My Plants?

I was really hoping to have a happy little post about how wonderful my little seedlings were doing. I now know that I don't have a green thumb its more like the kiss of death finger! And I had such high hopes too. We spent $11.37 on this little experiment and I'm thinking that the only things that are going to make it are the marigolds.
Den had the bright idea of starting the seeds in his old tackle box.

It worked really good for just carrying it around until they started to grow. Who knew? Then we had to transplant them.



So we moved them(sweet william?) into an ice cream bucket. That's probably where we should have put them in the beginning. It's hard to tell but most of them are dying. (I need a new camera!!)
And a few of the poor souls ended up in an old milk jug. They are doing a little better than the plants in ice cream container. I really wish I could tell you which plants are what but in my rush to rescue them I forgot to mark them.

But I do know that the plants in the water bottle are marigolds. I started them off in there and they seem to be doing the best. I just keep thinking about how I have always enjoyed going and picking out plants at our local nursery. And this starting them from seeds is really zapping the joy out of it.
So my lesson out of this little experiment,
1.) plants don't do well when you transplant them a few times in the beginning(duh!)
2.) I have a hard time keeping things alive
3.) I don't have the patients to drag them all over the wet and sloppy yard trying to find a slight ray of sunshine for them.
So I think this is it for me with trying to grow my own plants. Out of respect for the pitiful little guys, I'm going to try to keep them alive. Key word is try.
Thanks for reading,
SonyaAnn

THANK YOU!

With all of my heart, thank you. Donna, your prayers worked! The loan was approved and we will be closing on the 7th of April. So here is the break down of the bills,
tow bill $117
transmission $1400
Refi $750(out of pocket)
TOTAL $2267
The insurance company said that they would cut me a check for $100. And we will be skipping a months house payment $1400. And for the great news, I use WaMu equity accelerator so with making the house payment for April, we have a balance of $645.50. So that only leaves us with a balance of $121.50. I can handle that. Funny how that works out. If we hadn't been in the middle of refinancing we would never of had the money. And if Fifth Third hadn't screwed us over, I would never have started the refinance. Weird, feels like someone was watching out for us. So for $121.50 Anna will have a car that has been freshly painted and a new transmission. It will be almost as good as new. Sometimes you can't tell the good news from the bad.
Thank you,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 1:47 PM 2 comments

Insult to Injury

I can't believe this. Well, who knew I could get this mad again. I'm typing the keys so hard I now have a finger stutter.
I got a letter in the mail today for Fifth Third Bank. Ahhh yes, now you get it. I wanted to call and yell at them but all I would end up doing is being pissy with some poor fool that is trying to keep their job. So I'm just going to write about it and never see any results.
Guess what was in the letter? They wanted me to use my Fifth Third Equity Flexline to pay off my credit cards. WHAT IS THIS CRAP!!!!! They were the ones that cut the line in the first place and beat the hell out of our FICO scores. Do they really have no idea what they are doing? Now I know that this is just a standard letter that is sent out but why would you sent it to someone that has no room left on the loan. Are they hoping that maybe I'll go over the limit and then they can charge me over the limit fees, too? Ohhhhh, I'm so not happy with them. The only good news is that Chase ran our credit scores before any of this will show up. And it looks as if the loan will be processed by the end of April. So soon we will never have to deal with them again.
So all I can do is complain and hope the morons in charge at Fifth Third get what they truly deserve. I hope that their crotches catch on fire during a drought. And that's my happy thought for the day!
Thanks for reading another rant,
SonyaAnn

We came up with a plan!

Well, we figured out what we are doing. Den found a place that rebuilds transmissions for $1400. Den said that we could probably get another 50,000 on the motor and he already has all the paint supplies. So he said it would last us quite a while barring any major catastrophes. But the bad news is we are having some problems with the refinancing. The underwriter wanted more info so I sent additional info on Den's 401k and other assets. They already have our loan but I was told that they are ridiculously picky. So fingers crossed because the skipped payment would pay for the transmission.
I'll keep you posted and if you feel the need to visit my sponsors, that would ROCK!!!!
Thanks for reading,
SonyaAnn

Just Great!!!

