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Archive for November, 2005

Hubbies present

November 30th, 2005 at 04:07 am

Got sent an LL Bean catalog in the mail today. (actually it was sent to my ex who has never lived here). While looking through it I saw a great pair of slippers that I know my hubby would like. I've heard such great things about LL Bean and the quality of their products and their return policy, that I went on line and ordered a pair for my hubby. Being as he has size 13 feet it is hard to find cheap slippers that he likes and that lasts. He likes the kind that covers up his ankles. The last pair of slippers I got him started falling apart on Christmas Day. I certainly hope that not only will these ones fit him okay, but that they will last at least 20 years. I think that is only fair when you spend $50 for a pair of slippers! He works on cold concrete in his workshop and so always has cold feet when he gets home.

Other than that just a lazy day resisting the urge to eat chocolate.

Gail

Monday

November 28th, 2005 at 05:32 pm

Before hubby left for work, I grabbed the truck and dropped a bunch of packages off at the post office then went to the grocery store for mil and some fresh fruit and popcorn. I had been using generic popcorn in my microwave popcorn maker, but lately got addicted to Orville Redebacher Kettle corn. The slightly sweet taste handles my cravings for sweets/chocolate so health wise I ahead and money wise I'm probably ahead also as candy, etc. isn't cheap. Very proud of myself for keeping the Christmas candy tucked away and haven't touched it since I bought awhile ago. I'm trying to be much more conscious of what I eat and how much I spend at the grocery store.

We've been eating leftover turkey meals for days now, and I'm thinking it might be time for something else for supper.

Time for me to go work on laundry and sewing.

Gail

Getting better

November 28th, 2005 at 04:16 am

After another miserable day, it feels like the pain and miseries are lifting. The weather seems to be changing so that might have been part of it. Hoping to get up feeling good tomorrow so I can get back to my sewing projects, etc.

With barely being able to move today, I definitely didn't spend anything today although I sold several things online, so made some money.

Gail

BLEAH!

November 26th, 2005 at 07:00 pm

Well after feeling really well for the last two weeks, I got up today feeling miserable. I'm tahnkful to have had such a long stretch of feeling good up to and including a holiday. Usually 1-2 decent days a week are the best I can usually hope for.

I've managed to make 2 Christmas presensts so far. Not going to even try sewing today unless I start feeling a whole lot better as I'm too fuzzy headed to truly focus in on what I'm doing. But with close to a month to make what is on my list, I feel like I'll be able to accomplish a lot of it.

Our on line sales, especially on eBay, have been doing really well, with record sales this month. Wish we could make this much every month! Smile I enjoy having something profitable to do with my time when I'm feeling up to it. I think that working with our stuff that we sell on line has actually helped me feel better and keeps depression about my illness away.

Very cold and snowy in this neck of the woods. Spent some money yesterday on line ordering 3 items off my sons wish list at Amazon for his birthday. I sure hope some of it gets here in time. Both my boys are at that awkward age (20's) living away from home, so it's really hard to know what they want or need without them just making a list.

Gail

Lovely Day

November 25th, 2005 at 01:58 pm

Thanksgiving Day was so lovely for me. I paced myself. I did some baking on Wednesday, and then the turkey and other hot stuff yesterday. We didn't eat until 6PM so this gave me lots of time to get things done without getting worn out. This was the first big 'dinner' I have attempted since I got sick almost 4 years ago. It was great and my boys did the dishes. I was very thankful all day for my family and sufficient health to enjoy it yesterday.

Today I plan on spending the day being creative. I have made a red brocade purse for my son's girlfriend, now have to work on presents for my guys, a December wedding present, and I want a new top for the wedding. My sewing room is all cleaned up as I had gotten to the point there was so much clutter, that I didn't have any room to work.

No Black Friday trips to the store for me. We have plenty of leftovers, and any more presents will be handmade. I have had a very good month for sales on-line and the profits have paid for all the presents that had to be purchased. I only have to figure out a 25th birthday present for my son for next Sat.

Gail

Ready to sew

November 21st, 2005 at 02:02 pm

Had a chance to go to Joann fabrics yesterday and picked up some thread on sale, and some that wasn't and several other things that I needed for the many sewing projects that I have listed in my head (way to many) but I'm really excited about having most of the next month to sew and be creative. So far all Christmas items have been purchased with my Paypal card (1.5% cash back) from my eBay earnings.

Got hubby a Christmas present-a big box of pencils. He has asked for a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils (for his workshop where he looses them continually). I will sharpen them while my machine is embroidering things.

Off to have a great day! (I hope and I hope my health holds for the next month!)

Gail

New Sheets!

