Spondulicks Forever!

A change return receptacle at the U-Scan kiosk in our closest supermarket had two dollars. My child asked for 50% of the proceeds as a finder's fee and I gave him a dollar. A reminder that my kid is the best person to go shopping with: he always has an eye for freebies. He directed my attention to some free bottled water and cookies offered by our Credit Union for International Credit Union Day.

Not much to report: had coconut carrot curry soup as an entree earlier in the week, unscheduled but tempting, and it was delicious.

What to do with my $1: HELOC? Savings? Credit Card? Wait for a mate and then look for a bar that offers Chicken Crap Bingo?

I made Veal Paprika from an old _Joy of Cooking_ recipe: sadly we all **loved** it: veal is expensive, but I think it is one-third as expensive to make at home than what is served at a restaurant. And veal is not very filling either.

Sunday: Beef stew
Monday: Sole
Tuesday: something with pork and cabbage
Wednesday: Meat loaf
Thursday: frittatas, possibly
Friday: Salmon
Saturday: Baked or Roasted Chicken

I thought it would be wise for me to start having protein snacks a few hours before bed so I do not wake up between 3 am and 4:30 am with night sweats. I tasted some smoked jack cheese and it was good enough for me to take home but it is also $17/lb. Sigh. Nuts are going for $10 - $11 a pound where I am too.

Another thing: Saving $100 a month is not going to do it for most people who want to buy cars in cash unless they have some way of getting 6% a year, or they buy very inexpensive cars.
Several have suggested the Hyundai Sonata for a replacement car: I just learned there is a hybrid model retailing for $25K. Drool. I am grateful for the recommendation because I never noticed the car before and now I see it nearly every day.

Bankrate.com's refinance calculator told me that I never quite recouped the costs of my first refinance. I would have had to stick with the first refi for another 18 months to break even. I did save close to $84800 in interest with the first refinance, and $8700 in interest with the second. This new refi I recouped the costs before the end of 2011, because I did not pay for any application fees.

I may need to be even trickier about saving money. Shorter showers. More exercise to warm the body. Find nutritious foods that make me feel full. Pay more attention to local ads for rummage sales and flea markets.

I must return the updated edition of The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need this week. Here are some urls I found useful for car research, online deals, how to get more nutrients for your budget dollar, free education.
cars

http://Autobytel.com
http://Autoweb.com
http://Autos.msn.com
http://Carbargains.com
http://]Costco.com - seriously, click on Services
http://Edmunds.com
http://Intellichoice.com
http://kbb.com

Online deals
dealseeking.mom
Retailmenot.com

Savings elsewhere
www1.eere.energy.gov/consumer/tips
ninite.com - software
nolo.com - gotta update my will

I resisted going out for potato chips last night, toasting walnuts instead to have with cayenne, butter and rosemary; and again stayed in tonight to make popcorn with butter and seasoned salt (Gayelord Hauser's Spike).

Wise Bread Links on Budget Nutrition

http://www.wisebread.com/beyond-beef-tasty-frugal-protein
http://www.wisebread.com/turbo-charge-your-diet-with-superfo...
http://www.wisebread.com/7-nutrients-you-need-more-of?wbref=...
http://www.wisebread.com/25-things-you-shouldnt-buy-at-the-g... - I learned where I am going wrong from reading this one!

Two More Wise Bread links, unrelated to food
http://www.wisebread.com/the-awesomeness-of-sodium-bicarbona... - cleaned out the french press with baking soda. The hours-old coffee had that icky metallic taste to it the past few days.
http://www.wisebread.com/15-free-ways-to-learn-something-new

I have been beating myself up lately. No need to: I do not beat up my friends when they have setbacks. I figure I will take 10% off each paycheque and allocate it to: debt; car; savings; fun.

I learned that the Hyundai Sonata also comes in a Hybrid model.

Today was cool. Not nifty cool but cool as in the cats were miffed because we bald bipeds slacked off and did not heat up the earth. The heat came on today. I may use the rest of those consignment store coupons to buy sweaters, and pay more attention to the FreeCycle offers of firewood.

boneless, skinless chicken breast halves dredged in 1 tablespoon flour, sauteed in olive oil for four minutes each side until brown. While chicken is kept warm, add one chopped onion and four pressed grlic cloves in pan with 1 tablespoon olive oil, saute until onion is translucent. Add 0.25 cup white wine, deglaze the pan with a wire whisk, then add 0.5 cup diced tomatoes and 0.33 cup chicken broth. Simmer sauce and reduce to desired consistency. Add stemfree chopped basil leaves to sauce and return chicken to the pan to heat. Serve chicken with sauce over the top.

-- recipe courtesy of Leanne Ely, from 2005 edition Saving Dinner the Low-Carb Way.

In oddball news, the state Department of Licensing sent a letter telling me they sent my extinct vehicle registration info to a process server. The vehicle registration is for a car I imported from Canada and drove for one year before legally transferring title back in Canada, ten years ago. So there is no reason to suspect that this vehicle would still have a certain Washington plate. I called the process server and we hazarded the thought there could be a typo in the Vehicle Identification Number.

While messing around with a debt consolidation calculator I saw that the fixed-rate advance home equity line of credit I have has a ten-year term, and not 15 as I had thought. I made a payment to keep it current.

We bought 1.3 lbs of turkey breast, a prepared apple pie, broccoli and a can of Boddington for beer bread. I made sweet and sour cabbage and DH made beer bread. Martin Frobisher's gratitude for getting through his third exploration voyage to the New World with most of his ships in the late 16th century is the seminal reason for us celebrating Thanksgiving: an Act of Parliament in 1957 fixed the date as the second Monday of October. So we had a holiday dinner, one the boy greatly looked forward to.