It's another wonderful day in the neighborhood! This is Anna's car. It a 1999 Chevy Lumina and it's a little dead.
Den sold his Trans Am "shell" for $200 this morning. And being the sweet father that he is, he took the money and bought $150 worth of supplies to paint her car. One of his friend's from work needs a new roof so Den was going to help roof his house in exchange for a paint job. So after buying the supplies, and on his way to his friend's house, the transmission went out. Yeah, fun! So Den managed to get it off the road and into a "upper class" neighborhood. And then the cops showed up, they were decent but ran everybody's info and wanted them to move along. Anywho, Den had it towed home and we are trying to come up with a plan. We could a.) become a 2 car family for the next 14 months and then buy something when Anna goes to JR. college b.) have Den replace the transmission with a used one for $300 and take our chances with another 10 year old transmission c.) bring it in and have it done for $2500 d.) buy a new to us car with the money we will be saving with the refinance. This sucks!!!! Just when you think you can gain a little ground, it all comes crashing down. But the only good things that I can see out of this mess are that it broke down when Den was driving not Anna and that all of our scrimping and saving is at least helping us when we do have a problem. So I should lighten up because we do have a few choices.
Den did some motor work 3 years ago and said that the motor was like new on the inside. He said it showed no signs of wear but it has 140,000 on it.
So I will keep you posted.
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 12:41 PM 0 comments

6 Flags

Last year 6 flags had a deal, I think it was called a 6 pass. It was the first time we had ever done anything like that. And it was the first time that I felt brave enough to try and walk it. If I remember correctly, it was just a little bit more than a one day ticket. Maybe $5 more. If anyone remembers, let me know. Well for Christmas this year, my MIL bought us all a pass. We go to the one in Gurnee, IL. I can't wait! We had so much fun. Den had just started working 4 10hr days the beginning of the summer so we would meet him after work Thursday evenings at Gurnee Mills. We would leave his car in the parking lot and we would take my car to the park. We decided that we would get more rides in on a Thursday evening than we would get in an entire day on the weekend. The kids and I had a list of what we needed to pack in the cooler for dinner and then off we went. We wouldn't buy anything in the park or do anything that cost any money. So we were only out gas $. We had a wonderful time and made some great memories. And I'm really looking forward to it this year. We even went to the water park a few times. I sat and read which was a massive treat. I was all alone in a corner, I found Heaven. And the kids had a blast. I'm all excited.
But here's the problem, I heard that they were going under. Is this true? Are they going to close or perhaps be bought out? Isn't that the way it always is, you find something that you love and then it ends. I probably jinxed it.
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 8:51 AM 0 comments

$444.18 for 4 weeks groceries

I totaled up the amount that we spent in the last four weeks for groceries and it was $444.18. So I have managed to trim a little bit off of our budget ($480/month). I'm really trying to get our costs down but it feels like its 1 step forward and 2 steps back. I have managed to sock away a few dollars but its never enough.
I said before that if we had to go on unemployment I would cut the groceries down to $350 a month and I'm thinking that I'm really off on that number. But when I said that we could make it with $80 a month on gas for the cars that might be on the high side. I might be able to rob Peter to pay Paul,maybe. I just really want to have a working unemployment budget. I just pray that I never have to use it but if we do I want somewhere to start. We are also really big eaters. We live on the IL/WI border and there is nothing but meat and potatoes, beer and cheese. Not complaining at all but I think that my budget is unrealistic at least for the food. Whenever we try to really cut back, we blow it because we end up miserable. Den said that we could have ramen noodles a few times a month for dinner and that would really knock it down. Some find it hard to believe that we could eat well on $444.18 a month, others think it's too much. Almost everything is from scratch and we keep deserts on hand. It's easier to stick to the plan if there are built in rewards. And I make sure that there are lots of fruits and veggies on hand. Most around here don't eat like that, more than once we have been called the Brady bunch. I think that it's funny that we are considered at times, wholesome. If people only knew!!!!
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 7:07 AM 4 comments

Missing Summer

These are pictures from the flowers that were in our yard last year. I've been squirreling away a little bit of money here and there for this years flowers. I love all different kinds of flowers and I love to plant them but I think that we are going to buy more perennials this year. I'll miss playing in the dirt next year,though.
We have an overhang on the front of the house and we plant flowers underneath it. It gets very little light. If you can think of anything that would do there and have a lot of color, please let me know.
We are also going to plant a small garden again, a couple of tomato plants, herbs, and green onion. I have a really good tip. The next time you buy green onions chop off about 1.5 inches at the bottom. Make sure that the root is in good shape and then replant. When they get to full size, trim them instead of pulling them and you will have green onions all summer. I would love to put a bay window in the kitchen and have a little herb garden in there for the winter. I would feel so well off if we could have fresh herbs in the winter instead of the dried one. Ahh, what a dream?
I can't wait for summer.
I'm also trying to start a few plants from seeds but I'm mostly growing mold. I'll post some pictures.
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

