My apologies for missing last week's post. The night I was to write and post was the start of the holiest day of the Jewish year and I could not do so, the following day is the main day of the holiday so I could not do so that day either. (Writing and turning on/off electrical devices of any kind are among the things not allowed during the holiday.)
The days after were taken up with a problem in switching our business bank account. We went in Wednesday (before the evening when the holiday would start) to open an account at a credit union we use. I had telephoned first due to the pandemic to see if we needed and appointment. The main office said we did not and told me items I needed to bring to open the account. When we went in on Wednesday we were told – and there were signs around – that an appointment was needed to see one of the “platform people” (did you know that what the people at the desks are called). We had to go home and made an appointment as they were fully booked or else they would have accommodated us. I went home and made the appointment for Friday – after the holiday. Oh, and the list of what I needed to bring was missing some items from the printed list I was handed while in the credit on Wednesday.
Thursday night after the holiday I put the needed paperwork and also some other items for us to deal with while at the credit union – such as two deposits to go into the new account when opened and paperwork to make an IRA withdrawal to transfer money to our personal bank account elsewhere. (I am not working or getting paid as I normally would as I am not going to clients.) We spent Friday going to the credit union and then the bank. Friday night I realized the credit union employee never did give us starter checks for the account, so I cannot order any. Luckily it is rare these days we use the account so when we get our ATM cards and go in to pick PIN numbers we will ask for the checks.
And so between these larger matters and the smaller matters of every day – a week passed and I realized that I had not posted – again, my apologies.
THOUGHT OF THE (TWO) WEEK(S) -
Try to group your errands outside the house. It makes no sense to go to the same place (whether it during the current pandemic or in normal times) more than once if you can go there once and do everything you need to do. (When we went to the credit union I did transactions for us, our business, and for our reenactment unit in the same trip and then went to a branch of our bank about 3 blocks away to save time out running errands.)
Similarly if we are going to do something in the community “L” and eating lunch out – we eat lunch in the community “L” and not at the location nearer us - but not in that direction – where we prefer to eat lunch. Saves time and we will look for any other things we need to do that we can do while in that community/area.
The supermarket we are currently using for most of our grocery trips has a Home Depot across the street. It is not a Home Depot we particularly like as it is small and in an older store (a small Kmart) they took over so nothing is located anywhere that makes sense, but it saves time to go there as it so close to the supermarket.
Showing posts with label checking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label checking. Show all posts
Thursday, September 23, 2021
SORRY TO MISS A POST AGAIN - DEALING WITH RUNNING ERRANDS UNDER COVID
Thursday, August 22, 2019
WATCH THE PENNIES AND THE DOLLARS GROW
Yes, saving money involves being organized. One thing that husband and I agreed on - very early in our dating - was that neither of us liked being in debt. The day before we were married I paid for every one of my bills sitting waiting to be paid - including adding up the credit card slips and sending a check for same to the credit card company. I never wanted husband to be able to say that I married him in debt. (Well, technically I was in debt - my student loans were still being paid off by my parents and were not fully paid off until some time after we married - but he has been polite enough to never mention same.)
When I was a child - before age 5 - my parents started teaching me about money. I got an allowance of something like a penny (US) a week. Now, remember, both my parents were accountants. My mom set up a “bank account” for me. She drew up a little bank book (do they still exist now?). When I received my allowance I could keep it and spend it (amazingly, one could actually buy things then with a penny) or I could deposit it in my bank account and save up for something. If I “deposited” it in the “bank account” she would note in my bank book. If I decided to buy something and needed money, I could withdraw it from my bank account and she would note it in my bank book. Sounds crazy right? Well it taught me to save and what saving could do. (I don’t remember if she ever added interest to my account - I don’t think so.) If I got a gift of money from a relative I could, again, keep it and spend it or “deposit” it.
Over the decades the amount of my weekly allowance increased. By the time I was in junior high school (around age 12) I was getting $3 per week. My allowance was calculated so that I could buy lunch in school every day (50c per day), if I wanted to, from my allowance and I would still have money left over to spend. Over time I saved up money and took my parents and my younger sister (second sister was still a baby) to see a Broadway play (tickets were a lot cheaper than - under $10 even for orchestra seats and I bought for the mezzanine).
We have lived within our means since we married. We found an apartment that we could afford. At first we were spending most of our income. As we went along I came up with an idea. Husband received promotions at work - first director of his department and then director of the agency at which he worked. With the first promotion I took half of the increase in his net salary and saved it - only using half of the net salary increase for spending. Why? Well, we had been living on the amount he (and I ) received before - the raise was extra money that we would not miss if we put it in savings. I used the net amount (after taxes were deducted) as that amount was the extra money available to us. I did for some time.
Watch where you bank. Different banks, savings & loan associations or credit unions can charge hugely different amounts for the same services. A credit union functions just like a bank, only the depositors own it so fees are less. The same financial institution that works for a friend or family member - might not be best for you and what is good for you now (or last year) might not be the best for you right now or in the future. The credit unions I have been involved with locally require one to deposit $5 in a savings account and leave it there. One then gets a free checking account plus can make other deposits and withdrawals to the savings account. Generally the interest rate on credit union accounts is higher than those on accounts at banks.
We eventually bought a house. We bought one below what we could afford. We put down a good sized down payment on the house - much of it from my savings as a child. We did not like the idea of having a mortgage and wanted it paid off as quickly as we could. Instead of dividing the net salary increases in half after that, I would divide into thirds - one third to spend, one third to save and one third for extra mortgage payments. We paid the mortgage off in half the time it was for - again since the money was new money, it was not missed by us as we had not had it to spend before.
When we have bought cars - and we buy them, we do not lease them - we have mostly paid for them in full from savings. When we have had to take a loan - 3 times - for a car it was always for less than 25% of the price of the car. We drive them, with two exceptions, until it no longer makes sense to repair them. We have 23 year old van and a 10 year old car at the present time.
We did buy our little RV. It does have a loan on it. I send an extra $100 at least 4 times a year to speed up the payments on it and cut the amount of interest we will have paid on it when it is paid off.
We have paid our credit card bills in full - with one exception - since either of us had a credit card. No interest paid means money not needed for same and available to use. I recently read an article and the person who wrote it said that one should always pay in cash for everything. I wrote to them and pointed out that if items are put on credit cards one has a record of where their money went (and records for tax deductible items). If they are paid in full, it costs nothing in interest or fees. If one gets a credit card one can get one that pays a very small percentage back in cash - additional money to spend or save. In our case we use several credit cards - each for a different purpose and depending on the card and what we buy we can get up to 5% back in the purchases. Does not sound like much? We bought a fence for our house - we got 5% back on the price of the fence. We put a car down payment on a credit card - paid the credit card in full and got 5% back on the down payment towards the car. The one exception was decades ago. Husband used to get his unused sick days paid off at the end of the year, which was August, so we used the money received in September for the sick days to pay for vacation (and the balance of what was received into savings). One year there was a problem and the sick day pay was coming in October. We discussed should we take money from savings to pay the vacation bills and then deposit the sick pay to replace what we took or should we pay the half of the credit card bill we could and then pay the balance in full the following month. It was an odd time and the two interest rates were just about the same, so we went with paying half and then paying the bill in full the following month.
If one can get their bills in order, one can actually pay less and have money available for savings or needed items. I was reminded this past weekend when the movie “I Remember Mama” was on TV that I actually started my thinking of dealing with money with when I read the book (actually named “Mama’s Bank Account) as a girl. If you have never seen the movie or read the book - it is about a lower class Norwegian immigrant family in San Francisco in the early 1900s. Every week the father brings home his wages (in cash which was how people were paid back then at all but professional/executive level) and gives it to his wife. She sits there with paper and sorts the money “ for the grocer” she makes a pile and wraps it in paper, “for the landlord” ditto and so on. When there is a problem and money is needed for something special/different (such as the son going to high school - they will his potential wages and there will be costs) the mother says that they must figure out what to do so that they do not have to take money from her bank account. I have gone with this idea of “piles. I have moved money - in my computer accounts - to save for various things. By subtracting the money before we have it on our regular savings account, it is not there to spend. I had subaccounts in my Quickbooks - savings for next car, for vacation, etc. subtracted from the total amount of each paycheck and each time I did I heard in my head “for the grocer, for the landlord..”. (Spoiler alert - at the end of the book/movie the daughter/author has received her first payment for writing and tells the mother to deposit it in the bank account and the mother admits that she has never been in a bank in her life - but that “it is not a good for children to worry”.) Set aside money in advance for things that you want or need and you will not have to worry. Start next time there is a raise if you want and set aside part of the net raise in a savings account (or even a jar) and it will become a habit.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
It is back to school time again. If you need or know that you will need office supplies - now is the time to buy them. Pens disappear all the time? Buy them for around US$ for a dozen. Will you need a memo book, notebook, ruler, file folders etc. NOW is the time to buy them!
When I was a child - before age 5 - my parents started teaching me about money. I got an allowance of something like a penny (US) a week. Now, remember, both my parents were accountants. My mom set up a “bank account” for me. She drew up a little bank book (do they still exist now?). When I received my allowance I could keep it and spend it (amazingly, one could actually buy things then with a penny) or I could deposit it in my bank account and save up for something. If I “deposited” it in the “bank account” she would note in my bank book. If I decided to buy something and needed money, I could withdraw it from my bank account and she would note it in my bank book. Sounds crazy right? Well it taught me to save and what saving could do. (I don’t remember if she ever added interest to my account - I don’t think so.) If I got a gift of money from a relative I could, again, keep it and spend it or “deposit” it.
Over the decades the amount of my weekly allowance increased. By the time I was in junior high school (around age 12) I was getting $3 per week. My allowance was calculated so that I could buy lunch in school every day (50c per day), if I wanted to, from my allowance and I would still have money left over to spend. Over time I saved up money and took my parents and my younger sister (second sister was still a baby) to see a Broadway play (tickets were a lot cheaper than - under $10 even for orchestra seats and I bought for the mezzanine).