Menu Plan:
Tu - Grilled or Baked Salmon, apple walnut kale, quinoa
We Indian Summer Chicken, potatoes, broccoli
Th - Nut Burgers and Red Pepper Soup
Fr - Dover Sole in Lemon Sauce, brown rice, carrots
Sa - Something Hungarian with Veal Scallops. Saturday is luxury meal day. Potatoes and more cabbage, no doubt.
Su - Beef Stew, potatoes, salad or greens.

Neither my mother or grandmother ever told me cabbage could be made into entrees other than cabbage rolls. I enjoy finding tasty, sweet ways for using cabbage.

Boddington Ale was okay, but I prefer Anchor Steam or Guinness Stout for beer bread.

What I should have written for yesterday's Blog Entry Title: "I'm off the budget rails on the Crazy Brain" (Thank you, Ozzy Osbourne!)

I do not betray confidences (in that I do not name names) but, I am not the only one on crazybrain owing to too many goals, too few dollars. People are juggling medical treatment payments, legal fees, assessment extraordinary surcharges, down payments for newer cars, veterinary expenses. Me, I have only credit card payments, investing, regular budget, this field study thing, down payment for a newer car, and home upgrades to fret about. Nothing to turn the hair grey.

Two of my friends are needing to buy cars immediately, so I thought maybe we could go all together and find a quality car lot, and work over one salesperson for discounts if it meant him or her getting bonuses for selling three cars in one day. Too bad two of us are picky about what vehicle they want, and another pair has a shorter timeline.

A saner person pointed out that I was not keen to blow my precious metals fund on a car. If I thought it was achievable, I would attempt to pay down the HELOC so the balance was under 25% of the total amount of credit extended to me.

A crazier but better organized person suggested that I make a chart of my equilateral contributions to savings and debt goals, and display it prominently so I frequently have a visual reminder that we are not as bad off as crazybrain would interpret.

Last year at this time was when I dropped out of the 'How Long Can We Go Without Turning On Heat in the House' challenge. If it were reprised this year, I would still be in it, because our weather is crazy (in that it is actually like the weather east of the Cascade mountains: dry) and not miserable.

Also, my crazybrain toggled into sane brain when I walked out of a consignment store today with a discounted, clean, fitting, soft pair of trousers and some fun socks. Knowing that comfortable and decent clothing was within my budget is palliative.

Menu Plan to come.

I am having crazybrain. Not the type where I think cats make for good eatin' or that the imaginary ants crawling on me would die if I suffocated them underneath a train, but the crazybrain that comes up with a new thing to do every three minutes or eighteen different budgets. Or makes me feel I am deprived and poor because I cannot buy a car, pay off my HELOC and have an emergency fund over $10K at the same time, while at the same time I eye the veal scallops at the meat counter thinking "say, I could afford that.."

Birthday boy flipped a coin last night to determine whether we go to the kinda pricey but delicious (and bad for my endocrine system) pizza, or if we go to the cheesy cheap family restaurant for his birthday. Happy to say the cheap family restaurant won out, so we went to a frozen custard place afterward. I had baked apple cookies and chocolate bars for his class, in lieu of a cake, so that saved us some $$ as well.

The craziness I believe is the binge-purge mania of my budget. I have some $ left over from the last payperiod, it gets divided into debt and savings. On the weekend we buy whatever, as long as we need it, and for the weekdays I either aim for no-spend days or I set a limit of $60, and divide what I don't spend that day on debt and savings. I feel I should work more at building up the cash reserves, but I argue with myself: do Savings Bonds count as cash reserves, or is it just money market account, savings accounts, and Certificates of Deposit? Then I think of my friend who is not paying off her HELOC but rather investing in the stock market, and I think but I have to diversify, and how can I do that when I have maybe less than $100 each month to give to: stocks, stock trading, retirement, etc. I am reminded that savings should never be the final or leftover item on the budget: I try to make it the first and last, seriously.

Our family agreed on the idea of having more vegetarian entrees more often. We still love meat, but more beany, legumy, tempeh and fungus dishes will help us make food faster and more cheaply, and then we can regard veal scallops and bay scallops as sweet luxuries. We did spend $107 at the meat counter in the Public Market today , right next to the world-famous Flying Fish dudes, then $113 at the supermarket for Halloween candy ($1.50 off), cat treats ($0.75 off), fish (one whole salmon plus 2 lbs dover sole), cheese, apples, juices, bread, butter, pretty much everything that was obviously a great deal that we regularly consumed). The $$ for the boy's field studies on the peninsula has been taken by the school, but $300 still remains on the VISA card and must be paid off in three weeks.

In addition, what is driving me crazy is seeing money go everywhere EXCEPT toward a newer car, and a better wardrobe for me. I have three pair jeans and one pair velvet pants. I tossed out two pairs of ratty shoes, a pullover and a cardigan that did not fit, and I did not give myself some $$ to check out the consignment and thrift shops for bigger, fluffier, less threadbare sweaters.

So if you wisely scrolled past all the diarrhea, I am looking for GOOD vegetarian cookbooks. I have _More with Less_ and _Feeding the Whole Family_ which have lots of veg. recipes, but want to see what is out there.

Oh yeah, I reduced my risk of breast cancer today by taking vitamin D3 and serving steamed chard for dinner with kielbasa and sauerkraut.

