Tight Budget for July

So the July budget is tight with no extra money to put in the EF or to put into our accounts that are in the red. We couldn't even fully replenish some of our variable spending accounts. Some reasons for this are:

• We blew the budget on entertainment in June. Went over $289.20 and it had to made up in this budget.



• We spent $1,126.85 on groceries. I'm sure that most of this is because of the two birthdays and the graduation that we celebrated.



• July is our most expensive month as far as annual expenses go with a grand total of $586.00

On the bright side, we did fund all of our savings accounts with the regular amounts. Here's hoping that next month we've got a little more to play with.

Messed Up Vacation

We were supposed to leave this morning for our annual trek to Montana. The plan was to leave early this morning and drive straight through to Big Fork, Montana. It's a resort town near Flathead Lake. I guess it has kind of a western theme and the hotel that we were going to stay at (The Timbers) seemed nice and family friendly. We were looking forward to some down time before we then continued on to our usual destination which can be, frankly, exhausting.

A couple of days ago, I made an offhand comment to DH that he should look online at the weather. When he did...it was not good. 54 and raining was the forecast for the three days that we were going to spend there. We weren't sure what to do. The weather here has been so terrible for so long and we just didn't feel that we could drive all that way and spend all that money for more of the same, or worse.

It really got us down initially but after some tears, tantrums and discussion, we came up with a new plan. We are leaving on Friday, stopping a night in Spokane and then arriving in Butte on Saturday the 2nd. We'll do our usual 4th of July celebrating and then depart the 5th, spend another night in Spokane and then get home the 6th. Then....in August we are going to spend a few days at a really beautiful resort at Lake Chelan. Chelan has beautiful weather (knock on wood) and we haven't stayed in a nice resort for so long. I'm so excited! And relieved that I'm not sitting in the rain at Flathead Lake!

Happy Birthday Little Buddy!

Today is my youngest's 6th birthday! It's hard to believe that he is such a big boy already. He had a wonderful birthday. Swimming lessons in the morning, lunch at Mickey-D's, a Funfetti cake that he helped bake and best of all, dinner at Chuck E. Cheese!

Typically, we do birthday parties at our house and have all of the family over. Since we were supposed to leave on vacation tomorrow (more on that later) and the weather was really iffy, we decided on Chuck E. Cheese. About a month ago Baby Girl was invited to a birthday party there. While she partied with her friends, DH and I hung out with DS and he had such a ball that we thought of it immediately for his birthday.

I'm glad we did because he had such a great time. My mom, step-dad and sister were there as well as MIL and her husband. He got gifts that he really loves and he had a great time running around and playing with his sister. I had a good time too, playing some video games with DS #2. Very fun and so nice to come home to no clean-up!

Property Value Falls

I received the little green postcard from the county that I get every year, telling me what the value of our property currently is. Last year our land was worth $104,100, this year it is worth $86,800. Last year the building was worth $150,500, this year it is worth $146,000. The net loss in value is $21,800.

There is only a slight chance that we are going to want to sell our house in the next few years (if DH gets a position that we need to move to Pittsburgh for) but I don't like to see this. It's not like they are ever going to lower our taxes. (hahahahahaha!) Our net worth takes a hit at the same time and it's just no fun to go backwards.

The good news is that that the house is still worth more than we paid for it ($190,000) in 2000. Unfortunately, we have refied and what not and so we owe more that $244,000. I know that if we actually sold that we would get more than the appraised value. But in my head and my net worth calulations, I only like to include the appraised value since it's pretty much a sure thing.

Weigh In Day

Weighed in today. I'm down 2 pounds from last week. Hurrah! I was hoping to be down to 220 when we leave for vacay. I'm not sure that is going to happen, but I will be awfully close. :)

I spoke with friend Barb yesterday. She is also trying to lose weight. We have hatched a scheme to reward ourselves with a trip to Vegas when we hit our goal weights. I'm liking this idea.