We have lived within our means since we married. We found an apartment that we could afford. At first we were spending most of our income. As we went along I came up with an idea. Husband received promotions at work - first director of his department and then director of the agency at which he worked. With the first promotion I took half of the increase in his net salary and saved it - only using half of the net salary increase for spending. Why? Well, we had been living on the amount he (and I ) received before - the raise was extra money that we would not miss if we put it in savings. I used the net amount (after taxes were deducted) as that amount was the extra money available to us. I did for some time.
Watch where you bank. Different banks, savings & loan associations or credit unions can charge hugely different amounts for the same services. A credit union functions just like a bank, only the depositors own it so fees are less. The same financial institution that works for a friend or family member - might not be best for you and what is good for you now (or last year) might not be the best for you right now or in the future. The credit unions I have been involved with locally require one to deposit $5 in a savings account and leave it there. One then gets a free checking account plus can make other deposits and withdrawals to the savings account. Generally the interest rate on credit union accounts is higher than those on accounts at banks.
We eventually bought a house. We bought one below what we could afford. We put down a good sized down payment on the house - much of it from my savings as a child. We did not like the idea of having a mortgage and wanted it paid off as quickly as we could. Instead of dividing the net salary increases in half after that, I would divide into thirds - one third to spend, one third to save and one third for extra mortgage payments. We paid the mortgage off in half the time it was for - again since the money was new money, it was not missed by us as we had not had it to spend before.
When we have bought cars - and we buy them, we do not lease them - we have mostly paid for them in full from savings. When we have had to take a loan - 3 times - for a car it was always for less than 25% of the price of the car. We drive them, with two exceptions, until it no longer makes sense to repair them. We have 23 year old van and a 10 year old car at the present time.
We did buy our little RV. It does have a loan on it. I send an extra $100 at least 4 times a year to speed up the payments on it and cut the amount of interest we will have paid on it when it is paid off.
We have paid our credit card bills in full - with one exception - since either of us had a credit card. No interest paid means money not needed for same and available to use. I recently read an article and the person who wrote it said that one should always pay in cash for everything. I wrote to them and pointed out that if items are put on credit cards one has a record of where their money went (and records for tax deductible items). If they are paid in full, it costs nothing in interest or fees. If one gets a credit card one can get one that pays a very small percentage back in cash - additional money to spend or save. In our case we use several credit cards - each for a different purpose and depending on the card and what we buy we can get up to 5% back in the purchases. Does not sound like much? We bought a fence for our house - we got 5% back on the price of the fence. We put a car down payment on a credit card - paid the credit card in full and got 5% back on the down payment towards the car. The one exception was decades ago. Husband used to get his unused sick days paid off at the end of the year, which was August, so we used the money received in September for the sick days to pay for vacation (and the balance of what was received into savings). One year there was a problem and the sick day pay was coming in October. We discussed should we take money from savings to pay the vacation bills and then deposit the sick pay to replace what we took or should we pay the half of the credit card bill we could and then pay the balance in full the following month. It was an odd time and the two interest rates were just about the same, so we went with paying half and then paying the bill in full the following month.
If one can get their bills in order, one can actually pay less and have money available for savings or needed items. I was reminded this past weekend when the movie “I Remember Mama” was on TV that I actually started my thinking of dealing with money with when I read the book (actually named “Mama’s Bank Account) as a girl. If you have never seen the movie or read the book - it is about a lower class Norwegian immigrant family in San Francisco in the early 1900s. Every week the father brings home his wages (in cash which was how people were paid back then at all but professional/executive level) and gives it to his wife. She sits there with paper and sorts the money “ for the grocer” she makes a pile and wraps it in paper, “for the landlord” ditto and so on. When there is a problem and money is needed for something special/different (such as the son going to high school - they will his potential wages and there will be costs) the mother says that they must figure out what to do so that they do not have to take money from her bank account. I have gone with this idea of “piles. I have moved money - in my computer accounts - to save for various things. By subtracting the money before we have it on our regular savings account, it is not there to spend. I had subaccounts in my Quickbooks - savings for next car, for vacation, etc. subtracted from the total amount of each paycheck and each time I did I heard in my head “for the grocer, for the landlord..”. (Spoiler alert - at the end of the book/movie the daughter/author has received her first payment for writing and tells the mother to deposit it in the bank account and the mother admits that she has never been in a bank in her life - but that “it is not a good for children to worry”.) Set aside money in advance for things that you want or need and you will not have to worry. Start next time there is a raise if you want and set aside part of the net raise in a savings account (or even a jar) and it will become a habit.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
It is back to school time again. If you need or know that you will need office supplies - now is the time to buy them. Pens disappear all the time? Buy them for around US$ for a dozen. Will you need a memo book, notebook, ruler, file folders etc. NOW is the time to buy them!
Friday, October 19, 2018
WHAT IF YOU OR YOUR OTHER HALF WAS UNABLE TO DEAL WITH THE HOUSEHOLD OR FINANCES?
Gosh darn! I did it again! I forgot to post yesterday!
Now, I was doing well, at the beginning of the week I had an idea for what to post about - which I forgot, but as I wrote this very line, the idea came back.
Husband has been having a bad week - his back now is down to an ache and it varies from worse to better - twice it disappeared completely for a couple of hours - but sometimes it gets worse when he takes the medication or when he soaks in a hot shower, the idea our doctor recommended. We happened to be at the doctor’s office today - before all this with his shoulder, I had made appointments for our annual visit and its bloodwork, and today was the bloodwork. Doctor said it could take 6 weeks for his shoulder to stop hurting completely - 4 more to go and neither can take much more of this - for him the pain and inability to go out and do things as he gets too exhausted and it makes his shoulder/arm/ - and now also - neck hurt more. He is frustrated with it all and I am exhausted from trying to help him. Every thing is a bit confused. I am not completely sure what day it is unless I check. (Good thing we have our pills in several day of the week boxes, so it helps remind us what day it and whether or not we took our medications.) When we go for lunch at Wendys I order and get the lunch while he gets the table - the opposite of what we normally do - which also confuses the employees - one fellow there lists me as Mrs. “husband first name”. Others just list with me his name. And then again, the weekend crew which does not know us as well asked for my name - I gave him my middle name to avoid having to spell my name.
On the other hand I have gotten a lot of decluttering done as we are home so much. I have finished scanning in the articles from the older reenacting magazines that we decided to scan the articles he wanted into the computer and then get rid of the magazines. They are now stacked up to take to next month’s reenactment unit meeting and pass them along to others who have joined more recently and not had a chance to read them. In one magazine he only had one article marked to scan - and that was two pages - see, we really did not need to keep the entire magazine at all. As these magazines leave, I have room for the newer ones. I started today scanning in the articles from the magazine from the national of my embroidery club. These magazines after they are scanned go with me to the meetings or places where we do a “stitch in public” and I give them out to people who might be interested in joining us so they can see the nice magazine they will get from national and also get rid of them without throwing them away (ditto the other ones we bring to the reenactment unit meetings). I also have been making telephone calls that I put off as we are not home and awake enough time to make the calls. I still have to call our eye doctor and make an appointment for us - but not sure when to do so as he can’t drive out there.
Okay, now the idea I had for this week. Have you done anything to allow someone else to take over running your household if they had to? For decades I tried to get my husband to pay attention to our finances - where we bank, what money comes in, what bills have to go out, etc. He never wanted to talk about it - it would be bad luck. I started paying his bills for him before we got married and kept doing so - “You’re an accountant. You do it. You are better at it.” I would say to him as I tried to get him to look at things and how I do them “What would happen if I was kidnaped and you had to find the money to pay them to get me back?” Death was not allowed to be mentioned. “I would tell them that have to put you on the phone to tell me where the money is so I could pay them.”
In December 2012 we were in a bad car accident - in front of the house next door to ours. We luckily were not only still alive somehow, but also uninjured. This scared him. He suggested to me that I should I make up a notebook with all the information that someone would need to take over our bills, deposits, running the household, etc. By this he meant, even more than himself, if someone had to take it all over because we were injured.
I started doing this and in the ensuing 6 years I have done parts of it and then redone so. To date it is in my computer and not in a notebook, but I am working doing so. I found a old looseleaf book to use. (Better to recycle it to this than have it sit in the closet and buy a new one.)
My first go around with this - back in 2013 - was to write copious notes about when each bill comes in, when it has to go out, how I write the check, and how I post it in my financial software. Second go around, I scanned one of each bill into the computer as an example.
Currently I am scanning in each bill (first page only) when it is paid along with the check that pays it, anyway, as part of my bill paying. I have to make new notes about each bill and put it the notebook. I also figured out that I would put in the information we receive annually about our garbage pickup, with written instructions to go along with it. I want to write up information about how to use the washer and dryer. How and what I clean (okay, plan to clean and don’t always get to). When things such as the oil burner inspection needs to be done (the company we have a contract with did not call last year - or this year and with dealing with husband and still trying to get to my client to go to work there (for 2 months work now) I never had a chance to call them to ask why I haven’t heard about an appointment for 2 years or set up an appointment. Where what Christmas decorations are stored in the basement and so on.
What prompted to me to write about this now is an article I read in a publication reminding me how hard this can be on the survivor(s). I have had several clients who had their home/family run traditionally. The wife took care of the house and the husband took care of the finances. In each case the husband died and I had to help the widow figure out what they had. This was in the pre-Internet days which was an advantage as for some items we just had to wait until the widow received something in the mail. In January/February one receives all the papers for income taxes so that helped. In addition in some cases we had to check the state unclaimed/abandoned property office (each US state has one - not sure what is done in other countries) to see if anything had slipped by us and had been turned over to the state for the state to hold until it was claimed. Especially important for all spouses (and/or someone else) to know about is any life insurance which has its premiums paid off as nothing may come in the mail from the insurance company.