...that I did not do last year:

[*]Keep a price book.
[*]Every two weeks, do a freezer and pantry inventory.
Plan meals around weekly specials. I make six meals a week, usually, one day being "Use up Leftovers".
[*]Or sometimes I will make one meal for six, something like a stew or a meal that tastes better the next day, and serve the remains the next day!
[*]Used only 2 tablespoons of liquid detergent for full laundry loads.
[*]I use a third of a laundry sheet for two dryer loads.
[*]Rely on a friend to e-mail me AcrossLite versions of the New York Times Friday and Saturday crosswords (savings: $13)
[*]Shop every now and then at the discount grocery outlet. Only for items we use frequently.
[*]I will buy a whole fish, especially fresh, and have the supermarket folk fillet it for me for free. I put 10 - 12 oz of fish into a plastic freezer bag. I divide bulk meal purchases by threes.
[*]Used a friend/acquaintance to buy Microsoft Office 2010 Ultimate. $200 savings.
[*]I refinanced my mortgage last year, so this year I saved just over $1000 on interest alone. $1465 monthly payment in July 2011, $1346 monthly payment in October 2012.
[*]My local county transit organization has mailed me eight bus tickets, one week after the downtown ride-free area was eradicated. $20 saved.
Use the boy's 6% APR savings account for stashing up to $200. He doesn't mind: more interest for him.
[*]I use a Target RedCard.
[*]Found a hairstylist whose rates are 60% of what I got used to paying for me and the boy. $150 savings
[*]Heat water for tea in a microwave instead of using the gas range.
[*]Ground beef was recently recalled, which may be why I do not see it much on sale. Right now, pork is on sale. So I may buy some pork. When chicken, whole, is on sale, I buy that. The further down the food chain I go, the less processing goes into making the food, the less it costs and often the food is better for me and the planet. I still love beef though.
[*]Meat takes up 25 - 33% of the plate, the rest vegetables.


Factors Conspiring Against Me
[*]GEICO insurance. Never mind the discounts for safe driving, age and multiple policies: GEICO's premiums go up every year.
[*]Petrol/automotive fuel prices. I am sure I need not say more.
[*]Money Market account and Certificates of Deposit interest rates downgraded by 0.05%
[*]Comcast Business Internet went up $2.40 a month. Yes, we need it: real work goes on in the house. The commute time is twenty-five seconds.
[*]Old cars still cost a lot to run when you have to replace the parts. General Motors does not count on anyone keeping its cars beyond fifteen years. Next time I will buy a vehicle made by a manufacturer whose cars are old enough to vote.

Tips I Wish Other People in My Household Would Use
[*]It is not rocket science to make pancake mix at home. We HAVE maple syrup.

http://beingfrugal.net/frugal-breakfast-from-scratch/ - Homemade pancake recipe from beingfrugal.net
[*]Make a lunch or bring some flavoured oatmeal mix with you to work. I used to do this and went to the kitchen area to get a bowl and hot water and voila! Breakfast without shelling out $5.
[*]Cold cereals are costlier and less nutritious than oatmeal.

Mind Hacks
These do not actually save me money. They alter my perspective and reframe my thinking.
[*]Keep a large jar by your door, when you get home from work, drop all of your change into the jar, empty your pocket book and pockets of change into the jar.
[*]I have found a pay-what-you-can coffeehouse. I do not go very frequently now, every five weeks or so, but rarely do I pay full price for a cappuccino.
Just take your credit card (or loyalty card, or gift card), place it on your paper at an angle, and tear along the edge for a perfectly straight tear. Easy, clean, and quick. Works when I do not have scissors around.

And lo! No mention of cutting cable, ditching a landline, or forgoing gym memberships, going from two cars to one, or easy-peasy baby-la-la budget alterations.

From ZeroHedge:

If the US Government were applying for a loan, what would its credit score be? ConvergEx's Nick Colas estimates it at 655 (based on

Text is www.myfico.com and Link is

www.myfico.com) - which is higher than we suspected - but consistent with the structural belief in both sovereign and personal debt rating systems that historical payment patterns matter more than ability to pay, leverage, or loan amounts.

Read the whole article here.

That is not terrible: one needs a FICO score of 660 to apply for the kind of mortgage I have: 3.75% APR, no fee, for twelve years, at the credit union.

I need to work on fitness though. That is where the US and I share the score of F. Body clutter, house clutter, money clutter...

I bet Amazon.com or Costco will be happy to give me a credit card with that credit score. Costco would give me cashback and Amazon would somethingsomething benefits, I dunno.

I guess the facts that I am not an illegal alien and I insist on 25-day grace periods rendered me ineligible. Or maybe it was all those "Bank of America sucks" posts I wrote.



Scan provided in case someone thinks I was lying or made a typo. Bank of America is headquartered in Crazytown, USA.

I must have done well at not eating out this month because I fantasized this afternoon about fish'n'chips and tacos, none of which is a mainstay menu item at my house. We used to go out for fish'n'chips when the English lived with us (my stepfather and his mother, from Liverpool).

Leanne Ely's Saving Dinner paperback died in the car. I braked, my purse and its contents plummeted to the floor, the paperback in several pieces. I relied on it a lot! It had nutritional data: protein, carbohydrates, fat, and suggested side dishes, and weekly menus that always included one vegetarian dish, and some slow-cooker recipes. I need the more durable spiral-bound edition. My Canadian cookbooks are decades old and still in use because they are spiral bound. Tangentially, I notice every Canadian cookbook I have has a recipe for butter tarts and for Yorkshire pudding, except for my ultra-regional Vancouver cookbooks.

We did eat out for lunch twice: once because my spouse earned a leisurely lunch through enduring enough stress that he felt entitled to one at our favourite cafe; another because our friend from British Columbia was visiting. And we ate Chinese food takeout from the supermarket: got two meals each for two people out of $20, and that time earlier at Billie On Burgers.

We ARE going out for my son's birthday next Friday. And I have enough food in the freezer and pantry now to last at least a week.

Outfitting boy for his field studies is DONE, with an exception of a 2 ounce bottle of Dr. Bronner liquid soap for his toiletry! I thank JC Penney for coming through with flannel jammies and bathrobe for less than a third of what I would have paid at Land's End.

Serendipity: $15 haircut for boy today in an instant walk-in, instead of $25 at the hipster two-hour-wait-on-Sundays barbershop my husband likes to go to (truth: my husband gets buzzcuts for about $15). So that is $46 saved from haircuts this month.

