sweatshirts and warm clothes indoors to help as well.

Also I bought some pretzels for DH. He asked me to pick up some chips for him, but the ones he likes are like $3.28 a bag. He eats the Baked Lays, because regular chips upset his stomach. However, I knew that was too much for us to pay right now, so I bought him 2 bags of generic pretzels instead for $1.07 each with my discount.

Also, we still have a lot of clearance Halloween merchandise, and I saw 2 sheets of window clings and I thought they would be really nice to have when I start teaching elementary school in the next few years, so I bought them. They were on clearance for $0.10 each. So 20 cents I didn't think was unreasonable. They would have cost $3.00 before Halloween.

So, other than that we didn't spend anything else yesterday. We ate at home. We have to get groceries tonight though because we are almost out of meals. We have 1 frozen dinner each, a partial loaf of bread, lunch meat and peanut butter, 1 pack of ramen noodles each, and some frozen chicken breasts - which I might try to make, even though I'm a terrible cook. I don't get out of class till 8:30 tonight though, so I may not feel like going shopping anyway.

Well, today I have school all day and don't anticipate eating out. I wouldn't have time really. Well, I'm gonna go do a survey and then some homework before school.

So yesterday went pretty well. I got almost a full extra hour on the clock. For lunch I had applesauce and pretzels from home. I bought a newspaper for coupons (I precheck it at work before I buy it to make sure there are at least enough coupons to more than cover the price of the paper) and got my employee discount on it - we don't have the machines we have just a newsstand that they sit on and they have to be rung up at a register and it charges tax, but my discount takes off a little more than the tax. The paper was $1.20 after my discount.

I clipped coupons on my lunch break. For lunch I ate applesauce I found in the back of the cupboard and pretzels. I did buy a diet cherry pepsi for $0.40 with change left over from the paper, agh gotta stop doing that. I know for just $0.30 more I could buy a whole 2 liter of soda.

I got a referral from a coworker to a really cool site that tells you what coupon to use when an item is on sale to save a ton. She said last week she went to Food Lion and before using her MVP card or coupons her total was over $80, and after her MVP card and coupons (thanks to knowing what to buy from the site) her total went down to like $20!! I have a 4 week trial for $1 and I already have a list of a bunch of items that I can get for next to nothing. I have to do something b/c we can't live off of ramen noodles forever.

Oh, also I found out one of my coworkers was working like 7 days straight and really was exhausted and she has a shift tonight that she doesn't want so I offered to work it for her. So there's an extra day on my paycheck right there haha. It is a short shift, so I knew I could get DH to not be upset because I can still get my homework done before I have to go in.

I also returned the mattress pad after work b/c it was a lot thinner than we thought it would be. We got a foam eggcrate and a cheap mattress cover for the same price and it's way way thicker. We also bought 2 boxes of cereal and a gallon of milk. I had coupons for the cereal thanks to my newspaper coupons, $1 off each which is really really good and I got my employee discount on everything as well.

Last night I made blueberry muffins with this free mix I got from work - a benefit of working on weekends when the sample ladies are there b/c they bring us extra samples all the time. The muffins were delicious.

Anyway, this post turned out to be way too long so I'm gonna end it now.

Yesterday was pretty good. I didn't spend any money on food... but I did buy a new mattress pad that we've been saving for. Our bed is horribly uncomfortable - we bought it 4 years ago, used. We did have a cheapo mattress pad on it but it was 4 years old as well and had this kink in it that stayed in a point no matter how I tried to flatten it and it was really a pain in the back lol.

I think it was also contributing to our allergies because they've been the worst at night. So I bought one I've been saving for and used my discount on it. We put it on under clean sheets last night and slept on it... I'm not sure how we like it. I'll have to see what DH thinks when I get home this evening and if he didn't love it we'll return it and go back to the cheapo one. I'd like to wash it but our washer is tiny and I don't think we could make it fit in a million years.

I took my last apple to work with me yesterday and some pretzels. Those were lunch and I had a granola bar for a snack. I just drank water from the fountain at work. When I got home, DH and I had Ramen Noodles for dinner. This morning I had some of the last of the bread for toast with jam. Our bread expired 2 days ago, I don't know how long it's good for, but there's no mold on it yet, so I'd just assume keep eating it till there is. We can only get maybe 3 more sandwiches out of it anyway. I'm taking more pretzels to work today, though I'm out of apples.

I think there may be some applesauce stuffed in the back of the cupboard that I'll dig out to take with me. That doesn't expire does it? I'll try to clock in 15 minutes early for work (the max allowed) and only take a half-hour lunch again and try to linger for as long after time to go home as I can haha. I'll try to find something to make me busy right around time to go home so I can have an excuse to get an extra 15 minutes so I can make it a full extra hour today haha.

Anyway, time to get ready for work!

Well, yesterday DH listed a ton of my books on half.com for me. Hopefully we can make a little off of those. He also listed some things he got from his parents' house that were his as a child and they have potential to sell for a good amount. I only took a 30 minute lunch at work instead of the hour we're allowed. Also, the manager purchased pizza for everyone before we left, and there was extra so I took half a pizza home for DH and I. For lunch at work I took an apple with me and a free sample I had of some fruit & granola mix. I also purchased 1 pack of crackers for 45 cents from the vending machine because I was still hungry, and 1 can of diet mountain dew for 40 cents from the drink machine.

I have to work again tonight and I'm going to ask my manager to schedule me for full 9 hour shifts instead of the 7.5, 8, or 8.5 hour shifts I've been getting lately. I will see if I can just take a 30 minute lunch tonight as well. I have a few granola bars left at work I can eat. I will also take the last apple I have to work with me tonight. Lights have been kept off. Oh, we did buy 1 pack of energy efficient light bulbs yesterday because DH frequently needs the light in his office and I got tired of him wasting so much electricity. Well, I have to get ready for work.

I'm extremely concerned about the next few months for DH and I. DH is legally blind and is on disability. However, now that he has to report my income, I am almost certain he will lose most of it. The social security office says that basically unless I make less than $759 a month, then they feel I can support him and will be taking away his SSI payments which is $332 a month. If he starts working he will lose the other SSA payment which is $335 a month. I don't know what more I can do. We need these payments to help make rent. We've cut back pretty much all that we possibly can.

We have energy efficient bulbs, keep lights off and appliances unplugged when not in use, have low-flow shower heads in both showers, don't have an air conditioner, and keep the heat set at 55 degrees.

We are trying to get our power bill down more, but it's hard b/c we have 2 aquariums that use electricity for the filters, air pumps, and hood lights. We have the lights on timers though and they run the minimum amount of time necessary to keep the fish healthy.

We buy mostly generic as far as groceries go, and I get a 10% discount on most items through my employer.

Honestly, our biggest areas for improvement are impulse purchases, which mostly includes fast food and junk food. If we could stop these I feel we could get our spending under control. A big part of me wants to just cut up my credit card right now so I won't use it anymore, but I'm afraid I could need it for an emergency and not have it. Although honestly I've left it in a pair of my pants for the past few days and haven't had it on me, which led me to use my debit card which was a worse idea. AGH. I've got to do something though, otherwise we'll soon be sitting in the dark and freezing with no internet whatsoever, eating nothing but ramen noodles. If anyone wants to look at our monthly income/spending and offer any advice, It's below:

Income:
Work (avg): $900
Disability: $667 - soon to be $335
Surveys (avg): $6

Expenses:
Rent: $710
Electricity (avg): $60
Internet: $35
Blockbuster Online: $12
Credit Cards: $460
Student Loan: $114
Gas: $25
Groceries/Toiletries: $200
Fast Food/Impulse Purchases: $100