In addition these days the items maybe sent by email - and one may not be able to check the spouse’s email. Generally items online are not something that can be inherited. By this I mean if your spouse had an (or more than one) email accounts and you do not know how to sign into them, you may not be allowed to get into them as they were your spouse’s account not yours. In addition if there is a Facebook account etc. you may not be given the information to sign into it - it is their account not yours. Do you and your spouse (by which I mean any significant other) share a book download account? If it is in your spouse’s name you probably lose the books in it as they are not for sharing and cannot be inherited.
So if you and someone share accounts make sure that both of you know how to sign into them and what the passwords are. In the article I mentioned, the poor widow was going crazy trying to figure out her husband’s security question answers to be able to set new passwords when she did not know what the passwords were to the accounts. Her husband’s first pet’s name - she put in what she thought it was, but it did not work. His first school - not the one she thought it was.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
None of us likes to think about injury or illness or death of ourselves or those we love - and we think that we have lots of time to deal with it. One never knows. Make sure that you and your other half -if you have one - or someone else who is close and responsible - know about each other’s accounts and log in info. Make sure that you both know what your (joint if applicable) financial situation is and how and when money comes in and goes out and from where it comes and where it goes. Make sure that both of you know about all insurances related to each other. Try to have a list of bills you pay monthly, quarterly, annually, etc. for reference. Have a list of incoming money and when, how and where it comes- especially money that is not a paycheck. If you own a house, car, stocks, etc. make sure both (or all) of you know where the ownership papers are for it. Bank Vault? Locked box in the closet? The back of several drawers? Also if you (or your other) has jewelry include the information about where it is, what it is, and if it is valuable. (My husband knows that the jewelry in the jewelry box on top of dresser is all junk jewelry of no value, but there is a small box stashed with minor items that are real jewelry and the rest is in our bank vault.)
Also if you have all this information organized, in case of an emergency you can take the information with you if you have to flee your home from any of these horrible weather situations which have become more common in recent years. I have a copy of the computer data backup I put in the bank in my “grab and go” folder which has copies of our car and house titles, insurance policies, and I put the bank statements when I reconcile them in the folder - and take out the prior month’s statement and file that one away. This way I have the most recent bank statement to come with us - including the ones for the two organizations that I am treasurer of.
Now, I was doing well, at the beginning of the week I had an idea for what to post about - which I forgot, but as I wrote this very line, the idea came back.
Husband has been having a bad week - his back now is down to an ache and it varies from worse to better - twice it disappeared completely for a couple of hours - but sometimes it gets worse when he takes the medication or when he soaks in a hot shower, the idea our doctor recommended. We happened to be at the doctor’s office today - before all this with his shoulder, I had made appointments for our annual visit and its bloodwork, and today was the bloodwork. Doctor said it could take 6 weeks for his shoulder to stop hurting completely - 4 more to go and neither can take much more of this - for him the pain and inability to go out and do things as he gets too exhausted and it makes his shoulder/arm/ - and now also - neck hurt more. He is frustrated with it all and I am exhausted from trying to help him. Every thing is a bit confused. I am not completely sure what day it is unless I check. (Good thing we have our pills in several day of the week boxes, so it helps remind us what day it and whether or not we took our medications.) When we go for lunch at Wendys I order and get the lunch while he gets the table - the opposite of what we normally do - which also confuses the employees - one fellow there lists me as Mrs. “husband first name”. Others just list with me his name. And then again, the weekend crew which does not know us as well asked for my name - I gave him my middle name to avoid having to spell my name.
On the other hand I have gotten a lot of decluttering done as we are home so much. I have finished scanning in the articles from the older reenacting magazines that we decided to scan the articles he wanted into the computer and then get rid of the magazines. They are now stacked up to take to next month’s reenactment unit meeting and pass them along to others who have joined more recently and not had a chance to read them. In one magazine he only had one article marked to scan - and that was two pages - see, we really did not need to keep the entire magazine at all. As these magazines leave, I have room for the newer ones. I started today scanning in the articles from the magazine from the national of my embroidery club. These magazines after they are scanned go with me to the meetings or places where we do a “stitch in public” and I give them out to people who might be interested in joining us so they can see the nice magazine they will get from national and also get rid of them without throwing them away (ditto the other ones we bring to the reenactment unit meetings). I also have been making telephone calls that I put off as we are not home and awake enough time to make the calls. I still have to call our eye doctor and make an appointment for us - but not sure when to do so as he can’t drive out there.
Okay, now the idea I had for this week. Have you done anything to allow someone else to take over running your household if they had to? For decades I tried to get my husband to pay attention to our finances - where we bank, what money comes in, what bills have to go out, etc. He never wanted to talk about it - it would be bad luck. I started paying his bills for him before we got married and kept doing so - “You’re an accountant. You do it. You are better at it.” I would say to him as I tried to get him to look at things and how I do them “What would happen if I was kidnaped and you had to find the money to pay them to get me back?” Death was not allowed to be mentioned. “I would tell them that have to put you on the phone to tell me where the money is so I could pay them.”
In December 2012 we were in a bad car accident - in front of the house next door to ours. We luckily were not only still alive somehow, but also uninjured. This scared him. He suggested to me that I should I make up a notebook with all the information that someone would need to take over our bills, deposits, running the household, etc. By this he meant, even more than himself, if someone had to take it all over because we were injured.
I started doing this and in the ensuing 6 years I have done parts of it and then redone so. To date it is in my computer and not in a notebook, but I am working doing so. I found a old looseleaf book to use. (Better to recycle it to this than have it sit in the closet and buy a new one.)
My first go around with this - back in 2013 - was to write copious notes about when each bill comes in, when it has to go out, how I write the check, and how I post it in my financial software. Second go around, I scanned one of each bill into the computer as an example.
Currently I am scanning in each bill (first page only) when it is paid along with the check that pays it, anyway, as part of my bill paying. I have to make new notes about each bill and put it the notebook. I also figured out that I would put in the information we receive annually about our garbage pickup, with written instructions to go along with it. I want to write up information about how to use the washer and dryer. How and what I clean (okay, plan to clean and don’t always get to). When things such as the oil burner inspection needs to be done (the company we have a contract with did not call last year - or this year and with dealing with husband and still trying to get to my client to go to work there (for 2 months work now) I never had a chance to call them to ask why I haven’t heard about an appointment for 2 years or set up an appointment. Where what Christmas decorations are stored in the basement and so on.
What prompted to me to write about this now is an article I read in a publication reminding me how hard this can be on the survivor(s). I have had several clients who had their home/family run traditionally. The wife took care of the house and the husband took care of the finances. In each case the husband died and I had to help the widow figure out what they had. This was in the pre-Internet days which was an advantage as for some items we just had to wait until the widow received something in the mail. In January/February one receives all the papers for income taxes so that helped. In addition in some cases we had to check the state unclaimed/abandoned property office (each US state has one - not sure what is done in other countries) to see if anything had slipped by us and had been turned over to the state for the state to hold until it was claimed. Especially important for all spouses (and/or someone else) to know about is any life insurance which has its premiums paid off as nothing may come in the mail from the insurance company.
In addition these days the items maybe sent by email - and one may not be able to check the spouse’s email. Generally items online are not something that can be inherited. By this I mean if your spouse had an (or more than one) email accounts and you do not know how to sign into them, you may not be allowed to get into them as they were your spouse’s account not yours. In addition if there is a Facebook account etc. you may not be given the information to sign into it - it is their account not yours. Do you and your spouse (by which I mean any significant other) share a book download account? If it is in your spouse’s name you probably lose the books in it as they are not for sharing and cannot be inherited.
So if you and someone share accounts make sure that both of you know how to sign into them and what the passwords are. In the article I mentioned, the poor widow was going crazy trying to figure out her husband’s security question answers to be able to set new passwords when she did not know what the passwords were to the accounts. Her husband’s first pet’s name - she put in what she thought it was, but it did not work. His first school - not the one she thought it was.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
None of us likes to think about injury or illness or death of ourselves or those we love - and we think that we have lots of time to deal with it. One never knows. Make sure that you and your other half -if you have one - or someone else who is close and responsible - know about each other’s accounts and log in info. Make sure that you both know what your (joint if applicable) financial situation is and how and when money comes in and goes out and from where it comes and where it goes. Make sure that both of you know about all insurances related to each other. Try to have a list of bills you pay monthly, quarterly, annually, etc. for reference. Have a list of incoming money and when, how and where it comes- especially money that is not a paycheck. If you own a house, car, stocks, etc. make sure both (or all) of you know where the ownership papers are for it. Bank Vault? Locked box in the closet? The back of several drawers? Also if you (or your other) has jewelry include the information about where it is, what it is, and if it is valuable. (My husband knows that the jewelry in the jewelry box on top of dresser is all junk jewelry of no value, but there is a small box stashed with minor items that are real jewelry and the rest is in our bank vault.)
Also if you have all this information organized, in case of an emergency you can take the information with you if you have to flee your home from any of these horrible weather situations which have become more common in recent years. I have a copy of the computer data backup I put in the bank in my “grab and go” folder which has copies of our car and house titles, insurance policies, and I put the bank statements when I reconcile them in the folder - and take out the prior month’s statement and file that one away. This way I have the most recent bank statement to come with us - including the ones for the two organizations that I am treasurer of.
Thursday, August 16, 2018
BACK TO HOUSEWORK - PREPARE FOR POSSIBLE TRIP
After 2 weeks husband has decided that the tail end of cold is too much to deal with and I am back to cooking and cleaning on my own as of yesterday. So tonight I am catching up on 3 weeks of laundry backed up. I washed the clothing, he put in the dryer and then in the laundry basket. He then pulled out his clothing and put it away and left mine for me.