Food was probably around $700. Gas only $55 for the month (including scooter). Coffee we cheated, probably $46 instead of $40.

Car Fund: $278 less than August 18 balance
Stocks: up $150 from September 1
Debt: down $916.43 from September 1


I need a challenge for October.

99.44% of this is contributed by Aubrie Olsen for Happy Woman Magazine. Sharing it here until the cease-and-desist comment shows up. Attribution has been given: no screams of plagiarism can be taken seriously.
*********ARTICLE BEGINS**********

Hi, my name is Suzy Q, the creator of the original money-saving blog created in 1985.


I have been couponing for the past 35 years and I have saved a grand total of $1.2 million dollars. I am about to divulge some of the best-kept secrets of the couponing world. Now—with this classified information—you too can join the elite 26.4% of shoppers who save 72.8% on their groceries every year.

The very first, most important thing that you must understand, that you must cherish, that you must fully respect, is the triumphant treasure of a coupon. In this world of survival of the fittest—trust me—coupons should be your life. The Golden Rule of couponing is: “Treat all coupons like bricks of gold.”

Now, in order to discover the missing love of your life, all you have to do is follow a few simple steps for beginners:

Step 1: Get a three-ringed binder; a 12-inch binder will do for now. Also, make sure to buy plenty of sheet protectors and a couple of hundred baseball card holders. Put all of these in your binder.

Step 2: Buy sixteen Sunday papers, maybe seventeen…or eighteen, nineteen, twenty… Pull out all of the coupon inserts—Smart Source, Red Plum, P&G, and so on—and the store ads from the newspaper. Throw the rest away. Repeat every week. For even more coupons, visit your local recycling centers to dumpster dive and scour for inserts.

Step 3: Sit down and clip out every single coupon. You must never throw an unexpired coupon away—never. Once they are all clipped out, it is critical to sort them out by product type and expiration date into the sheet protectors and card holders. Fold coupon if necessary. Repeat every week.

Step 3b: Make sure to squeeze in a few minutes to feed and water your plants, 12 children, and husband. You can stop pumping your husband if you have twelve children: ignore what the elders and bishops tell you.

Step 4: Now, in order to prepare for your shopping experience, it is of the utmost importance to scour the internet for any and every single coupon deal available. As you begin to compile your list, make sure to pull out the coupons that are required for shopping and sort them into individualized envelopes. Your task is not fully complete until you scavenge every store ad that is available for the current week for any possible coupon match-up that one of the few hundred coupon blogs may have failed to mention.

Step 5: Make a map of the stores in your city and plan a simple route to include every store to guarantee there is no unnecessary backtracking—time is money. Make a section in your coupon binder for all this information along with every store’s coupon policy, manager’s name, assistant manager’s name, and the corporate phone number—for when a tough situation arises.

Step 6: It is now time to leave your house and go shopping. Don’t forget your coupon binder—or your children.

Step 7: When you arrive at each store, make sure to go up and down each and every single aisle, twice, just in case there is some sort of unadvertised special. Don’t forget to pull out those candy bar coupons to calm the savage beasts while you are on your adventure.

Step 8: Once you have gathered all of your items and have double-checked that a deal was not missed, make your way to the checkout lanes with your 8-12 carts full of merchandise. Be sure to scout out the prime victim for your best hopes of a smooth checkout; the best unsuspecting cashier is male, age 16-24, and preferably has a carefree air about him.

Step 9: While waiting for 5-6 hours for your glorious stack of coupons to be scanned, it is necessary to stand tall with a gloating smirk on your face; this is sure to gain the attention of all those around you. As envious stares and the compliments about how great of a person you are for saving such a shocking amount of money come rolling in, make sure you mention my website and all of the wonderful information you have received from me. You must save your receipt from every transaction you complete.

Step 10: Repeat Steps 7-9 until you have visited every single store on your route.

Step 11: Upon returning home, put your minions to work by having them unload your trailer full of your purchases and put them away; remind them about the importance of rotating your stockpile. As they are putting your groceries away, make sure to capture pictures of your purchases so you can post them on your blog and show off your savings for the whole world to see.

…Only 137 hours later…

Step 12: Take out all of your saved receipts, taking care to keep them in mint condition, and lay them out in previously purchased picture frames. If necessary, use old picture frames that contain baby pictures. Hang these framed receipts up on the wall—preferably in your front entryway or living room—right next to the photos of your purchases as well as photos of your gorgeously stocked garage.

At the end of this extremely simple process: your three-car garage should be fully-stocked from floor to ceiling with a grandiose stockpile of toilet paper, mustard, boxes of cereal, and so much more; your walls should be plastered with frames filled with your receipts—proof of your expertise; you should be falling to sleep counting the savings on your receipts and dreaming of hundreds of bottles of barbeque sauce, tubes of toothpaste, containers of dish soap…

If you have yet to reach this state of pure happiness—full of joy and bliss—with an extreme affection for your millions of coupons, you can purchase my DVD—Suzy Q, Coupons, and You—for a limited time price of only $29.99. And remember, this price will never amount to the savings you will experience.

©2011 Aubrie Olsen
********* ARTICLE ENDS ***********

Expected to pay $140 for cut and colour, only charged $60. I tipped $15, as I did have a bang trim. But now, ha ha! we have enough left over to have both the males of the house get their hair cuts and to tip.

Saw a 1962 McCall's issue today at the styling salon. Man, those magazines were large! And they were more general interest, with top-shelf fiction, and humour from Johnny Carson (one month before he replaced Jack Paar on _The Tonight Show_) and Art Buchwald. But we can't have nice things like that now. Would love to dress the way Suzy Parker did, but good luck finding size 10 or size 12 vintage...

