Party's Over

In honor of my son, who graduated from college this past Saturday, here is a funny parody of a recent popular song.
If you are viewing this Matt, now as a full fledged adult, unemployed and broke and looking for a job, after a weekend of drunken debauchery, take these words to heart my son.

Love,
Mom

 

Sluggy

Fun Times at Chez Sluggy

We are busy, busy, busy lately here at Chez Sluggy.

Last week we had our initial Sleep Apnea consult at the Sleep Disorders Clinic.
Geez, I can't even be orderly when I sleep.....

Then the daughter picked up her beau at the airport in Philly.  Say hello to Justin......

The barbecue and ribs I smoked, along with some COC roasted on the grill, hit the spot on Friday night.
Saturday we met daughter and her beau for a late lunch/early dinner.  They don't have "Friendly's" down in Louisiana so they wanted to go there.
They get to pick the venue and Hubs and I get to pick-UP the check. Hmmmmm.

Daughter got this monstrocity called a Grilled Cheese Hamburger.

It's 2 grilled cheese sandwiches for the "bun" of a hamburger.....2 grilled cheese with a hamburger in the middle of the pile.

It's no longer on the menu so you have to ask for it special and it's got a hefty price tag attached.

But daughter says it's, "Freakin' awesome!"


Coming home I didn't like the looks of this cloud.....

It was angry and starting to swirl.
Luckily it did NOT spiral into something nasty and chase us home.

Sunday morning, daughter and her beau loaded up her new car to head out on a 1,300 miles trip to Louisiana.

 

I don't know how they got everything they did packed into that little car.  There's a rather large tv in the trunk, all her clothes and a massive shoe collection.  Yeah, daughter is one of "those women". lol

 She had wanted to take her recumbent exercise bike in that car, which was NOT happening.  Now I get to use it...yay!

Bon Voyage favorite daughter!

*They made it to LA safe and sound. 8-)

The rest of Mother's Day was uneventful and low key.  Oldest son called me that evening and we hardly saw Youngest son since he works in a restaurant and it was Mother's Day.
'Nuff said....lol

Monday I got to go have blood drawn and got the added treat of peeing into a cup. 8-))

Tuesday evening I got to spend the night in the hospital at the Sleep Disorders Center.  I had a sleepover where they wired me up and watched me sleep.  Now how much fun does that sound like.....watching me sleep?  About as exciting as watching paint dry I think.

The Sleep Doc says I have Pickwickian Syndrome(named after the little Dickensian fat boy, John, in The Pickwick Papers, who can't seem to catch his breath).
It's one of the myriad of problems they say I have that is causing me to have heart problems.  Treatment consists of weight loss and using a Positive Air Pressure machine or a BiPAP at night while sleeping.
Oh goody!  Now I get to look like a Snuffleupagus and sound like Darth Vader.

 

Not very sexy at bedtime....

Wednesday I got to go hang out at the Heart Hospital.
I got to sit on a bed in a lovely shmatah and they gave me this cool jewelry.....

The not so cool part was they also got to poke me with needles.  I got two, count 'em two, IV lines!
And the second line took 2 tries to get right.
But wait....there's more!
When they took me in for the catheterization the second line came out when the nurse was futzing with it, so I got a lovely new line put into my artery.
Isn't my bandaid HUGE?!  It matches my huge nostrils.......

They did a right heart catheterization to measure the pressures in my heart.  Just one of the many diagnostic tests I've been subjected to lately.
It involves running a tube into the right chamber of the heart and measure pressures there and into the lungs.
Cross your fingers I pass this test.
It was a SONOFABITCH with no anesthetic.
And since they had to go into my neck artery the trip was shorter but my 40 min. in and out the door procedure took 6 HOURS!  2 to prep, 2 to perform and 3 laying in recovery to make sure I didn't bleed out or something.
Yikes!
It's a good thing Hubs took the whole day off to take me.

The good thing it's a good excuse to be lazy and do NOTHING around the house for 5 days, per doctor's orders.
Go Me!

So we are slowly going down a list of ailments and ticking them off as we find out we are NOT afflicted with them.
I go see the cardiologist next week to see what the next step is.

Today I colored my hair so I don't look like my son's grandmother at his college graduation on Saturday.
Then I had a hot young thang deliver oxygen cylinders to me.  I undressed him with my eyes while he carried those large torpedoes into the house.