I think the final blow was yesterday was “change the bed linens day”. Last week we only changed the pillow cases. Last night I figured I would change the sheets, I would change my pillow cases, he would change his, and I would change the sheets and remake the bed - other than him dealing with his pillowcases. So yesterday morning, I pulled off my pillowcases, folded the blanket and pulled the top sheet off the bed. I would normally have pulled off his bottom pillowcase in the morning. I pull the top pillowcase and the bottom sheet off when we are going to bed at night and remake the bed then. (I used to pull everything off in the morning, but a couple of times he was dizzy and ill during the day and I had to quickly put his side of the bed back, so this is our compromise - he can lie down as the bottom sheet and his top pillowcase are there and then pull the top sheet - lying on the bed - on top of him if he does not feel well. ) So last night I put the last (of 3) set of clean sheets on the bed and put the blanket on. I went to pull 2 pillowcases for my pillow and he would do his pillowcases afterwards .... but there were only 2 clean pillowcases! We each took one.
I went down tonight to start the first load of laundry and did so. I was also going to run our “Packtite”, a device intended to heat suitcases and their contents when one returns home from a trip so that if one has picked up bed bugs they will be killed by the heat. We set it up with a laundry basket with holes in it and I heat anything coming into the house we are concerned about. Normally I run it when it when I do the laundry as it is near the washer and dryer in the basement and the timing for a load of laundry to wash or dry and to check the temperature on the thermometer in the Packtite is about the same. There is a small number of things to heat. I noticed that the thermometer reading for the Packtite was the same as last time I used it . (We have an indoor/outdoor reading thermometer and the dohickey for the outside is in the Packtite so I can see the temperature and make sure it is high enough, long enough, but does not go to high.) No new reading - or a blank reading - for the dohickey means that it needs new batteries. I walked up 2 flights of stairs to the office to get new batteries and then back down the same 2 flights. It still did not work. I texted husband to help me. (Yes, we are lazy enough to text each other in the house - much better than running up and down the stairs to tell each other something, especially in summer when doors are closed to keep air conditioning in the room and the ac units are running and making noise.) We spent over half an hour playing with it, but the dohickey still does not work. My solution? We have the same setup on a thermometer in the kitchen to read the temperature in the refrigerator, I brought that set up downstairs and took the working main thermometer from the basement and stuck it in the refrigerator and read it by opening the door. Tomorrow I will switch the setups back - and we will look for a new thermometer for the basement. (I pause here to run down and switch laundry loads.)
Okay, I am back. Over last weekend I reset the number of days for my Quickbooks to remind me of memorized transactions (mostly bills to pay, some direct deposits to come in) to cover everything through the end of the month (normally it is set for one week). I wrote checks for all the bills and calculated how much we needed to transfer from savings (which is a holding account for money for bills) to pay all the bills to the end of the month. I transferred the money yesterday and today mailed out the bill payments. Well, everything but the cable/Internet bill which will not come until the last minute at the end of the month - and the money for it plus a bit more is now is now in the checking account. Why did I pay it all at once? Husband REALLY wants to go on a trip of more than a day or two. He keeps checking the upcoming weather in the several places we might go and it continues to follow the pattern of a day with no rain - maybe two days if lucky -and then two or three days of pouring rain and thunderstorms. (Although the weather is not as bad as it is in some parts of the country - I hope none of you are in the areas of the wildfires or the flooding.) When we prepare for a trip we pay any bills that need to be paid while we will be away and need to transfer money for same and then mail the payments. This way we do not even have to think of the bills until the cable bill at the end of the month. We can leave with a just a quick stop at the bank for cash for the trip. One less thing that has to be dealt with. Actually the only other problem is the newspaper - if we go at the last minute there will be a paper sitting in the delivery tube while we are away - I guess one paper will look like that day’s paper so it is not bad. Most of our mail goes to our box at the Post Office and we put in a large locking mailbox at the house so that we do not have to stop the mail that does still come to the house. Clothing can be washed and dried and then packed the night before and just tossed on the RV bed when we go. Food, etc can be stuck under the RV bed in a holder that is there. It can all be unpacked when we get where we are going. So if he finds a place to go we can leave the next day.
He has had another project he has been working on and frustrated with, which affects me. He has been trying to convince me to stop using this laptop and buy a new one. I have some problems checking posts on some websites - the laptop runs Windows XP. We have been looking and have found some laptops at the price we can pay - actually more than we can pay, but we can stretch the amount another $100 or so t buy. I am still resistant as there are only one or two websites which are affected and I have software I like which may or may not work with Windows 10 and at least one I know will not work with same. Yes, it can take up to 20 minutes for the laptop to boot and takes awhile for programs to open, but I am used to. The alternative he comes up with is installing Linux on this computer to use when online. He has found and set up about 5 versions of same on USB stick drives and DVDs in the past week or so. The latest version on DVD actually works - but one of the sites I have a problem with only partially opens. I have not have my laptop at least part of each night as a result as he loads the new try. (Notice I made sure to write and post on time this week since I was late last week, but some friends on an embroidery site and some friends on a comics site will not hear from me - and I normally am on the comics site on Monday nights.) I am guessing that I will be giving in and getting the new laptop - but not until after the cutoff for the credit card bill this month, so we won’t have to pay for it until October - the house insurance is in September, plus any travel bills if we go away.
Oh - I did finally vacuum up all the shreds of paper from my big shredding of 2008 last week.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One may fall behind due to illness or other reasons. Don’t panic. One can always catch up.
I think the final blow was yesterday was “change the bed linens day”. Last week we only changed the pillow cases. Last night I figured I would change the sheets, I would change my pillow cases, he would change his, and I would change the sheets and remake the bed - other than him dealing with his pillowcases. So yesterday morning, I pulled off my pillowcases, folded the blanket and pulled the top sheet off the bed. I would normally have pulled off his bottom pillowcase in the morning. I pull the top pillowcase and the bottom sheet off when we are going to bed at night and remake the bed then. (I used to pull everything off in the morning, but a couple of times he was dizzy and ill during the day and I had to quickly put his side of the bed back, so this is our compromise - he can lie down as the bottom sheet and his top pillowcase are there and then pull the top sheet - lying on the bed - on top of him if he does not feel well. ) So last night I put the last (of 3) set of clean sheets on the bed and put the blanket on. I went to pull 2 pillowcases for my pillow and he would do his pillowcases afterwards .... but there were only 2 clean pillowcases! We each took one.
I went down tonight to start the first load of laundry and did so. I was also going to run our “Packtite”, a device intended to heat suitcases and their contents when one returns home from a trip so that if one has picked up bed bugs they will be killed by the heat. We set it up with a laundry basket with holes in it and I heat anything coming into the house we are concerned about. Normally I run it when it when I do the laundry as it is near the washer and dryer in the basement and the timing for a load of laundry to wash or dry and to check the temperature on the thermometer in the Packtite is about the same. There is a small number of things to heat. I noticed that the thermometer reading for the Packtite was the same as last time I used it . (We have an indoor/outdoor reading thermometer and the dohickey for the outside is in the Packtite so I can see the temperature and make sure it is high enough, long enough, but does not go to high.) No new reading - or a blank reading - for the dohickey means that it needs new batteries. I walked up 2 flights of stairs to the office to get new batteries and then back down the same 2 flights. It still did not work. I texted husband to help me. (Yes, we are lazy enough to text each other in the house - much better than running up and down the stairs to tell each other something, especially in summer when doors are closed to keep air conditioning in the room and the ac units are running and making noise.) We spent over half an hour playing with it, but the dohickey still does not work. My solution? We have the same setup on a thermometer in the kitchen to read the temperature in the refrigerator, I brought that set up downstairs and took the working main thermometer from the basement and stuck it in the refrigerator and read it by opening the door. Tomorrow I will switch the setups back - and we will look for a new thermometer for the basement. (I pause here to run down and switch laundry loads.)
Okay, I am back. Over last weekend I reset the number of days for my Quickbooks to remind me of memorized transactions (mostly bills to pay, some direct deposits to come in) to cover everything through the end of the month (normally it is set for one week). I wrote checks for all the bills and calculated how much we needed to transfer from savings (which is a holding account for money for bills) to pay all the bills to the end of the month. I transferred the money yesterday and today mailed out the bill payments. Well, everything but the cable/Internet bill which will not come until the last minute at the end of the month - and the money for it plus a bit more is now is now in the checking account. Why did I pay it all at once? Husband REALLY wants to go on a trip of more than a day or two. He keeps checking the upcoming weather in the several places we might go and it continues to follow the pattern of a day with no rain - maybe two days if lucky -and then two or three days of pouring rain and thunderstorms. (Although the weather is not as bad as it is in some parts of the country - I hope none of you are in the areas of the wildfires or the flooding.) When we prepare for a trip we pay any bills that need to be paid while we will be away and need to transfer money for same and then mail the payments. This way we do not even have to think of the bills until the cable bill at the end of the month. We can leave with a just a quick stop at the bank for cash for the trip. One less thing that has to be dealt with. Actually the only other problem is the newspaper - if we go at the last minute there will be a paper sitting in the delivery tube while we are away - I guess one paper will look like that day’s paper so it is not bad. Most of our mail goes to our box at the Post Office and we put in a large locking mailbox at the house so that we do not have to stop the mail that does still come to the house. Clothing can be washed and dried and then packed the night before and just tossed on the RV bed when we go. Food, etc can be stuck under the RV bed in a holder that is there. It can all be unpacked when we get where we are going. So if he finds a place to go we can leave the next day.