November 20th, 2005 at 12:00 am

Last night hubby stuck his had through our top sheet. The first time this happened, we tore off the whole top hem of the sheet and I resewed the hem. Well with this second time, the sheet was going to be way to short for him to be covered up and have it tucked in, so we decided we had to bite the bullet and get a new one. Considering we got these sheets a couple of years ago and they cost close to $200, we figured they would last us for a long, long time. I have never had to repair sheets and pillowcases before, but this set it has been ongoing for the past year. At $200 for a set of sheets for a king size bed with a deep mattress, we only had the one set. So today we ended up at Kohls and found Laura Ashley sheet sets marked down from $100's to the low $30's! Got two sets! The best thing was getting them home and checking to see that they fit the mattress and they did, Yippee! Now I know I have a spare pair when I get behind on the laundry. What happened to being able to buy separate top and bottom sheets and pillowcases? Everything, except for standard pillowcases all are being sold in a set whether you need the whole set or not.

I love getting deals like that. I also found a set of towels at half price that I will be able to monogram with my embroidery machine and then give as a wedding gift for a couple that is getting married next month. Incidently, the guy getting married is the guy who first brought my honey to my house the first time I met him. I literally met my husband in my living room!

Gail

Met a Goal

November 19th, 2005 at 04:29 am

I'd been hoping and working towards a goal for what I do on ebay. I wanted at least 1000 items listed in my store before Christmas, and if I count duplicates of items I made it today. I even sold a craft pattern 12 minutes after listing it. I'm hoping for some good Christmas sales over the next couple of weeks. This also means that now I can spend some time doing other things like some Christmas sewing and maybe some baking. What I really need to do is clean my house though.

Got a $10 rebate in the mail today that will go into my $5000 challenge. Walked to the post office to mail two books I'd sold, no purchases today other than postage and ebay listing fees.

Even managed to get an hour of sewing in. I've felt pretty good for the last couple days and it is amazing what I can get done when I feel okay. Unfortunately I rarely have more than a day or two a week, if that, where I'm doing really well.

Gail

Christmas Shopping

November 17th, 2005 at 06:51 pm

Yesterday, we had lovely weather so I paid the bills, took hubby to work and then ran errands and got my Christmas shopping done (such as it was). Unfortunately I went to a gorcery store to buy gift cards for my sons, who appreciate free food, and left my coupon envelope and my shopping list in the grocery cart. All my coupons are now gone and while shopping at Walmart for things I 'needed' I ended up with stuff that wasn't on the list and forgot stuff that was. I did manage to stock up on a few health things my hubby uses so they will last the winter. Got more gift cards for my sons. Got some Christmas candy and more walnuts at the drugstore and except for making some presents and buying my brother a gift card we are done with shopping. We only do presents for our two boys and my single brother and each other. My boys live on their own and understand that mom just doesn't have the energy to shop till she drops looking for the perfect gift. I do hope to make some gifts for them in my sewing room, though. It doesn't seem like we do much compared to others, but we don't care, we do what we can afford and try to remember the true meaning of Christmas.

I did buy all the Christmas stuff with my Paypal card and got 1.5% back on the purchases and the money on the Paypal card came from selling stuff on ebay.

Realized last night that since we changed water filters we had some extra replacement filters from our old filter and so I just put them up for sale on ebay. Looks like there is a brisk business for water filters there and I'm glad I thought of it instead of them just hanging around the house as clutter. Anyone needing PUR water filters can check out the auction at my store www.MoonwishesStore.com.

Time to go write up some more ebay auctions.

Gail

agreeing with ender513

November 16th, 2005 at 02:33 pm

I tried to post yesterday, and got an error message, so this is a bit of a combo. I just read Ender513 message about drugstor buys for food and I so agree. I have been pricing walnuts, not only for holiday baking, but baking year round. The price of them has just been going up. Anyhow, while looking through my local CVS ad from this week, I noticed they had walnuts on sale for $2.99. That is the lowest price I'd seen in a year, so I picked up several bags. Last night I went out for milk and bread at the grocery store and there was their walnut display $5.49 a bag! I almost choked. I might just go and buy a few more bags at the drugstore and store them in the freezer as they stay good for a long time if frozen.

I needed a prescription filled that I take on a regular basis, so talked to the pharmacist first and then called the doctor's office. Normally she always wrote the script as take 1 or 2. Since I always take 2 I asked the nurse to please just write the script for the 30 mg size instead of the 15 mg. They managed to get the order (doesn't always happen) and buy getting the larger dose I saved money and it only cost me $12.89 for a 30 day supply of the generic med. One of the things I was really scared of when my insurance ran out was the cost of my meds (and ending up in the hospital), but so far I've doing great on getting the meds that I hadn't been able to squirrel extra away. This past spring while I still had insurance, they switched companies so I got everything refilled with one compnay, and then turned around and got refills with the new company to put me 3 months (at least) ahead on my meds. Hopefully I have enough of most everything until my Medicare kicks in and I get that drug coverage thing figured out.

