We need to order airline tickets to travel back to Wisconsin for our son's wedding next month. It's been sort of touch and go as to whether we'd able to afford the trip, which is why they haven't been ordered yet.

I am just wondering if anyone out there knows of a site to buy cheaper tickets? We know about kayak.com, expedia, travelocity, etc. we've checked BJs but it wasn't cheaper through them.

Any other ideas?

I notice my 2-yr blog-o-versary was July 15, and once again I've missed it :-) We are moving to Florida this Friday; it's hard to believe it's finally here. We've got some big expenses coming up, and really I'll be glad when this move is all over with and we can get back to normal. Our new normal :-)

We've been able to get rid of at least 60% of our belongings. You wouldn't be able to tell that from the pile of boxes in my house, but I shudder to think how many boxes there would be if we had kept it all. We will be paying $3400 to move from Wisconsin to Florida, but we will get a refund if our weight is below what was calculated, so I'm really hoping that's the case.

We've lost a lot of money in car repairs--well I shouldn't say "lost" but you know what I mean. We brought the car in last month expecting to pay around $300-$400 and spent $900. Then a couple of weeks ago we had to bring it in again and spent another $450. I'm thankful we had the money, but it was money that was earmarked for furniture, so I'm afraid we won't be able to replace a lot at first. I'm not even sure mattresses for the kids will happen at this point for a couple of weeks. They may have to get used to their airbeds for a while :-)

We estimate our expenses will be a lot lower in Florida than in Wisconsin. We currently pay $130 per month for water. In Florida, it will be $20/month. Our electric/gas bill here averages between $250-$350, depending on how hot or cold it is. In Florida it will be about $120 a month for electric, and no gas bill. Even cable/internet is $45 cheaper, and of course no state income tax.

I was a little annoyed tonight, because we did our change of address for the post office, and it gave us a coupon for one month free plus free installation of cable/internet, but you have to mention the coupon when scheduling the installation, and its not valid on prior scheduled installations. :-( Hubby is going to try and call and see if we can get the coupon applied, but chances are they won't budge. If it were me, I'd just cancel and wait, because the coupon is good until the end of September, but he needs internet for his job, and we can't chance that it won't be installed in time. Lesson here: if you're moving, do not set up your cable/internet until you've done the change of address with the post office. Chances are you'll get a coupon. :-)

One of the things I'd like to do once we move is work for Walt Disney World. Part of me wants to apply now, but we'll be living about 20 miles away, and I have to make sure that it wouldn't conflict with school schedules, and I don't want the pressure of having to unpack boxes and work right away. We only have 1 car, so it makes it a little tricky. And I don't want to take on another car payment just yet. I'm enjoying being car payment free at the moment!

We're mostly packed; right now I'm working on the cleaning. I like to leave it in roughly the same condition as it was when we left it, and in this case maybe even a little better because the old renters did not do a very thorough job of cleaning it. I'm hoping to get our security deposit back on Friday; it's what he's done in the past, but the lease does say it will get mailed. But it said that before and he gave it to us right away. So we shall see, I guess!

Thanks for reading--I do plan on being more active once we're settled. I probably will pop on before we leave and let you know how much was in our piggy bank. I've been selling stuff on Craigslist ever since January, and all that money plus any change we've had has gone into our piggy bank, and I'm really curious to see how much is in there. We've only had to dip into once when we needed cash, and that was only for $10.

We took our car in to the shop today to get it ready for the drive down to Florida. $675 it will cost tomorrow. :-( The big expense is the rear struts which need to be replaced, the other issues were minor. It's about $300 more than I wanted to pay, but what can you do? It needs to be done.

I just packed all the china today, and I also talked with the middle school regarding my son's IEP, so it all sounds good. Honestly I will just be happy when the moving truck is gone and we are just driving down the highway towards Florida. I'm tired of packing boxes, and tired of the stress of the move in general. 35 days to go, which is not long, but still seems like forever at this point in the game.

Until we move from Wisconsin to Florida! Yeesh! I'm excited but I am so tired of living among boxes and packing boxes and dropping stuff off at Goodwill and listing on Craigslist and Freecycle only to have no shows all the time ....etc :-(

We've been doing this since January, and while it is nice to have time to sort through all our junk, it really is a long haul. I will be glad for when it's over.

