Pay all these bills, feed all these damn kids, buy all the school shoes, buy all these school clothes

Okay. So none of my kids are addicted to Polo. I don't think they'd know a name brand if it bit them in arse.

I bet you people gave up on me ever posting again since it’s been two whole days. Fear not, oh Faithless Ones! I have returned for more fun and adventure in KARland.

It has been a bit busy with a mangled trip to the E/R, another visit to the E/R because someone forgot to write my child's name on the prescription, a trip the pharmacy once or twice (twice, actually, because I didn't realize this problem until I got to the pharmacy), a trip to the pediatrician for follow up. Life gets busy. Everything is cool now, though.


Today’s post, I suppose, will be a general update of my financial status since I am too blah to stick to an actual thread today.


Last Friday, I received my two weeks' pay with a net of $504.58 and have since been rather busy trying to simultaneously spend it and hoard it. I figure these numbers are already boring enough, so I’m not going over the details of my gross wages.

(I changed "horde" to "hoard" because someone pointed it out. Did I mention I'm horrible at editing my own writing and synonyms sneak up on me? But thank you for pointing it out. I promise I really do gots my English degree and all. I just don't do too good with them thar homophones sometimes. Also, punctuation basically boils down tossing in a heaping handful of commas and soupçon of dashes. I like dashes, so I try to limit my intake.)



Briefly, my actual bills paid this week:

$80.00 lot rent

This is something that really chaps my ass some times because I'm paying someone else money to squat on their land, whereas if I'd been more intuitive ten years ago, I'd have bought a trailer and a piece of land. 

$58.00 cable/internet

Two things about this. My actual bill is about $75 a month, but I'm still playing catch up from a period in between when I graduated this past spring and when I actually found a frigging job. I've tried a couple of times to downgrade to basic cable because I really just want the local channels, but apparently this is as basic as cable gets around here now!? I don't know what in the hell happened, but I have a friend who works at the cable company who said I already have the cheapest service one can get. I'm confused over that one and we're going to have a come to jesus meeting one day about what the hell happened to basic cable.

As for the interwebs, I have specifically used that for the past five years for school, several different jobs, and job searches.So until the past couple of months, it was a necessity. I'm not giving up my interwebs because it still comes in handy. But I think I actually did get this dropped down to the lowest service available. These bundling deals aggravate the shit out of me. Just give me a price. Stop trying to sell me specials.

$63.60 electric bill

This is only part of my electric bill. The rest comes out of the next check. My house is rather badly insulated and that was something I was hoping to remedy with my mad tax refund, but it seems I'll be replacing subflooring and flooring instead. 

$75.00 band trip fees

Yeah. We discussed that one. 

$50.00 water/garbage collection

My water bill used to run between $20 and $35 a month and I was okay with that. But then the county decided it needed more revenue and came up with this crazy plot to require everyone in the county to pay for residential pick up. I was really sort of pissed about it there for a while because I somehow managed to take it as the majority of the county citizens, including myself, were too damned stupid to figure out how to dump trash and I've been dumping my own trash for an inordinate number of years.

So they tacked on a $13.50 waste disposal charge on to my water bill and you don't have the ability to option out. Well. You could, but then they'd tack it on to property taxes. I've come to terms with it more or less. Actually, I kind of sort of like it because as long as remember to lug my hurby curbie down to the road, I don't have to lug trash to the dump in my car. I'm also preasantly surprised they haven't been taken out by errant cars and four-wheelers considering we have no sidewalks. 

Plus, I also realized my paycheck is partially funded by county taxes. I'd rather not lose it because I balked at paying an extra $13.50 a month.

So far, that leaves a grand total of $177.98 to last for the next two weeks. Which is pretty good if nothing untoward happens.


Here is the break down of the extra I've spent outside of bills:

$31.01 - gas

I always try to make a tank last me two weeks, but it never seems to actually work that way. It takes about a tank of gas every week. I’m really glad gas has gone down so much, though. Back when it reached it’s high point, it was costing me $70 bucks to fill up every week and I never went anywhere more than where I had to go. I didn’t visit my best friend for over a year and I only saw my mom once a month.