My son's teacher

Mr. Johnson was DJ's teacher this year and Anna had him too. This has been going on for a while but I thought I would let you know what's going on in our neck of the woods. And the thing is my high school gym teacher was arrested for molesting one of my class mates. And my 7th grade choir teacher was arrested too for sexually abusing a child. Unfortunately, it seems like there is no stopping this except to educate our children. Sad.
Antioch teacher admits to sexually abusing kids
Thanks for reading,
SonyaAnn

Free Cereal

Free Glucerna Cereal up to $5. Call
1-877-879-4857 (automated call)
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

Our KY Trip

Well, My SIL is due the beginning of April. So we are going to head down there June 12th to the 19th. My in laws are letting us use their time share. They have been banking their weeks and not using them. They had planned on retiring by now and traveling but their retirement fund took a huge hit(where have I heard that before) so they haven't been using their weeks. And they have to pay for them either way, we offered to pay them many times but they said they are out the money either way and would love to see us use it. Gotta love them!
And it just keeps getting better, we have 6 flags passes so we are going to visit the Louisville park. Yeah more free fun. My SIL figures that she will be back to work by that time so we will spend the weekend together and at night.
I'm only setting aside $500 for this trip. The resort has a kitchen so we are going to take full advantage of it. When we went to the Dells in October of last year, we packed all of our dinners. For a few weeks before we left, we made lots of extras when we made our favorite dinners. I froze all the leftovers in glad ware and we kept them in the little frig at the hotel. We just microwaved our dinners every night. Doing that cut down so much on our expenses. So I'm really hoping that $500 will cover this little trip. We are also going to keep breakfast simple with fruit and cereal. And lunches will be cup of soup and sandwiches. When we go to the park, we will do the same as at home and just pack a cooler. We never buy anything when we are in the park.
I hope that we can pull this off.
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

New Monthly Budget

Since the simpletons over at Fifth Third bank decided to screw with us, we are once again refiguring our monthly budget.

Here is the budget now
1296.00 House payment(bi-weekly) so we save $324 a week
122.00 Car Insurance
183.00 Nicor and Comed
25.00 Home phone
135.00 2nd mortgage with a little extra
280.00 gas for all three cars
38.00 satelite
480.00 groceries for the month 120.00 a week
75.00 Den smokes
70.00 garbage and water
24.00 synthroid and iron pills for me
2728.00 total
And our new budget will look something like this......

1400.00 House payment(bi-weekly) so we save $350 a week
122.00 Car Insurance
183.00 Nicor and Comed
25.00 Home phone
280.00 gas for all three cars
40.00 satelite
480.00 groceries for the month 120.00 a week
114.00 Den smokes
70.00 garbage and water
20.00 synthroid and iron pills for me
2734.00 total
This is the break down of how we will use the checks every week.
Week 1 -$350 house, $219 food,gas & cig, $70 garbage & water, $20 pills
Week 2- $350 house, $219 food, gas &cig, $122 car insurance
Week 3- $350 house, $219 food, gas & cig, $105 Nicor, $25 phone
Week 4- $350 house, $219 food, gas & cig, $78 Com Ed, $40 Satellite
And here is the unemployment budget.......
1143.00 House payment (stop all extra payments)
115.00 Car insurance(raise deductibles)
125.00 Nicor and Comed (line dry and freeze)
0.00 phone (drop it)
80.00 gas for car
0.00 satelite(drop it)
350.00 groceries
114.00 Den smokes
60.00 garbage and water (bathe less and stink)
12.00 synthroid and iron pills (generic)
1999.00 total
Hopefully this is the last time that I will be reworking my budgets this year.
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

So Pissed!