We've had some unexpected expenses pop up (always, right?), mostly medical. Right now I am soaking my foot because I had an ingrown toenail removed today. Minor surgical procedure, which I don't even want to know how much will cost. And I know we will need to bring in our car in to be serviced before we leave. We've already put $600 worth of repairs in March, and I know we'll at least need to get the exhaust looked at as it's sounding a little loud lately. But the car is paid for, no more loan payments! yay! so even though its a '98 it's still running well and worth it to put money into it. We've been a one car family for about a month now, and its really working out well.

Hope you all have a nice weekend

I see I am coming on my one year anniversary of my blog, and yeah haven't posted hardly at all. Bad me. I think my last post talked about the garnishment and how we needed to bring money in.

Yes, the garnishment is still there, though I'm expecting we should be done with it in September, or at the very latest first part of October. I will be very glad to be done of it, because we'll gain the full amount of the paycheck back, but most importantly it will be done with.

My husband got a promotion in March, so our income is almost where it was pre-garnishment. However, also in March my husband's brother died, so we needed to take out a payday loan to cover our expenses for traveling to the funeral. We are still paying on that, but hope to get it paid off in August.

We are trying to get current on our bills. Each month we manage to pay our bills right before disconnection. It's very frustrating, especially when I know if it were not for the garnishment, we would not be behind. But whose fault is that? Yep, mine.

It's not all bad news, though. I did set some financial goals this year and amazingly enough we have met some of them.

1) get current on our bills. Ok, still working on that one.

2) Close a bank account that we never use. DONE.

3) Save $300 and open a savings account. Well, we sort of did this one. I set the amount at $300 because our bank charges a fee if we fall below this amount. We did not save $300 and we do not have a savings account. However, we did open a second checking account instead because the bank paid us $100 to do it. So this will be our savings account, and there's no worry about maintaining a balance. We have $25 deposited into this account every paycheck.

4) Enter checkbook into Quicken. DONE. I'm kind of anal about making sure our account is balanced. We don't have overdraft protection on our account, and it's vital that we don't bounce a check. So I keep pretty close tabs on it. My checkbook register needs to match the online numbers, which need to match the Quicken numbers. LOL


In other news, my parents are still not talking to us. Kids are taking it hard, especially my son, who is autistic and can't figure out why Grandma and Grandpa don't like us anymore. I'm over it. Well as much as one can be over something like that. (For those who don't remember, we were renting from my parents, they refused to landlord repairs, so we moved out in Dec last year and they took it personally).

I had been going to a private university but financial aid kind of dried up, so I am transferring to a state university to finish up my degree. Tuition is a third of the cost, and while the private school is better, I have to go where I can afford to go.

We're still making plans to move to Florida in two years. Had it up to here with Wisconsin weather, want to go where it's warmer and of course closer to Disney. (My husband and I are huge Disney nuts).

Guess that's pretty much it. I've written a book already, and I really hope to be more active. I've been reading, just not participating. :=)

Spent $34.10 in the grocery store.
I did use my cloth bags and received .15 credit (5 cents per bag), and also used a coupon for .40. so .55 savings.

Received free in the mail a collapsible cooler. This was not something we ordered or even expected, but it was on our "to buy" list next week for Disney. So wow, we saved $20 today with that!

Paid $50 extra to 401K loan.

and finally decided to re-start a blog. This time I'm going to try to do a daily post, to hopefully keep me on track.

Our main focus around here right now is preparing for Disney, so being frugal has sort of fallen by the wayside. :-) We leave in three weeks. Yesterday dh got a $200 bonus, which we will use for either gas or hotel expenses. (We are driving, and planning on taking 2 days to do it. It's a 21 hr drive).

Things have been tight around here because of it. Dh makes an adequate wage, but the trip expenses are making us cut back on our groceries and extra things we normally do. Yeah, it will be worth it, that's what I keep telling myself. LOL! This trip actually has 2 purposes: one of course is the Mouse, but the other one is that we are planning to move to Florida, so this is a way for us to scout out the area and see how we handle the heat. I'm just so tired of living in a state where we have winter six months out of the year, and our summers haven't been real warm either.

Today is a no-spend day. We'll have chicken for supper because that's what we have in the freezer. Tomorrow I will have to make a grocery run, which in itself is a frustrating process as the prices seem to rise weekly.