And now I am waiting on my brother to arrive from Virginia so I can feed him and he can ride with us to the ceremony.
The weekend promises to be jam packed with activity too.

What are you up to lately?

Sluggy


 

So Many Wonderful Things to be Besides a Princess!

This is a wonderful idea!

Go read it HERE.

There are so many better things to dream of being sides a Disney princess waiting for her prince.  Let's give girls some REAL role models to contemplate!

This got me thinking about all the famous or infamous woman in history I would have liked to have met.

Here's part of my list---

Alice Neel-American painter
Pearl S. Buck-writer and humanitarian
Madame du Barry-French courtesan
Florence Lowe "Pancho" Barnes-aviation pioneer
Georgia O'Keefe-American painter
Cleopatra-Queen of Egypt
Pearl White-film pioneer/actress
Dorothy Vogel-art collector and patron
Sally Tompkins-the angel of the Confederacy
Ayn Rand-writer, philosopher
Phoebe Ann Moses "Annie Oakley"-sharpshooter
Emily Warren Roebling-chief bridge engineer
Queen Victoria of England
Pearl S. White-
Queen Elizabeth I of England
Catherine the Great of Russia
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Nancy Ward "Nanye-Hiwas"-Cherokee leader
Edith Piaf-chanteuse
Sappho-Greek poet
Sacajawea-Cherokee guide
Martha Jane Canary "Calamity Jane"-frontierswoman
Maria Callas-singer
Lucretia Mott-women's rights activist
Elizabeth Cady Stanton-ditto
Mata Hari-spy
Eleanor and Virginia Dare-mother/daughter The Lost Colony
Grace Hopper-1st Navy Admiral & computer pioneer
Margaret Sanger-Planned Parenthood founder
Varina Banks Howell Davis-writer, diplomat, 1st Lady of the Confederacy
Mae West-entertainer
Hetty Green 'the witch of Wall Street'-financial genius
Doris Duke-heiress & recluse
Zelda Fitzgerald-crazy flapper wife of F. Scott
Nellie Bly-journalist
Abigail Adams-1st Lady and 1st Mother
Hattie McDaniels-actress
Marian Anderson-operatic singer/human rights activist
Margaret Bourke-White--photo journalist
Phoebe Yates Levy Pember-nurse and hospital administrator

I kinda would have liked to have met Lucretia Borgia also.....though NOT at a wine tasting party.


If you had a Time Machine, which women from History would you like to meet?

Sluggy

 

Do You Have Enough?

I'm not talking today about food or money....these are things where it's often asked if you have enough.

No, today's question is aimed at something as important as those two but for me, today, is hitting a lot closer to home.

You see, I have a friend.
This friend recently lost her husband of many years.
He was not sick.
For all intents and purposes he was a health man in his prime.
But just like that, he was cut down by something nobody saw coming.
And he died in an instant.

There was nothing anybody could do.
And just like that, my friend lost her lost her best friend and the main financial support of their family.

While my friend does work outside the home, she doesn't bring home the "big bucks" like her husband did.  There is no way she can make up that income that has been lost.
And she still has kids at home.
They now have to live on far less than before and things are going to be mighty tight for them going forward.

My friend thought they had enough life insurance on her husband.
He had insurance through his job and they thought that was sufficient, at least until they got out of debt.  They had planned to pick up hefty amounts of life insurance after they eliminated their debt in about 9 months.

But he died before they got a chance to buy more coverage.
And my friend found out after the fact that they didn't have enough insurance on her husband when, after some medical bills incurred and the funeral and burial expenses, there was nothing left to use to help support their family going forward.

Needless to say, my friend is distraught over her loss right now.

But she is also stressed beyond belief now, at a time where she shouldn't have to think about things like how is she going to pay her bills and stay in her home, and feed her kids and pay for college, etc.

My friend knows I have a blog and I talk about personal finance sometimes too.  So she asked me, no she implored me to write a post about protecting your life and your family by having enough life insurance on the main bread winner in your home.
Let me say that again......Protect your life and your family by having enough life insurance on the main bread winner in your home.

You can never have enough life insurance, she says.
And an emergency fund, she added.  I'm quoting her on what she said about this....