Fatwallet.com allowed me to take 10% off already discounted outerwear (parka, mitts) for the boy's upcoming field studies. REI allowed me to buy wool socks on special, so I bought a fleece hat and capilene midweight thermal underwear to qualify for free shipping. REI taxed me, because we're both in Washington. $240. And I haven't even gotten around to the pajamas and rain jacket and fleece layers. Despite the outlay, I am not feeling sorry for myself -- half the children in my son's grade are low income. I would not mind so much if he did not already incur expenses for medical evaluation and dental extractions. He wants to work at some babysitting onsite at the school to earn a break on tuition.

Also bought boy's birthday present. I too often make the mistake of thinking the price I see on target.com is the price I will find at the store.

A bread-and-milk excursion ended up being more, to take advantage of some specials at Safeway. Thinking of doing vegetable soup and bread on Tuesday, and skipping off on the scooter to go see a film about Simone Weil.

Black beans have soaked in a pan for two days now. Still looking for a recipe to use with nishiki short-grain sushi rice, leftover from my sister's stay.

Saturday (last night): Swordfish Salad on watercress with soba noodles and Oriental dressing
Sunday: Mexican Black Beans and Rice Salad, or Black Bean Tostados, not sure yet
Monday: Tri-Tip Roast Beef w/Yorkshire Pudding, Triple-A (Arame, Almond, Avocado) Salad
Tuesday: Nori-Wrapped Salmon, Quinoa, Beet Salad with Pumpkin Seeds
Wednesday: Lentil Soup with Paprika with homemade dinner rolls
Thursday: Vegetable Soup with homemade Beer Bread
Friday: Baked Salmon, Brown Rice, leftover soups if any

Yesterday I made a freezer inventory, a list of entrees for this week, and needed ingredients, plus a list of items we are low on.

Early this morning the beau and I went shopping. Today is Mayor's Day of Concern, when food bank drives dominate most supermarkets, even the ones just outside our city. We bought 80% of what was on my list, three impulse buys of salami, cheese, and olive oil. $111.43 prior to the box of oatmeal for the food drive. Most of it was vegetables: I plan for a lot of juices, soups and salads this week. What was nice: the checker was patient while my beau scouted for a food bank item, and she deducted the cost of the five bags we brought (25 cents) even though we used three.

We cheated on the coffee budget and had espresso at the supermarket. I wanted to spend less than $100, but that wasn't going to happen with the impulse items.

The bulk Spike (seasoning salt) went up in cost from $11.49 to $17.69 a pound. Yikes!

Then I started early on Christmas presents shopping, and bought a CD for myself, which I hardly ever do. I did in this case because I would like the artist, who won a music award in the UK, to see royalties, and from what I heard on our local listener-powered station, the cuts on this album are more cosmic and less melancholic. The boy received a MAD Magazine. Who doesn't love MAD?

Also bought weedblock fabric pegs and mulch/bark cover. Did not take as much time as I thought to spread.

Went to the corner supermarket to see what they had for coconut oil and apple cider vinegar, but was distracted by chips on special, and yet another group collecting food for food banks. Bought two cans of vegetables to donate, and kept chips for myself.

So that is about nine days' worth of dinners in the freezer and pantry and refrigerator. I do not normally purchase groceries in excess of $100 anywhere but Costco, but at this rate, I only drive for groceries once a week.

Parameters:
A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York pegs total debt for all Americans at $11.44 trillion in the first quarter of 2012.

2011 US population estimated at 311,591,917.

The average American has a total debt of $36,714.69.

Approximately 68% of people in America own homes (or have titles to homes that they pay mortgages on). Some have huge mortgage balances while others are nearly paying their homes off. The total mortgage debt per homeowner would be $38,874.38.
Average mortgage size in my city this year is $302,220.
Average home price in my zip code is $317,000.

So I can choose to feel bad about owing $124,161.26, way above the average American mortgage debt per homeowner, or I can feel great about my mortgage size being well below average in my city. Let's see what the average home price is in the US: $204,187 according to Standard & Poor w/Census Bureau for January 2012. So average equity would be: $165,312.62.

Average house price in my city is $377,000.
Average equity for people purchasing this year would be $74780, so lots of people putting down 20%.

The average American has HELOC debt of $1,835.73 ($3,671.47 per family). Ours is about seven times that. I keep telling myself that when I reach $16500 in liquid cash (money market account, CDs, savings accounts) I will pay down the HELOC in earnest. I was better about paying the HELOC before we adjusted my spouse's withholding. I have no regrets about adjusting the withholding: writing four-digit cheques to the Treasury Department was turning my hair white prematurely. We are at $15305 liquid cash (not including savings bonds, the mortgage and utility payment due the first of October).

The average American has car loan debt of $2,202.88 ($4,405.76 per family). No debt here.

The average American has credit card debt of $2,202.88 ($4,405.76 per family). I checked the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

graph: equal percentages of car loan and credit card debt. I have about $600 due on upcoming statements, but no interest nor finance charges.

The problems with averages are how skewed the wealth distribution is in the US (and here, we have a coupla billionaires), and how long people have owned their homes. Also, the Case-Shiller graph, which I did not use, has about twenty Metropolitan Statistical Areas only, and not the rural houses which would cost much less.

101 days until my list is due for Fantasy Celebrity Cemetery 2013. When I see the competing lists I see five that I perceive to be stronger than my list: that is, I would throw away three of my lingering picks for any three on their lists.

Secondly, I have lost fat! I have not weighed myself, but I can see my toes even when I look down past Mounts Baker and Rainier, I look only three-four months pregnant instead of five when I view myself in the mirror, and my waist is a half-inch smaller. I attribute this to the coconut oil and the qigong exercises where I stretch and redistribute my energy. I now take 2-3 tablespoonsful of coconut oil daily, in coffee and tea.