$10.00 - Generic Bactrim

Before going to much further, I'll briefly explain the E/R trip. Wildboy bumped his head rather hard last week that lead to a cut which actually managed to abscess. I couldn't get him to the doctor on the day that I wanted and he actually managed to hit the abscess in the car and it made one of the goriest messes I've ever been exposed to. This coming from a woman who once helped take care of an uncle who'd been run over by a minivan.

Due to a snafu with the Medicaid review, my case manager did not finish the review which lead to Medicaid services being dropped. I realized this a couple of weeks ago, so while she was quick to remedy the situation, it left our current cards obsolete.

Luckily, the E/R and the doctor's office have these neato little computer databases that interface with Medicaid and they were able to provide care without payment up front. The E/R would have seen him regardless of my ability to pay, but the doctor's office requires $75 up front regardless if you do not have proof of insurance. So I'm really glad the doctor's office was able to do that. The pharmacy, however, apparently could not so I had to pay for the meds out of pocket. Ten bucks isn't the end of the world though, so it's good. 

$1.27 - Great Value Brand Toilet Paper.

I'm going to see if this is more cost effective than the Scott's.

$9.50 - Motor Oil.

I’ve taken my stupid car in twice to have the stupid oil leak fixed, but the stupid oil is still leaking so I keep having to buy stupid oil. I’m thinking about getting the Hanes book and trying to repair it myself. I’m either bound to fix it or find myself without a car.

$1.88 - Candy Corn.

I bought it for the regular kids who come to the library, but I kind of sort of actually ate it. I hate candy corn. With a passion. But I'm also a sugar fiend so I horded it and ate it anyway. I'm feeling a little guilty about that.

$1.52 - Bleach.

I know I said I was going to make my own cleaning supplies this month, but my kid had some kind of funky abscess on his head. I feel a deep need to bleach things.It's one step at a time, people.

$6.97 - Tampons.

Grrrrrrr. I even asked her last week if she thought she'd like a sea sponge. That was a no go to. Something about it being gross to re-use things that you use for stuff like that. (Which tells me the flannel ass wipes would not go over well with her)

$3.74 - Bandages.

Tuba Girls’s new bandos shoes have created some blisters on her feet and I really debated buying cheap, regular band aids. But I know when I do that for my own cruddy feet, it really doesn’t improve the situation by much. So I bought these cushiony things that are supposed to be for heel blisters. Tuba Girl is on her feet a lot carrying a some monstrous instrument, so if it actually helps to cushion her blisters, then I’m good. If not, then I’ll never buy them again.

$4.95 -Ground chuck.

A family member asked me to pick up a thing of hamburger meat and they would pay me back next week. “I will gladly pay you Tuuuesday for a hamburger today.”

$1.60 -  sales tax.

112.51 What's left to last until Friday of next week. So that should definitely leave me enough for gas and other minor incidentals that come up, such as having Tuba Girl's band uniform dry cleaned for a competition and possibly adding more minutes to her phone.

Someone gave her a prepay phone and as long I keep a few dollars on it, she can text all she wants since it doesn't cost anything. It's had $2.95 on it since it was given to her a month ago and the amount hasn't changed. I think you do actually have to add money to it every so often or the service stops or something like that.

With a kid gone out of town a lot and coming home after midnight, a phone is good to have. Until this year, I'd refused to get her one because it wasn't in the budget and she wasn't really going anywhere that I felt like she needed it. At fifteen though, she's all over the place and needs to be able to contact me.

So that's this evening long post. Maybe tomorrow I'll post about free shit. Same bat time. Same bat channel.

(P.S. I'm horribly prone to typos and virtually incapable of self-editing, so just overlook me the best you can. One would think an English major would be consciouentious of these things, but I'm just not one of those English majors. I'll edit your posts for you if you like, though.)