My Crap-tastic Week

Last week was not so great.

The weather here has been sucking big-time!  Not just snow but it's been so COLD!  Trying to balance keeping the house warm enough to not be uncomfortable, but not let the electric company suck up too much of our income paying that bill.

Between the grocery ads being dreadful and the bone-chilling weather I didn't leave the house for 6 days!

Stir crazy for me in 6 days.  That's went I broke down and left the house.

I went to Rite-Aid for a "quickie" Friday afternoon......

I forgot to take a picture of the .22¢ truffle filler item I bought too.

2 tubes of Colgate on sale=$5.98
I have a $1/2 ManuQ so $4.98 +.22¢filler=$5.20.
I used a $5 +Up Reward and paid .20 OOP.
Got back 2 x $2 Colgate +Up Rewards.
I have a $5 +Ups and a $1 Cat I have to spend by Saturday 2/14 and this new $4 in +Ups to spend by 2/20.

Almost spent them all down so I can take a break from Rite-Aid until late Summer I am figuring.

I spent most of last week in TAX HELL......yes, doing state and federal taxes.

I have the state form done and we owe so that one won't go out until April something.
Needed to do/figure the state first so I can plug some of these numbers into the federal form.

Just need to finish figuring the Education Credit Boondoggle(I get it wrong every year...it's totally incomprehensible!).  Then the federal is finished except for the printing, collating, signing and filing.

Then it's onto the dreaded FAFSA. Since College Boy isn't eligible for any scholarship $s or state grants I may just save myself the hassle of that torture this year.
It doesn't get us anything since we are among the super-rich(or so they tell us). ha!

Heck, if hubs gets another awesome bonus this year we wont' even be able to take the Education Credit Deal on the 2015 taxes.
Well on the other hand, not having to do that jolly little exercise in futility for the taxes would be a welcomed change! ;-)  Plus we would probably owe federal taxes next year too so I should get hubs to change his # of exemptions at work, huh?

I have also been working on College Boy's taxes(state and federal) which are a "trip to an amusement park" in comparison to ours.  I am also the "go to" person for our oldest son for help, tips/information on dong his(which I helped him through this past week).

And I don't even do the LOCAL Taxes.  I leave that for Hubs to slog through(though it's really not a big hassle like the other ones).

I go for blood work next week to see how/if my numbers have changed, in anticipation of a 6 mo. checkup/office visit with my primary HP.  Oh joy!

I need to schedule 2 tests as well at the hospital which are both overdue a bit.....because of the iffy weather I haven't done that yet.  I'll schedule those for mid March and hope we satisfy our $4K deductible by then(but am doubtful that will happen by then).
The refill of the expen$ive medication happens late February but between that an other medication refills and the blood work and OV we should be nudged up over the $2K mark at least, possibly $3K.

In blog news---I have changed my settings so that anonymous persons may no longer leave comments.  I am sorry if this impacts any of my known and/or loyal longtime readers/commenters but it had to be done. I had a slew of comments which I didn't publish last week which were harsh, rude, unpleasant, derogatory, nasty and just plain mean.  I am good about publishing people with other viewpoints(or at least I think I am)and am tolerant of other's views.  But I really don't need to see some of the absolute vitriol some folks have tried to leave on the blog.
Here's a tip-if you can't say something nice(or something not-so nice in a pleasant/positive way)shut up!

And here are 2 tips to other bloggers---don't EVER show pictures of what you eat on your blog if  you are not a size 2. ;-)  I got a lot of nasty comments on that post as well on some other ones along with the usual spam stuff I never publish.  If someone doesn't like what I post then they are free to move along to another blog.
And if you leave a comment that is ultimately constructive, don't be condescending in your tone.  The whole "attract more bees with honey than vinegar" concept, ya know?  When some folks hide behind anonymity they reveal a side of themselves that is very unflattering.

Last week's not-published comments hurt me to the quick and has been debating on whether to continue to blog(or take the blog private, or disable comments altogether).

On the good side of things last week...........
I didn't spent any money(besides that .20¢).
I got some bookwork completed.
I finished overhauling our financial/personal files and sent a trash bag of old stuff to the garbage and another smaller bag to the shredder.
I am beginning to see empty space in the freezer from eating down the frozen stockpile.

So that's all I have to report on.


Sluggy