He has had another project he has been working on and frustrated with, which affects me. He has been trying to convince me to stop using this laptop and buy a new one. I have some problems checking posts on some websites - the laptop runs Windows XP. We have been looking and have found some laptops at the price we can pay - actually more than we can pay, but we can stretch the amount another $100 or so t buy. I am still resistant as there are only one or two websites which are affected and I have software I like which may or may not work with Windows 10 and at least one I know will not work with same. Yes, it can take up to 20 minutes for the laptop to boot and takes awhile for programs to open, but I am used to. The alternative he comes up with is installing Linux on this computer to use when online. He has found and set up about 5 versions of same on USB stick drives and DVDs in the past week or so. The latest version on DVD actually works - but one of the sites I have a problem with only partially opens. I have not have my laptop at least part of each night as a result as he loads the new try. (Notice I made sure to write and post on time this week since I was late last week, but some friends on an embroidery site and some friends on a comics site will not hear from me - and I normally am on the comics site on Monday nights.) I am guessing that I will be giving in and getting the new laptop - but not until after the cutoff for the credit card bill this month, so we won’t have to pay for it until October - the house insurance is in September, plus any travel bills if we go away.
Oh - I did finally vacuum up all the shreds of paper from my big shredding of 2008 last week.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One may fall behind due to illness or other reasons. Don’t panic. One can always catch up.
Thursday, July 12, 2018
PAYING BILLS
Well, the smoke smell finally left the house.
It occurred to me in looking at last week’s post that it makes no sense to someone reading it that I have to be home to pay a bill. It was not the writing of the check (yes, I still pay my bills by check) or the need to mail out the bill and payment (yes, I still pay my bills by mail), but the fact that money needed to pay the bill would not be credited to our bank account until today, the 11th. It would go into our savings account and I had to be here to transfer the money needed to pay the bill into our checking account. I like to do this so I know that the money is actually in the checking account and did not for some reason go awry. If something did happen the savings account would be short funds and I would not be able to transfer the money - but at least I would know of the problem and would be able to cover the checks I needed to send out in another way, while I tracked down where the money owed to us was.
We did drive down to Pennsylvania last Saturday and had a very nice day. The weather was sunny and warm - but not the hot weather that had been there during last week and there was no rain. We did lose an hour locally in transit as there was roving road repairs being done - and the GPS did not know that how long the delay was or did not care.
Since we had to stay home to transfer money to pay a bill, I thought I would talk about paying bills today. I deal with bills for a living, you probably only deal with yours or maybe yours and your business’s bills. The idea for personal or business bills are basically the same - make sure the amount you were billed is right and pay them - on time.
I admit to probably being older than most of you and grew up with paper bills and paper checks. Therefore I am more comfortable using them than paying bills online. It is not that I am new to computers or a “late adaptor”. I learned to program computers when they were huge mechanical devices. The one I learned to program, in Fortran II, was the size of a good sized office desk (which were also larger back then than they are now) and there was a second device the same size to compile the program. Today the compiler is software, not hardware. Heck, even the keyboard setup to punch the software and/or data into cards was larger than even my desktop computer is today. My problem is that having learned to work with computers so long ago I have learned the concept that no computer is secure (and we did not have the computers connected to the Internet back then). When I am not using a computer it is turned off and unplugged - the exception being that if a laptop needs charging it may be off and charging.
So, I am more comfortable paying my bills by check. I have written abit about this before - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2017/04/last-October-10-26-16-i-posted-on.html
We don’t like to be in debt. We pay our credit card in full every month.
Well, except one month. When husband was working full time he would receive any unused sick pay when the new company year started in September. (They operated on a school year as they were partly a school.) We would take our vacation in August as I could take time off then and the place he worked would close for 2 weeks in August. So the unused sick pay was rather convenient to cover the charge card bills from vacation. One year the sick pay was delayed a month. Our choice was to take money out of savings and pay the bill in full, or pay part and pay the balance the following month when the money came in. It was one of those odd periods in which the interest rates on debt and the interest rates on savings were about the same. We decided to pay half the bill and then pay the other half, plus any new charges in full, the following month and that is what we did.
We have taken out some loans over the decades. We only do so for large items - house, car, RV. Everyone of them has had every payment made on time - with some of them we have paid them off in less time than originally scheduled by making extra principal payments. (More on this next week.)
Medical insurance and bills - have also been paid in full, although we have been lucky enough to have our medical insurance covered by his employer while husband was working. In addition the largest medical bills we had were when husband had cataract surgeries. We had the sort of insurance that covers more of the bills for “providers” in their plan and less, although still most, of the bills for providers not in their plan. Our doctor was the latter. We paid our share of about $4000 on the two surgeries in full to the doctor.
Oh, a thought here - make sure you know what is covered on your medical insurance - if you can use a provider who is covered it will save you money - expenses might not even be covered if your doctor, pharmacy, etc. is not on their list and you will be stuck for the full cost. In addition make sure that you check your bills for accuracy and if there is a question or problem don’t just accept it. When husband had his first surgery (each eye was done separately) the insurance company rejected the claim. The doctor’s office assure me that it was not my problem, they would have to “eat” the costs. I did not let it go. I telephoned the insurance company and asked what had happened - I had followed all of the rules for an out of the plan doctor, etc. I was told some stupidity that the claim was not submitted in time. Turned out that the doctor’s office had a O for a 0 or a 0 for an O and it was rejected. When it was fixed and they went to resubmit it, they were told that it was too late to do so and there was no record of the original, rejected submission. I called the insurance company again and started, politely complaining. Not much was happening. I told them that my husband decides which policies everyone at work will have (this was true). I suddenly had a phone call from the insurance company that there had been an error - the surgery had been preapproved (which it had been) and therefore was covered. (We were extremely popular at the doctor’s office after that.) So know what has to be done and do it to make sure that your claims are covered - follow up with the doctor’s staff to make sure they do what they need to do and make sure you do what you need to do. If you need to have a referral, have it - and make a photocopy for yourself in case it “gets lost”.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Basically we try to live within our income and waste as little as possible of our money paying interest charges and not paying other fees. We live comfortably but not over the top. We don’t eat at expensive restaurants. We find discounted movie theaters or discounted tickets to same. We drive Chevys not Cadillacs, BMWs or Mercedes Benz. (You do know that Chevy and Cadillacs have “twin cars” don’t you - as do Ford and Lincoln.) We sleep better at night not worrying about huge bills or mounting interest charges.
Other posts will follow on related financial matters including some of the things we have done to “find” money for bills and for savings.
It occurred to me in looking at last week’s post that it makes no sense to someone reading it that I have to be home to pay a bill. It was not the writing of the check (yes, I still pay my bills by check) or the need to mail out the bill and payment (yes, I still pay my bills by mail), but the fact that money needed to pay the bill would not be credited to our bank account until today, the 11th. It would go into our savings account and I had to be here to transfer the money needed to pay the bill into our checking account. I like to do this so I know that the money is actually in the checking account and did not for some reason go awry. If something did happen the savings account would be short funds and I would not be able to transfer the money - but at least I would know of the problem and would be able to cover the checks I needed to send out in another way, while I tracked down where the money owed to us was.
We did drive down to Pennsylvania last Saturday and had a very nice day. The weather was sunny and warm - but not the hot weather that had been there during last week and there was no rain. We did lose an hour locally in transit as there was roving road repairs being done - and the GPS did not know that how long the delay was or did not care.
Since we had to stay home to transfer money to pay a bill, I thought I would talk about paying bills today. I deal with bills for a living, you probably only deal with yours or maybe yours and your business’s bills. The idea for personal or business bills are basically the same - make sure the amount you were billed is right and pay them - on time.
I admit to probably being older than most of you and grew up with paper bills and paper checks. Therefore I am more comfortable using them than paying bills online. It is not that I am new to computers or a “late adaptor”. I learned to program computers when they were huge mechanical devices. The one I learned to program, in Fortran II, was the size of a good sized office desk (which were also larger back then than they are now) and there was a second device the same size to compile the program. Today the compiler is software, not hardware. Heck, even the keyboard setup to punch the software and/or data into cards was larger than even my desktop computer is today. My problem is that having learned to work with computers so long ago I have learned the concept that no computer is secure (and we did not have the computers connected to the Internet back then). When I am not using a computer it is turned off and unplugged - the exception being that if a laptop needs charging it may be off and charging.
So, I am more comfortable paying my bills by check. I have written abit about this before - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2017/04/last-October-10-26-16-i-posted-on.html
We don’t like to be in debt. We pay our credit card in full every month.
Well, except one month. When husband was working full time he would receive any unused sick pay when the new company year started in September. (They operated on a school year as they were partly a school.) We would take our vacation in August as I could take time off then and the place he worked would close for 2 weeks in August. So the unused sick pay was rather convenient to cover the charge card bills from vacation. One year the sick pay was delayed a month. Our choice was to take money out of savings and pay the bill in full, or pay part and pay the balance the following month when the money came in. It was one of those odd periods in which the interest rates on debt and the interest rates on savings were about the same. We decided to pay half the bill and then pay the other half, plus any new charges in full, the following month and that is what we did.
We have taken out some loans over the decades. We only do so for large items - house, car, RV. Everyone of them has had every payment made on time - with some of them we have paid them off in less time than originally scheduled by making extra principal payments. (More on this next week.)
Medical insurance and bills - have also been paid in full, although we have been lucky enough to have our medical insurance covered by his employer while husband was working. In addition the largest medical bills we had were when husband had cataract surgeries. We had the sort of insurance that covers more of the bills for “providers” in their plan and less, although still most, of the bills for providers not in their plan. Our doctor was the latter. We paid our share of about $4000 on the two surgeries in full to the doctor.
