March 4- To-Do List and Bracing for the Storm Edition

Today will be a busy Tuesday. I've decided to get as many of my to-do list items done during my lunch hour so I can concentrate on spending time with Andy and helping him with his homework tonight. We have sight words homework, the February Homework Calendar to complete, and I need to fill out his reading record. On top of that, we have several movies from the library that we picked out last night (along with an armload of books and some movies for me and Josh), and I would like for him to have time to watch one of them. Also need to prepare dinner, pick up the house, get him in the bath, and still get him to go to bed at a decent hour. He hasn't been getting to bed early enough lately so my goal is to at least get him to bed a half hour earlier than last night. I would like to see him get at least 9 1/2 to 10 hours sleep.

It's hard to get him into bed by 8:30, since Josh's work schedule is usually from 12 pm till 8:30 pm. They want to see each other in the evenings, of course, but we're torn because of the bedtime schdule conflicting with Josh's work schedule.

So... lunch hour today. I'm going to eat my ham & swiss pita with baked lay's chips at my desk, then head out and go straight to the post office to mail the PaperbackSwap.com book that I've been putting off mailing. After that, it's stop at home real quick to check the mail, then on the way back to work, stop at the ATM and deposit the Tax Refund Check ($2,150.00- woohoo!) And finally back to work. I know I can do this all within an hour without breaking a sweat. And at least I'll be busy- sometimes it's nice to eat and sit in silence at my dining room table at home when I'm on lunch, but yesterday the solitude was almost too much. Thankfully Josh called about 10 minutes after I had gotten home for lunch and we talked on the phone for a bit. He always seems to know the right time to call. :)

Speaking of tax refund... we've been talking back and forth on what we're going to do with that lump sum. And as of yesterday, we've got it figured out.

1. We went vacation/summer clothes shopping a couple weekends ago and spent a good chunk of money. Right off the bat, $605 of the refund is going back into the checking account to pay for that weekend's expenses.

2. That leaves $1,500.00 remaining. We're going to immediately take $500.00 of that and move it to the Emergency Fund. At the end of March, we're putting $250.00 more into the EF, and in April, adding another $250.00. Our new EF goal is to keep $1,000.00 in the EF. Previous EF was only $500, but the emergencies are popping up more frequently now, and heaven forbid if we have a $1,000 emergency, at least we'll be able to take care of it without batting an eye.

3. That leaves us $1,000 remaining from the tax refund. And that's going straight toward Gardner White, in an effort to pay off the couch IN FULL by next month. We owe about $1,677.00 on it right now. That leaves us to come up with $677.00 out of April's budget to pay it off and get that debt out of our lives forever!!

To be continued...