I did join AARP now that I just turned 50. Took the three year plan as it was cheaper in the long run and both my parents and my in-laws say that AARP Medicare supplements are the cheapest/best in this area, but you have to be a member.

I've balanced my checkbook for the week and now have to pay the weekly bills. I have found that balancing the checkbook weekly really catches mistakes before they can become big ones.

Gail

made some money

November 12th, 2005 at 05:58 am

I sell books and sewing patterns on line, mostly through ebay and Amazon and ended up selling almost $100 worth of books today! Yippee! On Tuesday ebay had a 10 cent fixed price listing day that I took advantage of and boy am I glad. Except for ebay and Paypal fees, most everything I sell this month is pure profit. Keeps me busy and out of trouble. I'm hoping to get to the thrift store tomorrow to liik for more bargains for resell and also I NEED to start Chritmas sewing. We are going to give gift cards to our boys, but one boy has a serious girlfriend, so finally I get to make something girly!

Now if I could just get sleepy enough to go to sleep so that I won't be a zomby tomorrow (today already) Smile

Gail

Grocery Shopping!

November 11th, 2005 at 02:05 pm

The joy of grocery shopping at Walmart, is the cheaper prices. The other joy is that you can also pick up bits and bobs of things from other departments and then when the cashier totals things up you get to have a heart attack! Our total before coupons was $199. Then I remembered we had a 3 pack of water filters. Our PUR water filter kept breaking and we kept replacing and I finally decided enough was enough. Got a Dupont water filter a couple of months ago and haven't had a bit of problem, so last night we got replacement filters--the faucet mount portion and the filters themselves are MUCH cheaper than the 'big' brands and seem to be working a whole lot better. We also picked up 2 of the 42 count Prilosec boxes (on sale due to price matching) and had 2 $1 off coupons. I have to take Prilosec daily and my prescription plan always covered it (used to cost $300 for a 3 month supply), now with no prescription plan I have to constantly be looking for bargains. Hubbies Mountain Dew was on sale, so 10 bottles of that. Before we knew it the cart was full and then hubby kept wondering what the wonderful smell was in the store.....all the BBQ chicken which he had to buy one and then he saw the boneless chicken wings and had to get a pound of that and were they ever yummy--we ate half a pound in the check out line, it took the expression 'going out to eat' to new heights! Smile The cooked chicken meant I didn't have to cook supper and have enough meat for dinner tonight (unless hubby starts picking at it!).

It was great just getting out of the house as I was starting to get cabin fever. Got home and had several things sell from my ebay store which is very nice. Had a book sell through Amazon this morning for $15. I've sold $375 worth of stuff on line this month.

Gail

Not much happening

November 10th, 2005 at 06:37 pm

Slow day here. I made hubby's sandwich and wrapped it in some loose aluminum foil I had hanging around. When he saw it, he thought we must be getting really low on things in the house. I told him I was just being frugal-didn't want to throw out a perfectly good piece of foil.

Now that wet/cold weather is here, I won't be getting out much, which means spending opportunities for me are even less. Just need to try and keep doing frugal type things. We had the heat turned off most of the last week because it was in the 60s. We had to turn it back on again as it is down in the 40s now.

One of the best frugal things I ever did was oraganizing my bill paying system so that nothing goes out late and all credit cards are paid in full which is a huge savings on late charges and finance charges.

We are also a one car family so I can't just hope in a car and go grocery shopping whenever I want. I make a list and when it seems long enough, I tell hubby I need the truck and take him to work so I can go get groceries or we go together for our 'date' night.

Gail

catching up

November 9th, 2005 at 06:11 am

Wow I hadn't realized how long it had been since I posted! I've been sick a lot lately and then trying to play catchup before I'm down for the count again. Spending the most of my time listing things on ebay and have quite a feww sales from there. Being sick I haven't been out much, so haven't spent much. I did have a birthday though and hubby did something very unfrugal--50 red roses plus assorted other flowers. Can you guess how old I now am? I also ended up with $100 in birthday presents and used it all to buy 4 MASH DVD sets and a book off of Amazon. The DVD's will get a lot of use and the book was on machine embroidery with a CD with 57 embroidery designs on it that I can sew out. Some wonderful projects.

My son picked up some medicine I use daily when it went on sale at the grocery store. First time I've been without a prescription plan or insurance in years. I had talked with my pharmacists and he told me the over the counter med would be a LOT cheaper than him filling a script with the same stuff, so I ended up with about $120 savings.

Well I need to try and get to sleep again. I'm having a rough night.

Gail