Oh, a thought here - make sure you know what is covered on your medical insurance - if you can use a provider who is covered it will save you money - expenses might not even be covered if your doctor, pharmacy, etc. is not on their list and you will be stuck for the full cost. In addition make sure that you check your bills for accuracy and if there is a question or problem don’t just accept it. When husband had his first surgery (each eye was done separately) the insurance company rejected the claim. The doctor’s office assure me that it was not my problem, they would have to “eat” the costs. I did not let it go. I telephoned the insurance company and asked what had happened - I had followed all of the rules for an out of the plan doctor, etc. I was told some stupidity that the claim was not submitted in time. Turned out that the doctor’s office had a O for a 0 or a 0 for an O and it was rejected. When it was fixed and they went to resubmit it, they were told that it was too late to do so and there was no record of the original, rejected submission. I called the insurance company again and started, politely complaining. Not much was happening. I told them that my husband decides which policies everyone at work will have (this was true). I suddenly had a phone call from the insurance company that there had been an error - the surgery had been preapproved (which it had been) and therefore was covered. (We were extremely popular at the doctor’s office after that.) So know what has to be done and do it to make sure that your claims are covered - follow up with the doctor’s staff to make sure they do what they need to do and make sure you do what you need to do. If you need to have a referral, have it - and make a photocopy for yourself in case it “gets lost”.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Basically we try to live within our income and waste as little as possible of our money paying interest charges and not paying other fees. We live comfortably but not over the top. We don’t eat at expensive restaurants. We find discounted movie theaters or discounted tickets to same. We drive Chevys not Cadillacs, BMWs or Mercedes Benz. (You do know that Chevy and Cadillacs have “twin cars” don’t you - as do Ford and Lincoln.) We sleep better at night not worrying about huge bills or mounting interest charges.
Other posts will follow on related financial matters including some of the things we have done to “find” money for bills and for savings.
Thursday, July 5, 2018
NOT IN PENNSYLVANIA
Remember over the past few weeks before I told you that we were going away this week and the work involved in preparing our RV for the trip? Well, we’re home - not away. Why?
I printed out my list of what has to be done to set up and pack the RV. We put the mattresses (actually pieces of the mattresses as each half of the mattress is made up of 3 pieces) in the RV. I pulled out stuff that was in the RV for the winter that is needed to pack it - food storage boxes, fabric shopping bags to carry stuff out to and back from the RV, and so on. I also have some stuff to do because it has not been used since last year - such as change the refrigerator baking powder holder (to keep it from smelling - same as a box of same in one’s home fridge - but I get the one that goes on inside the fridge with a suction cup as the box would probably fall over as we traveled around and make a mess). I checked that we had hand and dish soap and shampoo. You know -the sort of stuff you have at home and never think about needing on a trip - unless you have an RV.
Last Thursday we plugged the RV into the house electricity to make sure the batteries were fully charged. They are old and we should have replaced them, but that has not been in the budget, so we have to make sure they are charged, so that the fridge in it will keep working when the car engine is off when we are parked somewhere. (It does also recharge while we are driving and while it is plugged in at night in the RV park.)
On Friday I suggested to husband that I would makeup the bed while the RV was plugged in so I could run the air conditioner as it was soooo hot out - and inside is like being in a car that has not had ac on and even hotter. He reminded me that it could not be put on if the ac was plugged in at the house as the amperage was not enough, but - he had wanted to turn on the generator and make sure it was working.
So we turned on the generator - horrors, it turned on fine - but the microwave clock did not come on. You may be thinking - who cares about the microwave clock of all things. There are two things that will not work in the RV unless it is plugged in at full amperage - the ac and the, yes, the microwave. If the microwave light was not on - the generator was not transferring electricity to the RV. We turned the generator off and husband climbed under - again - and found that the fellow who worked on it had turned and left the connection switch off. We turned on the generator and this time the it was connected and working. I started making up the bed - a 45 minute minimum process as I have described before and husband walked out to let me work.
He was back shortly. There was oil coming out of the generator. Whether something was broken, or the plug was loose, or the fact that too much oil had been put in it - something was wrong. He ran inside and called the shop that had changed the oil. Well, 4:30 pm Friday - they would be glad to help on - Monday morning, when we scheduled to be on our trip. Husband made the appointment.
I suggested that we could set up the RV except for the last minute things, take the RV to the shop, come home, add the list minute things (or we would have to wake up even earlier to put them in and secure them in place) and go on our trip. Husband was not happy with this idea, as it is very hard to back the darn thing off our driveway - I have to stand in traffic and tell him when to back out and he has to do it quickly - and he did not want to do it twice in one day. I went back in the RV and did a quick set up of the bed as the generator was running and oil was still coming out of it. I only did the mattress set up, then we stopped the generator - I brought the pillows into the house to deal with them. It will be a lumpy set up in mattress as I was not able to smooth out the sheets properly - I will deal with it when we travel in it.
The more husband thought about it, the more he did not want to leave after going to the shop again. But - if we cancel the reservation we have to pay for it any way. In addition as the weekend went along, the weather became extremely hot and thunderstorms while we would be there. He panicked even more.
I decided to suggest that we go one day during the week - whichever day seemed to be the best weather - for us to go to the annual folk festival (crafts) that we want to go to (we can go there and home the same day, we have done so in the past) and try to move the reservations to next week. He agreed.
As I was about to do so I realized that there was problem with going next week - we had money coming in this week and it had to be transferred to checking to pay our “big” credit card bill which has to be mailed out the 10th. Darn!!!!!
I then suggested the week after - which seemed okay all around - we have a reenactment the weekend after it, but would be home Friday night and the reenactment is Sunday.
So this past Saturday I telephoned the RV park and explained that we had a reservation for Monday and we have had a problem with the RV and it could not be worked on until Monday. Could we please change the reservation to 2 weeks later - and I was told it was okay - the same space was even available. Now, I may find that they are not applying our deposit to the changed trip, but if so, well that is how it is. Hopefully we will get credit for the deposit.
So now we are home for July 4th. Something which I do not think has happened since we were married - and maybe before. With nothing to do. For “excitement” we went to Barnes and Nobles today.
Earlier in the week I was trying to think how to make today more July 4th ish. He has hot dogs for dinner around once a week so I moved them to today. We don’t have an outdoor grill. I have not been able to eat hot dogs for a few years, so I figured I would make my Thursday night turkey burger in an elongated shape so it would fit in the brat rolls we had in the house and I figured he would use for the hot dogs. We had some frozen fries I would make for him. When I went to make dinner I suggested that I use a cast iron pan with a grill that I had not used in awhile to cook my burger and his hot dogs to make them more like being grilled outside. (Normally he has me boil his hot dogs.) He told me to do one that way to try it.
I put the grill pan on the stove to heat up. I started making (canned) soup. I checked how much fries there were. Suddenly the kitchen was full of smoke and the smoke detector was going off. The grill pan - with no food added - was burning whatever was on it and the smoke was heading through the house. I turned off the burner, opened the back door (next to the stove) and fanned the smoke a bit with the door - this usually will direct smoke out the door if something like this happens. I turned off the ceiling fan - same. I turned off the soup. The alarm kept going off. I would push the button, it would stop, and then start again. I am 5'1" and have to stand on my toes on a chair to reach the button. I stayed up there pushing the button over and over. In between I would jump off the chair and try putting the ceiling fan on or off. After 10 minutes of this I texted husband upstairs for help. Between his hearing not being what it was and the fact that he was in a room on the other side of the house - which is not that far as the house is small, but he had the air conditioner on and the room door closed so he did not hear the alarm going off.
He came down and took over the spot on the chair, pushing the button over and over. We could not clear the smoke from the air. This is one of the new alarms with a permanent battery, so we could not pull the battery or the alarm would have to be thrown away. We tried covering it with a shower cap. (The RV is small and if one cooks in it the smoke alarm goes off and people put a shower cap over it to keep the smoke out of it when cooking - and it works, as cooked in it after a couple of hurricanes when we had no electricity in the house for the electric stove there.)
Finally about 45 minutes later the alarm stopped. The house still reeked of smoke. The pan was on the floor in the porch. Dinner should have been cooked and ready.
I turned the soup back on. I boiled his hot dogs. The fried potatoes had been cooking during all this in the toaster oven. But what about my dinner? I was not going to try to cook my burger in any of my pans and add more smoke to the house. I ended up cooking frozen vegetables for me for dinner - vegan for tonight. My burger is wrapped in plastic wrap for dinner tomorrow night. I have the grill pan soaking water to try to clean it.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
No matter what one’s plans are they may go awry. One just has to be able to think and deal with the problems so that they are in some manner resolved.
We will go on the trip later than we figured - but this will probably be good as it will not be as crowded then - and husband hates crowds. Hopefully we will have a day that is nice to go for the one day trip - and as husband scowled over the cost of the tolls - I reminded him that when we go that way the tolls are much, much lower as we are going to a different area - maybe 1/3 of when we go to where we usually go.
Dinner was late (and we missed the start of the PBS “Capitol Fourth” on TV), but we had dinner and the show was rerun after its showing so we saw the start afterwards.
None of this is earth shattering - just an annoyance - and I had two stories about trying to be organized to tell you this week.
I printed out my list of what has to be done to set up and pack the RV. We put the mattresses (actually pieces of the mattresses as each half of the mattress is made up of 3 pieces) in the RV. I pulled out stuff that was in the RV for the winter that is needed to pack it - food storage boxes, fabric shopping bags to carry stuff out to and back from the RV, and so on. I also have some stuff to do because it has not been used since last year - such as change the refrigerator baking powder holder (to keep it from smelling - same as a box of same in one’s home fridge - but I get the one that goes on inside the fridge with a suction cup as the box would probably fall over as we traveled around and make a mess). I checked that we had hand and dish soap and shampoo. You know -the sort of stuff you have at home and never think about needing on a trip - unless you have an RV.
Last Thursday we plugged the RV into the house electricity to make sure the batteries were fully charged. They are old and we should have replaced them, but that has not been in the budget, so we have to make sure they are charged, so that the fridge in it will keep working when the car engine is off when we are parked somewhere. (It does also recharge while we are driving and while it is plugged in at night in the RV park.)
On Friday I suggested to husband that I would makeup the bed while the RV was plugged in so I could run the air conditioner as it was soooo hot out - and inside is like being in a car that has not had ac on and even hotter. He reminded me that it could not be put on if the ac was plugged in at the house as the amperage was not enough, but - he had wanted to turn on the generator and make sure it was working.