I picked up Dr. Joel Fuhrman's _Eat to Live_ but it owes so much to the now-discredited China Study by T. Colin Campbell, its quickie weight-loss diet is low in protein and healthy saturated fat, and there is no mention of coconut oil, or hormone rebalancing to stabilize the cortisol and blood sugar so not so much fat is created. Also nothing about magnesium.

Problem is, highly caloric nuts and seeds have lots of magnesium; so do spinach and cocoa powder. But I could wean myself from caffeine by doing half-coffee and half-cocoa with coconut oil in the afternoons, hmmm...
The nuts and seeds have lots of fiber and very little sugar, so that is helpful. My vitamin and mineral supplements skimp on the magnesium: not sure why, supposedly the majority of people in this country are magnesium-deficient.

I was thinking it would, quite frankly, as F.I.A. Services regularly monitored my credit, and my credit utilization ratio is below 20%. But no, I had to reapply for my credit card to be reinstated. It was my only credit card, I had it for twelve years but did not use it for eight, on account that the bank who bought out the original card-issuer did nothing to make the card competitive with the credit union credit card -- the foreign transaction fee was not low, the grace period was briefer, the terms and conditions changed more rapidly than a telecommunications provider. I even asked twice to be transferred to someone in Credit Review, but apparently that is "going off script."

I wonder what effect the denial of reinstatement would have on my car insurance. I also wonder where I should apply for credit, if anywhere, considering I do not have a job at present. If only there were a general use credit card that was preferable to using cash, like the Target RedCard, with a decent grace period, and that I could use pretty much exclusively while I was in Canada (i.e. no 3% foreign transaction fee). The limit does not have to be high: the cancelled card had a limit of $15200. It would be disappointing and anomalous if, considering we get decent rates and rapid approval for all the credit lines and mortgages we have opened for the past nine years, Bank of America denied me the reinstatement of the credit card.

What credit utilization ratio is preferable? With the Signature Visa our credit utilization percentage is 13.6%, without, it is 16.7%. Should I be paying down the HELOC? Should I ask for the HELOC limit to be upped past $50K so it is not seen as a revolving account? Or should I be saving up $$ for the higher insurance premiums I would pay despite my pristine and lengthy payment history on my other credit accounts and driving record?

1.

Beat Caffeine Addiction - Lifehacker. I found $10 in a pants pocket and blew half of it on coffee. Without this, I am still $3 away from my $40 limit. After 12 noon, I switch to tea, to get the coconut oil melted in hot liquid. I have a tin of Teeccino which I cannot bring myself to use in the french press pot.
Sometimes I ask myself if I want a second coffee or if I want protein, and sometimes I go for protein.

2. About debt paying: I have read that possibly the reason for the slow economy in the United States is that people are paying off their debts. That seems too easy/pat an answer. I did not and still do not understand how banks and consumers would agree to get the consumer so mired that an increasing amount of money would go to paying off debt and not to keeping the economy going. Certainly now with gas costing over $4/gallon in the majority of stations in my city, and the gas prices and drought affecting how much food people can buy, the retail spending will be even less.

3. My tot is going on a two-night learning expedition to the Olympic National Forest. So right after I pay off the credit card I am embarking on my cyberexpedition to outfit him for under $300. We are not camping people, but I do not want my tot to get hypothermia. We went to Lake Louise, Alberta (Canada) one August and it was flippin' 3 degrees Celsius. We did NOT pack for that.; instead we packed like we did on our drive into America's Heartland. So I'm outfitting him like he was to stay in the Rockies. Parka, thermal underwear, fleece hat, warm socks, pajamas...

I made chicken stock last night: not the big 36-hour production Sally Fallon does, but the quickie 90-minute version neighbour Cynthia Lair makes. Another use for those jars is to freeze and store the stock. I like the stock for quinoa and rice. I kept the chicken shreds for lunches.

We also visited the university surplus store at lunch and sprung for some desk chairs. I was using one of those folding chairs used for public meetings for typing little mental mastications (bet you thought 'urb' would be there instead if 'ic') like this. Another wooden folding chair seems chewed at one of the joints, so getting a slightly stained foam cushion high-backed triple-levered office chair for $15 seems like a real bargain. DH took a red one with armrests for $25. They were released into general sale on Monday, the store opens only on Tuesdays: office chairs go fast at the surplus store, as ours were the fifth and sixth chair to be sold within a half-hour.

Neighbour gave us Italian prunes. I am tempted to try a prune spice cake and offer him a few slices.

I have several 16-ounce clean jars that used to contain coconut oil. I learned I can screw the top of one of those jars onto the black container cushion. So I placed the gasket, then the blender blade, on the container cushion, and put my smoothie ingredients in the 16 ounce jar, enough for one serving. Then, yes, screwed the container cushion onto the jar top, turned the whole thing over, put it on top of the blender, and plugged in.

100% Success without the Mess!

I also like to use those jars for storing seeds, nuts and grains.

What I will try next, now that the temperature is getting colder, is use one ice cube tray to freeze buttermilk, so we can have pancakes, blueberry muffins and other baked goods in the winter.

I am slowly starting on tidying up the house. I am supposed to call the agent in three weeks and start looking for rentals, but all I want to do is dump out the ugly furniture, put the rest in storage, and be like Eloise in some ExtendedStay America place until the house sells. Maybe I will go relearn what a contingency loan is. My son's best friend is moving to one of the islands. We would not go to an island: still considering somewhere just directly north of Seattle, or maybe even just north of the lake if my husband goes back to a large aerospace company. I like Bellingham but I may be the only one.

$256.97 spent on groceries and meals/treats out this month so far. Half of the groceries were purchased at a Big Box warehouse store as mentioned: pantry items like canned tomato products, quinoa, brown rice, sugar. We buy a lot of fruit, apparently, as I need to refill our fruit bowl every five days. Sadly, we saved on average 23% per purchase too. So keeping a price book, planning meals, using coupons, making inventory lists of pantry, refrigerator and freezer still are not sufficient in helping me meet my goal to bring food spending down. Without the eating out, the grocery spending is $198. But we are still $5.00 away from meeting our $40/month coffee quota!

