Beautiful weather and my crappy laptop!

Yesterday was a beautiful day here in upstate NY. 70 degrees, sun was shining. Beautiful!! We had the kids outside most of the afternoon and evening, until we went to the store. We went to to Tops and did REALLY well on sales.

Today is supposed to be just as nice. Dh will be gone for a while - he's at the mall taking the defensive driving course. This will save us some money on insurance. When he gets home we will be walking to Family Dollar to look at cell phone chargers for the car. They have LG ones that I think will fit our Net10 phones for $6. They come with 3 different tips so we will only have to buy one if it works with both phones.

Speaking of spending more money..... grrrrrr... I ordered a new keyboard for my laptop yesterday. My keyboard is just beyond repair. My pgDn button doesn't sit there right. Those little white pieces that go under the buttons are just a big pain in the butt. I'm missing one for down key and the one for my space bar broke. I found a new keyboard on Ebay for around $18 including tax (some other places wanted close to $30) and now I just have to wait to get it. Then the fun part will be trying to put it in, but at least I have a manual for that so I should be able to do it.

I've had this laptop a little over a year and it's a piece of crap. My husband bought a refurbished Gateway and it's awesome (it's what I am using right now because of my keyboard). Maybe it's because of all the stuff I added to mine. I don't know. I've tried to restore it several times and it never works. So, this summer, after my classes are done, my big project will be to get all the pictures on CD and copy everything. Then I will be restoring it back to factory standards. Putting it all back in will be a chore also. Then, hopefully, the laptop will work and run better (the thing is just so slow right now). Maybe then I will be able to put off getting a new laptop for several years!

Homemade bread

I decided to try a new recipe last night. I have only made bread a handful of times and half of those were in the bread machine. I found a recipe on the Frugal Village forums and it had tons of great comments under it. So, I decided to make some white sandwich bread.

The worst part of making homemade bread is the time it takes to knead it and let it rise. Really between mixing and kneading, it only took about 15 minutes of actual work. The rest of the time was just letting it rise. The recipe I used, made 3 loaves (I had hubby grab a two more metal bread pans while he was out and about).

I have to tell you. This was the best bread ever!! It is still light and fluffy, but yet it stays together while you cut it. I can just imagine using this same recipe for rolls and buns. YUMMY!!!!

I just bought some more white wheat flour and the next time I make it I am thinking about using that. My plans are to make a batch every couple days. That way we don't have to buy store-bought bread anymore. Saving money and we're not eating preservatives. I will probably buy a few loaves though and just throw them in the freezer for when I do not have enough time to make more.

Savings by making own bread:
Flour - used 10 cups at $0.09 each = $0.90
Sugar - 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons = $0.21 a cup = $0.11
Yeast - 2 TBS = $0.13
Salt - less than $0.05
Butter - $0.50
Total Cost for 3 Loaves = $1.69
Total for each loaf = $.56

First Unemployment Check

Well, dh received his first unemployment check today. We had it direct deposited into our bank account. Supposedly the extra $25 will be in there tomorrow. I have mixed feelings about all of this. I wish dh's work would call him back. It's nice to have the money to help us survive but I am already wishing he was still working. People when they are unemployed get a little depressed and even dh has been feeling it. He is mostly over it now and wants to get his resume done up and start looking around for something. He is still not in a rush to get another job, because he would rather go back to his old one. He is willing to wait a while, but at the same time he is keeping a look out for any really great jobs that he may be qualified for.

The biggest thing that I miss now that he isn't working, is the time to myself. I used to have three days a week where, after the kids were in bed, I could do my class work, watch tv or do whatever I wanted to. Now, it seems the only time I have on my own is when I go up to the college for my classes, and that isn't really 'me' time. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my husband, but we all need time for ourselves and our creative outlets.

I am hoping now that the weather is starting to get nicer, that he will be spending more time on our land and getting the garden in. Or maybe playing baseball with our older son. There really is a ton of things around here that need to be done (spring cleaning, basement organized) and I'm hoping he will start doing some of those things soon.

New Phones for our Family

We had phones through Verizon Wireless which were costing us about $76 a month for 400 shared minutes. We knew this was an area where we could cut our costs quickly. We really don't use our cell phones all too much, so we were wasting minutes a month because we didn't have a rollover plan.

I researched online for several hours and had it narrowed down to either TracPhone or Net10 (which are actually owned by the same company). We went to several different places and found that WalMart had both types of phones. We stood at WalMart comparing prices and phones for about an hour. Even with the double minutes for life you get with TracPhone, we decided that it would be cheaper for us to go with Net10 phones.

We bought dh a $40 phone that came with 300 minutes (so the phone was actually about $10). We took it home, went online to have the phone number transferred, and charged it. By the next day the number had transferred and we were ready to finish setup. I went over to Family Dollar the next week and bought myself a different flip phone for $40 with 300 minutes. I went online and my number was transferred that night! So, this change will save us about $45 a month!! Plus our minutes roll over!

My Introduction

Hello. I would just like to introduce myself and tell you why I started this blog. I am a stay-at-home mom of three who also takes computer classes at the local community college. Up until two weeks ago my husband worked a great job where he only worked weekends from 7pm to 7am. He worked 36 hours, but got paid for 40 and he was home all week to spend time with his kids.

That Friday he came home at 11 pm and I knew something was wrong. The company let them finish up their work week and also were paying them their vacation with that week's pay. They had laid off 10 salary and 10 hourly employees a few weeks prior so we had already been concerned that this would happen. Him and 34 other employees were laid off that night.

We did not freak out about the money situation. Mostly because we had done up an unemployment budget just as a plan B, hoping that we would never have to use it. Unfortunately, we did. In a future post I will share with you my unemployment budget so that you also can be prepared.

We were supposed to be closing on our modular to put on our land by the end of this month. We were going through Rural Development and had applied last May for approval. It was a very long process and we were at the end of it finally when this happened. Unfortunately with the layoff we have to start all over again. I think this was the most depressing part of it. It was a huge disappointment and were both semi-depressed over it for a few days.

We were waiting to do our taxes until after we closed on the house, because we would be able to get over $12000 back and be able to pay off our credit cards and so much more. Fortunately we still got a little over $4k, so that will help keep us going for quite some time. I have done up a spreadsheet and we have more than enough with our return and unemployment to make it at least until November. Although, if dh is not back to work either at his former job or a new one by fall, I will have to look at finding a full time job.

I hope to use this blog to share with my readers how we are doing financially and, of course, emotionally. I will try to share as much as I can with you all. Thank you for reading my blog...