So we turned on the generator - horrors, it turned on fine - but the microwave clock did not come on. You may be thinking - who cares about the microwave clock of all things. There are two things that will not work in the RV unless it is plugged in at full amperage - the ac and the, yes, the microwave. If the microwave light was not on - the generator was not transferring electricity to the RV. We turned the generator off and husband climbed under - again - and found that the fellow who worked on it had turned and left the connection switch off. We turned on the generator and this time the it was connected and working. I started making up the bed - a 45 minute minimum process as I have described before and husband walked out to let me work.
He was back shortly. There was oil coming out of the generator. Whether something was broken, or the plug was loose, or the fact that too much oil had been put in it - something was wrong. He ran inside and called the shop that had changed the oil. Well, 4:30 pm Friday - they would be glad to help on - Monday morning, when we scheduled to be on our trip. Husband made the appointment.
I suggested that we could set up the RV except for the last minute things, take the RV to the shop, come home, add the list minute things (or we would have to wake up even earlier to put them in and secure them in place) and go on our trip. Husband was not happy with this idea, as it is very hard to back the darn thing off our driveway - I have to stand in traffic and tell him when to back out and he has to do it quickly - and he did not want to do it twice in one day. I went back in the RV and did a quick set up of the bed as the generator was running and oil was still coming out of it. I only did the mattress set up, then we stopped the generator - I brought the pillows into the house to deal with them. It will be a lumpy set up in mattress as I was not able to smooth out the sheets properly - I will deal with it when we travel in it.
The more husband thought about it, the more he did not want to leave after going to the shop again. But - if we cancel the reservation we have to pay for it any way. In addition as the weekend went along, the weather became extremely hot and thunderstorms while we would be there. He panicked even more.
I decided to suggest that we go one day during the week - whichever day seemed to be the best weather - for us to go to the annual folk festival (crafts) that we want to go to (we can go there and home the same day, we have done so in the past) and try to move the reservations to next week. He agreed.
As I was about to do so I realized that there was problem with going next week - we had money coming in this week and it had to be transferred to checking to pay our “big” credit card bill which has to be mailed out the 10th. Darn!!!!!
I then suggested the week after - which seemed okay all around - we have a reenactment the weekend after it, but would be home Friday night and the reenactment is Sunday.
So this past Saturday I telephoned the RV park and explained that we had a reservation for Monday and we have had a problem with the RV and it could not be worked on until Monday. Could we please change the reservation to 2 weeks later - and I was told it was okay - the same space was even available. Now, I may find that they are not applying our deposit to the changed trip, but if so, well that is how it is. Hopefully we will get credit for the deposit.
So now we are home for July 4th. Something which I do not think has happened since we were married - and maybe before. With nothing to do. For “excitement” we went to Barnes and Nobles today.
Earlier in the week I was trying to think how to make today more July 4th ish. He has hot dogs for dinner around once a week so I moved them to today. We don’t have an outdoor grill. I have not been able to eat hot dogs for a few years, so I figured I would make my Thursday night turkey burger in an elongated shape so it would fit in the brat rolls we had in the house and I figured he would use for the hot dogs. We had some frozen fries I would make for him. When I went to make dinner I suggested that I use a cast iron pan with a grill that I had not used in awhile to cook my burger and his hot dogs to make them more like being grilled outside. (Normally he has me boil his hot dogs.) He told me to do one that way to try it.
I put the grill pan on the stove to heat up. I started making (canned) soup. I checked how much fries there were. Suddenly the kitchen was full of smoke and the smoke detector was going off. The grill pan - with no food added - was burning whatever was on it and the smoke was heading through the house. I turned off the burner, opened the back door (next to the stove) and fanned the smoke a bit with the door - this usually will direct smoke out the door if something like this happens. I turned off the ceiling fan - same. I turned off the soup. The alarm kept going off. I would push the button, it would stop, and then start again. I am 5'1" and have to stand on my toes on a chair to reach the button. I stayed up there pushing the button over and over. In between I would jump off the chair and try putting the ceiling fan on or off. After 10 minutes of this I texted husband upstairs for help. Between his hearing not being what it was and the fact that he was in a room on the other side of the house - which is not that far as the house is small, but he had the air conditioner on and the room door closed so he did not hear the alarm going off.
He came down and took over the spot on the chair, pushing the button over and over. We could not clear the smoke from the air. This is one of the new alarms with a permanent battery, so we could not pull the battery or the alarm would have to be thrown away. We tried covering it with a shower cap. (The RV is small and if one cooks in it the smoke alarm goes off and people put a shower cap over it to keep the smoke out of it when cooking - and it works, as cooked in it after a couple of hurricanes when we had no electricity in the house for the electric stove there.)
Finally about 45 minutes later the alarm stopped. The house still reeked of smoke. The pan was on the floor in the porch. Dinner should have been cooked and ready.
I turned the soup back on. I boiled his hot dogs. The fried potatoes had been cooking during all this in the toaster oven. But what about my dinner? I was not going to try to cook my burger in any of my pans and add more smoke to the house. I ended up cooking frozen vegetables for me for dinner - vegan for tonight. My burger is wrapped in plastic wrap for dinner tomorrow night. I have the grill pan soaking water to try to clean it.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
No matter what one’s plans are they may go awry. One just has to be able to think and deal with the problems so that they are in some manner resolved.
We will go on the trip later than we figured - but this will probably be good as it will not be as crowded then - and husband hates crowds. Hopefully we will have a day that is nice to go for the one day trip - and as husband scowled over the cost of the tolls - I reminded him that when we go that way the tolls are much, much lower as we are going to a different area - maybe 1/3 of when we go to where we usually go.
Dinner was late (and we missed the start of the PBS “Capitol Fourth” on TV), but we had dinner and the show was rerun after its showing so we saw the start afterwards.
None of this is earth shattering - just an annoyance - and I had two stories about trying to be organized to tell you this week.
Thursday, June 21, 2018
TRAPPED IN A WHIRLWIND
Okay - I am now so disorganized that I have no idea of what to write for you. So this will be a bit off the cuff and probably ramble even more than usual. I had my time planned out a bit better, but you know what happens.
This week I had planned to go to a client on Tuesday or Wednesday - the one in Manhattan. Due to the severe thunderstorms predicted for Tuesday, I asked her to come there on Wednesday and she could not make the appointment for that day. Which freed up the middle of this week a bit.
Monday night we had our reenactment unit meeting - this is when we get together in modern clothes and discuss recent past events and how they went and what can be done to make them better in the future, upcoming events - the logistics of when and where to be, what we will be doing, who is doing to come to the event, who will cook, what the unit needs to bring - what members need to bring, etc. We also have a presentation by one of the members about something related to the period, the event coming up, or how to improve our presentations. Our next event is a new one, two days long, and in need of more planning than usual as we are the lead group of several groups with the event spread out over a good sized period village and such logistics as what we will do and where we will be if it rains, arrangements for people who are camping overnight at the site (many of the units will be doing so, our unit most will go home overnight), set up, break down, etc. Husband did the program for the meeting on how to do first person (being a person of the past who knows nothing past the specific day in the past) as many of our members are new to this and it is integral to the event. So, most of Monday night was gone - we were not home to eat dinner until after 11 pm.
Monday afternoon husband had tried to start our RV’s generator - it has to be run once a month if it has not been used. It would not start. Not the usual it almost started, but different - maybe it will start tomorrow, but dead silence. The generator is under the back of the RV. Husband gets sick if he is a variety of positions, so I climbed under - all the switches were set correctly. He finally did climb under as we tried to find and see the fuse for it - which we could not do. He telephoned the generator shop we have used in the past - we have to have the oil changed annually and needed to do it for this year (we had run the generator for a whopping 24 hours total over the year) - so that will done also. We are hoping it will not be a huge bill - people talk about generator repair bills being more than a new one would cost. We had figured it would be awhile before they can take us, but they can take us this coming Monday - at 9 am.
Yesterday we went to the bank for the week as we needed to cover some checks and figured if this was out of the way, it would be easier to get ready later in the week for the reenactment event mentioned. I also managed to finish cleaning the inside of the bucket to the dehumidifier in the basement. It has dividers that don’t come out and even my tiny hands could not reach everywhere. Husband came up with the idea of using a stiff, thin artist’s paint brush which worked.
Today we went and cleared out the RV as they will need to go inside and the mattresses, and other items will be in their way. We don’t want anyone near the mattresses any way, and we also took out the wood support pieces for the mattresses. We put them in plastic mattress bags in our living room - on a table husband uses for his weaving - every time I walk past it looks like there is a body laid out in there - ugh. I also caught up on paying bills - with the money we put in yesterday. I then recalculated how much we need to pay bills next week - before we, hopefully, go on a trip the week after. We could pay the bills, but not have any cash for the trip - or pay another bill I anticipate. So tomorrow, the only free day left for a while, we will go and get money from my IRA account - no available money in husband’s until August.
Friday will be the setup day for the event so we will be there a good deal of the day. Saturday and Sunday will be the event - and it now looks like rain, possibly both days. Monday we will be taking the RV to the generator shop. Either Tuesday or Wednesday I have to get to that client. Then Thursday the board of my embroidery chapter is having its annual meeting to plan next year’s meeting programs. The Monday after we are going away for a week - no, really this time, we made the reservations last year and have to pay even if we don’t go, so weather be darned, we will be going.
I am pretty sure I have mentioned that we are not morning people - me in particular. One advantage to being self employed is that I don’t have to get up early. Each of my clients figures that I am at a different one in the morning when I go there in the afternoon. I used to get up at 9-10 am - yes, you can call me a slug-a-bed, but since husband has retired we - again, especially me- have gotten worse. We go to bed at 3 am. It usually takes me until 5 am to fall asleep and we start getting up - very slowly - at 11 am. When we need to, we get up earlier.