I also bought a cheap bottle of Riesling for poaching trout, used a cup of it and then brought it to book club, where it found several good gullets to go to. For fellow book nerds, we discussed _Anna Karenina_.

We bought Guinness Stout cans at 75% discount, to be used in some

FANTASTIC beer bread.

DS goes on a three-day outing to Olympic National Park in November. I must find the handout he brought home and check his wardrobe for needed items, then budget for them.

DH's grandmother died last night but as we were over there last month, when she was confined to her room and unable to recognize her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren, we get a pass on returning, especially as there is no service, only one of us could go during the school year (obviously the husband) and she was cremated hours after the death certificate was signed. I nudged my husband into sending flowers to his parents, in sympathy.

I don't know that there is a lot of grief left in the in-law household: two septuagenarians, one working full-time, the other recovering from knee surgery, spending shifts at her bedside, getting little sleep. They got to go together for coffee once the body was carted away, something they used to do daily before the lengthy languishment, and that they did once while we were there. But now they can rest and sleep and order danishes and nonfat lattes.

I need a new pair of walking shoes that do not crush nor fracture my toes. Also in need of replacement: our chairs -- I can get a desk chair for $10-$25 at the university surplus store. In the meantime, I shave off my VISA balance.

I told my family we would be on a strict food budget: $720. As we have enough vegetable and animal protein to last us two weeks, I figured this would be easy. But I did a Costco run, and even though I missed about four items it came to $106.84, with $15.24 of that being vitamins (that should save me the $15 I would have spent on B-complex separately). So we have spent $182 so far in the first seven days.

With the Costco run we have $10 left in the month for coffee. I went to Cash&Carry for whipping cream and saw that the price went up by 10% since my last visit in July, and butter went up by 20%. These are the lowest prices around, according to my price book. So my coffee now looks like early Michael Jackson instead of later. I may have to run to the supermarket on the pretense of buying a doughnut and slip some half'n'half from the Starbucks kiosk into my drip.

We also ate out last night, as I was occupied creating a stock comparison worksheet, but at a highly-rated burger joint with very inexpensive offerings. $29.08 for three, and that included fresh and hand-dipped milkshakes.

So today I buy vegetables, fruit, luncheon meat and a little more dairy, and hope to spend less than $23, with a $5 coupon from a weekly circular.
Update: $40.11 I spent, but got $5.00 back. The males went with me, and we bought frozen vegetables. Other than eggs, I should not require any food items this week.

Debt so far:
VISA $583.66 due Sept. 27
Signature Visa: $61.24 due in mid-October (I did enable online bill payment, so I anticipate this will be paid on time)
Target: $120.93 due Sept. 21

$30 school supplies for boy
$37.10 Safeway (saved $13 through coupons)
$55.85 electricity bill
$3.00 shell account

Annual insurance for motorcycle, plus license tabs taken care of. Also Signature Visa card thankfully paid five days before the due date. I learned that if I do not use the return envelope Bank of America sends me, my payment can be delayed, even though I print the correct address in a highly readable typeface at 11 point or larger size on a properly stamped #10 envelope.

Now only $703.56 left on the credit union VISA, and $61 on the Signature Visa, and $120.83 on Target RedCard. Apparently my husband uses our credit union for PayPal on occasion, and as PayPal monitors credit card usage, its algorithm-controlled PC decided that the spate of charges for our vacation expenses was reason enough to suspend my husband's account. He should have used the Signature Visa, I agree, as we use that once every two years. So don't go on vacation on the credit card you have linked to PayPal, because OMG! Gas Fillup! Fraud!

Payment for boy's teeth extraction went through. I have about $210 remaining until Friday.

Giving us $40 a month coffee budget. This includes beans we buy for personal use, as well as replenishment of coffee card, and tips. That is for two people. I would like to cut down a bit, so I can afford a Virtual Private Network that can give me a Canadian IP address.

Learning (or rather re-learning) statistics. Scores for end-of-year statewide student testing released, but individual scores not. I have told boy that if he scores outside one standard deviation for both reading and math, he can have dinner at his favourite pizza place.

At my cafe (hey, I got a cappuccino for the price of a drip) the proprietor said "hey! Wanna see something REALLY NEAT?" He showed us

this coin

his friend, a numismatist, gave him. I copied down the inscription and used some Google-fu while he conducted business. I said I could come back with a camera and take images and try to look them up. He lent me the piece instead so I hotfooted it to my neighbourhood coin shop for a quick no-cost appraisal.

From looking at Roman Silver Coins I learned that the coin is not pure silver, but probably an alloy with maybe 2% silver, and probably a fake at that as it is a meld of two coins. Authentic Balbinus antonianus (denomination of Roman currency) do not have obverse/reverse image like the one displayed. But the fake is probably hundreds of years old.

I returned the coin to him with what I learned, wrote down some notes, and supplied the coin shop's card with e-mail address and the name of a company that does thorough appraisals at cost. My friend put on a good show of masking disappointment and shook my hand for my research effort.

(Requested)

I am four pages away from finishing Mapp and Lucia by EF Benson. The BBC produced and aired a TV adaptation of this in the 1980s, starring Geraldine McEwan and Prunella Scales. I could see Ms. Scales as Miss Mapp easily. I am so in love with this book that the males have taken notice. I will be sad to see this book transferred to the 'read' pile, but thankfully EF Benson wrote a series.

I finished Zeroville by Steve Erickson. Published in 2007, it won a number of "Best Book of the Year" accreditations. It is about the Hollywood film industry back in the late 1960s, when the classic studio system gave way to more maverick-style films, just before the marketing-driven blockbuster special effects era. Zeroville is easily the second best novel I have read this year. I did finish Anna Karenina, thanks to a big roadtrip, but I did not love it as much as Zeroville.