OH MY GOD!!!!! You ever see a little kid jumping up and down having a full on fit, well I feel like doing that right now. And maybe punching something, say Fifth Third Bank!!!! I just got a letter from them today saying that they are lowering our Home Equity Line of Credit from $44000 to $22100. That maxes us out and it will lower our FICO scores. WHAT IS THIS CRAP! Our FICO scores are 814(Den) and 808(me). That is really high so we obviously pay our bills. And one of the last lines in this lovely letter was,
"Please understand that the reduction of your line of credit was not based on your payment record. Rather, this change is being made based on the formal analysis showing the value decline in your home and Fifth Third wants to help protect you from borrowing on your line of credit beyond the value of your home."
REALLY, they want to protect ME from borrowing too much. I'm really feeling like they are out to protect me. And the thing is we only owe $103,000 on the house and $22000 on the second mortgage. And our house is worth about $180000. So they would more than recoup their money if we defaulted. But on a side note, if you want to find the value of your house use this calculator, it's way cool!
So we were thinking about refinancing before and now we aren't think, we are doing. I called Chase and started the ball rolling. We were with Washington Mutual and now its Chase. But any who, we are going to role it all in for 30 years and the payment will be $1143. We are going to keep it at 30 years just in case anything ever comes up and we need the extra cash. But we will continue to pay $1300 a month and make one extra payment a year. The woman was so sweet and figured out that we would have it paid for in 11 years if we keep this up. So in the end, we will be a little better off and we won't be giving our money to the jack asses at Fifth Third.
So I just had to vent and I know that I'm not the first one to talk about this but you really don't get how upsetting this is unless it happens to you. And it's really not fair that they maxed us out and are beating up our FICO scores.
We will be financing $130500 total. That's with the closing costs and everything. And we are locked in at 5.125%, we were at 6.25%. Strange how sometimes the universe will make a decision for you or the morons at Fifth Third. The only thing that I didn't like was we had to pay $750 by credit card to Chase just to get everything started. So I'm going to rob the FL fund and just pay it back when we skip a payment in May. I know, I know that I should put that extra money towards the principal but I have to keep that fund, well funded.
Thanks for letting me vent,
SonyaAnn

Homemade Microwavables

I used to buy microwavables every week for the kids. They would come home and have that as a snack after school. The problem was they were $1 each and they could eat two at a time. So the kids were a little unhappy when I said that we couldn't afford to buy them anymore. I'm still buying ramen noodles and mac and cheese so they would have a snack. I do keep plenty of fruit in the house but they are still teenagers and there is no winning that fight. So I came up with a solution. I turned the $4.30 meal into microwavables. I added 2 more packages of ramen noodles so now instead of 6 packages there are 8. Now it costs, $4.64 to make it but it goes alot farther. I can get between 7-8 container out of it. (I use the free Gladeware that you get with lunchmeat). So it's costing either $.66 or $.58 a microwavable. And there is alot more food in the ones that I make, they never go back for seconds. Even Den will snag one for his lunch once in a while. We usually make his lunches from last nights dinner but sometimes that gets old.
Thanks for reading,
SonyaAnn

Gift Card Winner

I used random.org to choose a winner for the Dominick's gift card. Drum roll please...... The winner is Donna, she left the first comment. So Donna if you could please send you full name & address to amommoneyandmore@yahoo.com, I'll get the gift card out to you this weekend. Congrats to Donna and thank you to everyone that entered!!!!
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 9:08 AM 0 comments

Baby Gift

Since I'm going to be an Aunt soon, I've been trying to come up with frugal and unique gifts for the baby. His parents (It's a boy) have more than enough money to indulge him in every fancy and new gadget that is on the market. And it's really bothering me that he will be in KY and we are here in IL. We just don't have the money to keep going back and forth. So I think that I'm going to go through the kids old story books. They are packed up and the kids really have no use for them. I mean I could try to read to them but I don't think it is real high on two teenager's lists to be tucked in and have a story read to them. So anyways, I'm going to pull out all of their favorites. And I think I have two story books that were Den's when he was little.
I'm going to try and borrow a video recorder and have all of us read to the baby. I know, how cute is that. When we have finished, I'm going to pack up the disk and the books and ship them to the baby.
I'm just so sick that he won't know us. And I think, this way he will have a memory of us. It makes me want to cry knowing that I won't be a big part of his life. I wanted to be the fun aunt. I just want him to grow up knowing how much I love him.
Here's my problem, Den. He's not feeling the whole, I'm going to video tape him thing. He said it's a cute idea but not for him. Anna was all for it, DJ said he would do it but he wasn't happy about it. Any ideas? I was even thinking about getting my in-laws to read to him and maybe even the baby's great grandfather. The men aren't real into this. To be honest, I hate how I look and seeing my fat ass on tape is upsetting. I just don't like people to look at me, film me or take my picture, call it a slight phobia. But I think that it's so important to be in his life, that I will get over my insecurities. I'll let you know if this works out.
Thanks For Reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 1:03 PM 2 comments