Really I am open to anything.  Whatever will work out best for our financial situation at the time.

All is well, first delivery and payment went through great.  Then the second month was about to be billed and shipped and I noticed the prices  were not the same.  The tape was the same and the fabric softener was different by about twenty cents but the coffee was about $10 for the whole month.  Now the average canister would have been about the same as in the store so the convenience still may have been worth it but after I talked to a c/s rep at Amazon I decided I just can’t continue the subscribe and save.  The rep said that the subscribe and save does not guarantee or set the price, it only has the convenience of shipping  monthly on a certain date.  She said the prices will fluctuate with the individual stores prices.  So basically the price could go  up as high as it wants and I won’t get any warning and just be billed for whatever.  I don’t like that idea at all.  I thought every single month I would be billed that same amount and shipped the product.  No such luck!!

I was not happy because the products I was trying to have on subscription and mailed monthly were the items I buy at Walmart.  It seems whenever I go to Walmart for those products I come home with more stuff than I wanted or needed.  I was trying to eliminate the Walmart trip.  Might save me some money.  So even though the coffee and all the other products I had billed were less or equal to the price in the store and I would save on gas driving to the store, it was just the whole idea that they could bill me whatever without telling me first that turned me off to the whole idea.

So now I will need to figure out a way to go to Walmart once a month, buy just what is needed and that’s it.  Once a month trip to Walmart might eliminate the unnecessary shopping and spending.  Let’s cross our fingers it works.  LOL!!

I will probably dedicate all the money I make to get the financial issue paid off.  I won’t worry about having any money taken out for insurance or any savings plans.  Not that I think I will qualify, P/T workers might not be offered those.  I also will not worry about needing any term life insurance quotes.   I think Tony may have some sort of coverage with his work.  I know for certain he has a 401k but I am not sure what other benefits come with being a full time managerial employee.  I am not really worried about that though because he won’t be working there much longer.  Well when I say that I mean sometime next summer.  When I finish in the summer we will be moving across the country.  YAY US!!!  LOL!!!

May I could just get some car insurance rates to see if I could find anything else.  We are really trying to save money to buy a house and I am willing to cut costs wherever I can.  I am not sure we would ever need top of the line insurance.  I guess we will just look in to it and see. 

So a normal membership is $50 which isn’t bad, we knew we would save that shopping there so it was all good.  But if we bought that membership, we would get a $10 gift card to their store.  Anywhere we can save is good.  So we decided to go with it.

Now the customer service rep that was helping me tried to sell us the VIP Executive Membership (I think that was what it was called).  Now I think it is an amazing benefit but I just don’t think, at lease this first year, we will spend an abundance of money there.  Basically the membership costs $100 and you can earn 2% back on all purchases except gas and cigarettes.  So we would need to spend between $200-$300 a month.  Not to difficult with a family of 6 but we realized that we also discount shop at Martin’s (our local grocery store), Walmart and Aldi.  Oh also as a student we would have gotten a $20 gift card instead of $10.  Well we decided to just get the regular membership and pay $50.

Speaking of Martin’s they rock too.  When you use your reward card or I think they call it the “bonus card” you can earn gas points.  For every 100 points you can save $0.10 on gas.  Now with gas as expensive as it is, that is superb.  I think when we went on vacation to Illinois (we drove)we filled up on our way out of town and because of all the points, we only paid like $0.80 a gallon.  Yeah that’s right, $0.80, crazy huh?

So overall I am hoping this will help us out.  Maybe in a year or two when we make a little more and our kids start eating more we will shop at Costco more often but for now every penny counts.  :-)

I LOVE staying home with my kids I wouldn’t change that for the world but sometimes I wish I could find some local jobs that I could do and make it worth going to work a couple days a week.  I just think with Tony working full time, both of us in school full time and trying to spend as much time with the kids and each other as possible, doesn’t seem to leave much time for anything else.  Just a little extra money a month would be so helpful!  My craft venture is taking off a bit slower than I wanted but it is moving in the right direction.  Maybe a few more months and I might actually be able to make money selling the craft supplies.

I guess until any great changes like that can be made I will just have to be patient and do what I can every month.

Are policy is up in a month, we paid in advance when we got our tax return so we have not had to pay monthly, it has been great.  I think we only pay about $330 for 6 months on 2 cars, that’s not bad compared to what we paid in Florida.   YIKES!

So Tony worked on his car both Thursday and Friday.  He got a new tire, new caliper, new rotors and brakes.  He also got new windshield wipers, changed the oil and filters.  The car still drives a little rough so he decided to get all new tires so he ordered 3 more tires.  Overall it may cost us about $1k to get the car in good working order.  On a positive note, it will only cost us an extra $40 for 6 months in insurance and when he filled the car up last night it only cost $28.  We may end up saving a bunch of money a week in gas and also not having to put all the miles on the Explorer will be great.  He pays about $75 a week in gas for the Explorer.  I am super excited to save money and have a car to drive. 

It was kinda funny when I called the insurance company to add the Subaru to the policy.  I was totally expecting to pay a couple hundred dollars for the remaining time on the policy and when she told me the prorated amount was only $24 I LOL!  I always get insurance marketing mail for other insurance companies and with as low of a rate that we are getting with out company, we won’t be switching any time soon. 

I am so happy to have 2 cars again, we have all our bills paid current and money in savings.  2010 may really be a good year for us.

I surprisingly got a child support check in the mail.  It has been at least 4 yrs since I have received anything.  It wasn’t much but still it was something. 

We also received one of Tony’s W-2′s in the mail today.  We are waiting for one more and that may be tricky to get, only because the people that work there SUCK! 

It is a good thing that we got a car because I have an appt every week for the next 5 weeks.  LOL!  I am excited for Nicki because on Tuesday we are going to the Ortho to see if she will be approved (through our insurance) for braces.  She has some pretty crooked teeth and she deserves straight teeth and a pretty smile.  I wonder if her teeth are too crooked to get invisalign braces.  When I did a search to get info about them, Orange NJ invisaligninfo came up.  I live somewhat close but I certainly won’t be driving to New Jersey every month for Nicki’s braces.  As it is I have to drive an hour to get to the closes Ortho.  Nicki is super excited about getting braces. 

Let’s just hope our luck continues in a positive direction.