"Emergency funds.  They can never be large enough.  Ever.  Think you have enough?  You don't.  There is no such thing as enough.
Not having enough money in insurance and in the bank is humiliating.  Having to borrow money from your parents for food until you can go back to work is humbling.  Calling your debtors and asking if they can just freeze your debts for a few months until you are on your feet is horrible.  Have a bigger emergency fund and don't wait until you are out of debt to get life insurance."

I'll add that if you have a family or are married, make sure you have a will and it's up-to-date.  If all your money & accounts are tied up in probate because your loved one died without a will, it's hard to pay the mortgage or buy food with thin air.  It's bad enough to lose your spouse to not have to be left destitute because your assets where under protected.

I admire my friend for having the courage and the insight to want to forewarn people, even while she is going through one of the most painful times of her life.
The least I can do is grant her wish to try to help some one out there.

Don't let this happen to you.


Sluggy

The $20K Savings Challenge of 2013....April Update

$20K Savings Challenge.......April Update

In our family we save money. It is important to us to put money aside for "rainy days".  You know.....those unexpected days when things happen in your life that you can't plan on, but that DO happen and they cost you money you didn't know you'd need to pay out.

Our income is mainly the salary my Hubs draws from his job.  We have money taken off each paycheck from the top to put into savings, before we even get our hands on it.  This money that's taken goes into various pots....life insurance, investments and retirement savings.  It's automatic so we are never tempted to NOT put it into savings.
Once the automatic savings, plus taxes and medical/dental/vision payments are taken out, it leaves what we get to "live on".  From this amount we budget for bills, both monthly and irregular bills(semi-annual, etc.) and our variable bills(like food, eating out, etc.)  Anything left over once our monthly expenses are paid, I put aside into a Savings Challenge. 

For 2013 I am continuing my Yearly Savings Challenge.  I am going to keep the Goal amount at $20,000 again this year.

On to the April report.....

I have posted my April End of Month $20K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.
Check out the side bar to your right for the specific numbers.

I have 2 goals each month.....
The 1st is to actually finish each month in the black and not the red.
The 2nd is to hit the targeted savings amount of $1,666.67.

I have to report that we finished up April in the black!
The extra cash amount we ended the month of April with?.......$3,108.15

Income
We had $1497.65 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted. 

Add in a per diem expense reimbursement check and our federal tax refund and we get another $1,610.50.  This brought our gain to $3108.15 for April.

Outgo

As for the expenses this April, here are the good and the bad side of things....

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

 

*  The long distance phone bill was $4.04 lower.

*  The cash withdrawals were $225 less than in March.

* The electric bill was $54.53 lower than March.

HERE are the BAD THINGS

 

*  The water bill was $4.05 higher than March.

*  The credit card bill went up $892.261(but was still paid off at month's end.)

*  The music lessons were $60 more.
*  The doctor bills were up $185.30 from last month.
*  We had an additional prorated bill for $200.01 for car insurance since #2 Son has his license now.  I'm not complaining though as it was suppose to be $400, but with taking Daughter off(sort of)the increase was less than expected.

The Food Budget costs for April are in another post, which is located HERE.

We overshot the food budget by $35.49 last month.

The 2013 TOTAL so far.....
With 4 month behind us, our Savings Grand Total for 2013 stands at $8,597.78.  Only $11,402.22 left to save and 8 months left to accomplish this.

 

Looking ahead for May......

*  We don't have any quarterly or yearly bills due this month. Yay us! ;-)
 

*  Due to my visit to the ER and hospital stay and all the new doctor appointments and tests, we will have bills starting to roll in this month, so I can't even hazard a guess if we'll be able to make our monthly savings target of $1666.67 in May.  We shall see in the fullness of time.

*  Gas and eating out spending will be higher this month due to a trip to see our oldest son graduate from college.  sniff, sniff

So how was your April financially?
 

Did you put ordinary living expenses on a credit card last month and not pay it off in full when due?
Did you spend less than the income you had in April?
Did you received any "extra" or unexpected money in April, like a tax refund or bonus at work,
and what did you do with those funds?
Did you stay within your budget or not?
Did you pay off any debt or put extra toward your mortgage principle?

If you posted your financial progress on your own blog, leave a link in the comments so we can go check you out your progress too and celebrate with you!

Sluggy