Some nonfiction I have is Howard Gardner's The Disciplined Mind (my mother-in-law gave it to me, she is a teacher), and from my library which is on extended furlough I have Proficient Motorcycling second edition, Qigong for Women, some declutter your life in a week book, Statistics for Dummies. Fiction: Alexandria by Vancouverite Nick Bantock, East of Eden, Welcome to the Monkeyhouse, Charles Ray Willeford's The Shark-Infested Custard, The Late George Apley by John P. Marquand. From the Little Free Library (posted minishelves of neighbours' books for lending) I have a Stieg Larsson paperback, the Dragon Tattoo novel. I am reading Vladimir Nabokov's Notes on Russian Literature lecture, so I can have trenchant insights when my book club discusses Anna Karenina. I saw the 1948 English film starring Ralph Richardson and Vivien Leigh: remarkably, in the novel Ms. Karenina was at first likable, but Ms. Leigh's character is not; Aleksei Andreyevitch is a stiff drip in the novel, but Ralph Richardson makes him noble and worthy of sympathy. The at least equally weighted plot of Levin and Kitty, and the other storylines of socioeconomic innovation and Stepan & Darya's deteriorating condition are ignored. Postwar I doubt the English had time for eight-hour epics, so that is probably why only one storyline was presented in the film.
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Received statements confirming stock purchases earlier this month.

First, to inaugurate my new category, I saved forty cents (not .40 cents, that is hundredths of a cent, not hundredths of a dollar) a gallon at a Safeway gas station. As this is the second consecutive time I have mentioned the supermarket chain you could suspect I am paid to blog about it. Not true. If I did not have my price book I would not notice the savings, and there are many items I prefer to buy at Target, due to location and price.

I don't deny I am addicted to petrol. I looked at my 2012 Savings page and saw that in April we spent $120+ on gas refuels. That is 750 miles.

About coffee: I know I am an addict. I have a Turkish coffee set, Turkish coffee, Canadian coffee (not a type but a product name under the Murchie's brand), 5-lb whole bean bag from Costco, Folger's for emergency situations (no electric power for grinding the beans). I have a reloadable card from a cafe 1.5 miles away. My niece said I am a junkie. But I have limits. I would rather go through caffeine withdrawal than pay for Farmer Brothers coffee, even at five cents a cup as Wall Drug advertises.

But making coffee, tea, yerba mate a budget line item makes our consumption visible, and we can then (attempt to) cut down on purchases, maybe even consumption. I miss affording clothes.

I will budget September, including all those back-to-school expenses and Vitamin D3, sweaters, socks, gloves and hats, Christmas gifts.

I refueled the car at $3.56/gallon USD. Just outside Seattle. (The cheapest price quoted in town is about forty cents more.) Thank you, Safeway!

I also went to the beach to pick up about 20 lbs of sand for foot skin exfoliation. Our drug store had sold out (!) of pumice stone. Walking 0.2 mi uphill with the 20 lbs of sand was part of my exercise. I will sleep well tonight, it is hoped.

Eating down the pantry for the second day in a row. This time I emptied the millet. Yesterday it was 2 1/12s of 1 lb packages of linguine and fettuccine.

PayPal has suspended my husband's account due to a SUPPOSED suspicious credit card activity on 6/30. We looked at our July statement tonight and saw a refuel at a gas station for a typical amount (11.7 gallon tank, 10.6 gallons refueled, what is the problem? Did everyone except us stop using credit cards for gas station refills?). I have never been a fan of companies who have the policy "we can end your account for no reason, and you can't argue with us". That does not win the kind of customer that is me or my husband.

Safeway, a West Coast supermarket chain, is now very competitive and introduced Just 4 U Savings for card members. The savings are substantial enough for me to enroll. Today we three shopped at Safeway and our bill came to over $100, which is rare for us as we shop $60 here, $30 there, among six different food markets. But we saved 26% off our food bill PLUS 30 cents a gallon off our next vehicle refuel. We bought tritip roasts, ground beef, whole chicken, pork chops, lots of produce ($3 savings for us as we bought over $15 worth). And some carbonated fruit juice and club soda (I know, I know, but juice is at 18g sugar per serving, and we use the club soda for egg creams and for our own grenadine-and-lime soft drinks or pair it with scotch, and our summer limit is one soft drink every two weeks). Enough food to last us for ten days, barring dairy and bread.

Took my stock investor/debt group friend to Mutual Fish Company, where I bought a whole salmon, two whole trout, ginger and spinach. She bought some sashimi and scallops. Fresh as the public market, but cheaper.

I blog about this because my friend and I are trying to cut down on our food bills. It turns out she and I both share our vision of the ideal job (no, it is not putting thumb tacks in Jell-O for $1000/hour).

I will return to Safeway as we apparently forgot the Hockey News yearbook. Maybe I can justify the return by grabbing some yakisoba noodles and bulk spice from the chichi supermarket three blocks away.

Here is an article about superinvestor Warren Buffett.
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Worked on some gentle qigong exercises for weight loss and the qi rushed from my head so fast, despite my slow directed motions that I felt dizzy and nearly passed out. The qi moved into my palms and heated them up to a feverish temperature. I have taken qigong before but it was Soaring Crane and I did not have weird experiences. This was from Dominique Ferraro's book _Qigong for Women_, an exercise for weight loss and energy balancing for some organs' meridians. The qi "heat rush" is apparently a desired effect. I do read that this qigong can be powerful when used correctly and with full intention, so in future exercises I will make sure the animals are away or out of the room and open a window, one that faces a tree.
I try not to be too woo-woo, and have a healthy skepticism, but I have felt the effects of energy medicine firsthand and know they are real, and so have other people who do tai chi, kung fu, qigong, and other similar exercises.