But in the coming weeks we will be getting up early (for us) almost every day.
We have to get up early Friday to be out and ready for the setup, Saturday and Sunday we have to be there by 9 am - and getting dressed in the period clothing takes longer than throwing on our regular clothes, plus the drive there.
But I wasn’t worried as I knew I could sleep to normal time on Monday - but no longer can as we have to get up and out even earlier on Monday to be at the generator place by 9 am - it is further away.
Then if I am lucky I will be able to sleep to normal time on Tuesday - but either Tuesday or Wednesday I will need to get up just as early to get to the client in the city - even though I am going there for noon, the trip lately has been taking almost 2 hours. So I will have one of the two days to sleep in to normal time.
Then Thursday I have to get up and out to the board meeting.
Thank goodness for next Friday, Saturday and Sunday and a chance to sleep a bit. But we will have to be setting up the RV for the trip - even more work to be done than normal, as we have to put back everything we took out, plus the stuff we normally put in it for a trip - and make that darn bed - that takes 45 minutes if I am lucky, over an hour if I do something out of order and have to redo it. (Remember, this is the bed that can only be accessed from a 2 foot wide opening at the foot of the bed, so it mostly has to be made while in the bed.)
Then we will be off for a “relaxing” trip. Up early every morning. Pack the inside of the RV so nothing will shift during the day. Unplug the electric and cable. Run around all day and then at night - find the right spot in the RV space that the RV is level and plug in the electric and cable - did it once in a heavy rain storm that was so bad that there were “get inside” for safety purposes. Set up the inside of the RV - invariably we forget to shut the rear curtain while outside and have to go back out to do it. And the last morning we have to make sure to get up early enough to “dump tanks” and be out by 11 am.
So, it has and will be a rather hectic and tiring 2 weeks, especially since all the normal things still have to be done - right now - in less than 7 minutes - I have to run downstairs and switch laundry loads.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
It seems that we go through periods where time is easy - no appointments, just get things done as we can. Then we hit a period of craziness where almost every day is planned and there is little or no time to think. Somehow we always get through it.
So, if I don’t post next week - or the one after - although I certainly plan to, you will know why.
Do other people go through crazy periods like this too?
This week I had planned to go to a client on Tuesday or Wednesday - the one in Manhattan. Due to the severe thunderstorms predicted for Tuesday, I asked her to come there on Wednesday and she could not make the appointment for that day. Which freed up the middle of this week a bit.
Monday night we had our reenactment unit meeting - this is when we get together in modern clothes and discuss recent past events and how they went and what can be done to make them better in the future, upcoming events - the logistics of when and where to be, what we will be doing, who is doing to come to the event, who will cook, what the unit needs to bring - what members need to bring, etc. We also have a presentation by one of the members about something related to the period, the event coming up, or how to improve our presentations. Our next event is a new one, two days long, and in need of more planning than usual as we are the lead group of several groups with the event spread out over a good sized period village and such logistics as what we will do and where we will be if it rains, arrangements for people who are camping overnight at the site (many of the units will be doing so, our unit most will go home overnight), set up, break down, etc. Husband did the program for the meeting on how to do first person (being a person of the past who knows nothing past the specific day in the past) as many of our members are new to this and it is integral to the event. So, most of Monday night was gone - we were not home to eat dinner until after 11 pm.
Monday afternoon husband had tried to start our RV’s generator - it has to be run once a month if it has not been used. It would not start. Not the usual it almost started, but different - maybe it will start tomorrow, but dead silence. The generator is under the back of the RV. Husband gets sick if he is a variety of positions, so I climbed under - all the switches were set correctly. He finally did climb under as we tried to find and see the fuse for it - which we could not do. He telephoned the generator shop we have used in the past - we have to have the oil changed annually and needed to do it for this year (we had run the generator for a whopping 24 hours total over the year) - so that will done also. We are hoping it will not be a huge bill - people talk about generator repair bills being more than a new one would cost. We had figured it would be awhile before they can take us, but they can take us this coming Monday - at 9 am.
Yesterday we went to the bank for the week as we needed to cover some checks and figured if this was out of the way, it would be easier to get ready later in the week for the reenactment event mentioned. I also managed to finish cleaning the inside of the bucket to the dehumidifier in the basement. It has dividers that don’t come out and even my tiny hands could not reach everywhere. Husband came up with the idea of using a stiff, thin artist’s paint brush which worked.
Today we went and cleared out the RV as they will need to go inside and the mattresses, and other items will be in their way. We don’t want anyone near the mattresses any way, and we also took out the wood support pieces for the mattresses. We put them in plastic mattress bags in our living room - on a table husband uses for his weaving - every time I walk past it looks like there is a body laid out in there - ugh. I also caught up on paying bills - with the money we put in yesterday. I then recalculated how much we need to pay bills next week - before we, hopefully, go on a trip the week after. We could pay the bills, but not have any cash for the trip - or pay another bill I anticipate. So tomorrow, the only free day left for a while, we will go and get money from my IRA account - no available money in husband’s until August.
Friday will be the setup day for the event so we will be there a good deal of the day. Saturday and Sunday will be the event - and it now looks like rain, possibly both days. Monday we will be taking the RV to the generator shop. Either Tuesday or Wednesday I have to get to that client. Then Thursday the board of my embroidery chapter is having its annual meeting to plan next year’s meeting programs. The Monday after we are going away for a week - no, really this time, we made the reservations last year and have to pay even if we don’t go, so weather be darned, we will be going.
I am pretty sure I have mentioned that we are not morning people - me in particular. One advantage to being self employed is that I don’t have to get up early. Each of my clients figures that I am at a different one in the morning when I go there in the afternoon. I used to get up at 9-10 am - yes, you can call me a slug-a-bed, but since husband has retired we - again, especially me- have gotten worse. We go to bed at 3 am. It usually takes me until 5 am to fall asleep and we start getting up - very slowly - at 11 am. When we need to, we get up earlier.
But in the coming weeks we will be getting up early (for us) almost every day.
We have to get up early Friday to be out and ready for the setup, Saturday and Sunday we have to be there by 9 am - and getting dressed in the period clothing takes longer than throwing on our regular clothes, plus the drive there.
But I wasn’t worried as I knew I could sleep to normal time on Monday - but no longer can as we have to get up and out even earlier on Monday to be at the generator place by 9 am - it is further away.
Then if I am lucky I will be able to sleep to normal time on Tuesday - but either Tuesday or Wednesday I will need to get up just as early to get to the client in the city - even though I am going there for noon, the trip lately has been taking almost 2 hours. So I will have one of the two days to sleep in to normal time.
Then Thursday I have to get up and out to the board meeting.
Thank goodness for next Friday, Saturday and Sunday and a chance to sleep a bit. But we will have to be setting up the RV for the trip - even more work to be done than normal, as we have to put back everything we took out, plus the stuff we normally put in it for a trip - and make that darn bed - that takes 45 minutes if I am lucky, over an hour if I do something out of order and have to redo it. (Remember, this is the bed that can only be accessed from a 2 foot wide opening at the foot of the bed, so it mostly has to be made while in the bed.)
Then we will be off for a “relaxing” trip. Up early every morning. Pack the inside of the RV so nothing will shift during the day. Unplug the electric and cable. Run around all day and then at night - find the right spot in the RV space that the RV is level and plug in the electric and cable - did it once in a heavy rain storm that was so bad that there were “get inside” for safety purposes. Set up the inside of the RV - invariably we forget to shut the rear curtain while outside and have to go back out to do it. And the last morning we have to make sure to get up early enough to “dump tanks” and be out by 11 am.
So, it has and will be a rather hectic and tiring 2 weeks, especially since all the normal things still have to be done - right now - in less than 7 minutes - I have to run downstairs and switch laundry loads.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
It seems that we go through periods where time is easy - no appointments, just get things done as we can. Then we hit a period of craziness where almost every day is planned and there is little or no time to think. Somehow we always get through it.
So, if I don’t post next week - or the one after - although I certainly plan to, you will know why.
Do other people go through crazy periods like this too?
Thursday, May 10, 2018
I HAVE LOST MOST ORGANIZATION IN THE HOUSE NOW!
Okay I admit it. Between tax season, warping the loom with husband, dealing with our RV, etc. I have lost my organization. I have bank statements from a month ago which have not been reconciled (I did our main ones, but not the smaller ones). I have managed to keep current - barely on paying bills and just realized “How much?” we need to pay the end of the month bills - WOW! I am behind on things I need to get done as treasurer of both clubs. Just when I think we are done with all the other stuff we have to do - something else will pop up.
We managed to get the propane detector installed in the RV - but it does not give the signal that it is checking that it is working that the old one did and this one (same company, same model) says it should - manufacturer says that it does not do it as much as people complained of the noise. We did test it - twice - with the gas from a cigarette lighter and it does go off.
The carbon monoxide detector was sent back yesterday to the company we bought it from. It is not only, not the one we were told it was, it also was not the one pictured online and does not work in an RV. We had to find it elsewhere and order it again and are waiting for the new one to come - again, we can’t go anywhere until it is in the RV and is working.
Now that the weather is nice husband announced it was time to dewinterize the RV. This is two processes. First we dewinterize it - we fill both water tanks and run water through the water taps - hot and cold - sink, shower and outdoor taps, as well as into the RV until the water runs clear so that the non-toxic antifreeze is no longer in the lines. We did this last Friday. This is a fairly quick straight forward thing to do. Since we had planned a trip in December which we did not take, I did not bring the bedding in (sheets and pillowcases were washed as I do them all season) to wash. I pulled one set of bedding (in a laundry bag in a plastic bag) and brought it in when we were done.
We knew we needed bleach for the next step - but since I don’t use bleach for laundry, we decided to check how fresh the bleach we had was - it was not fresh enough to use as it did not smell like bleach. Husband was at full crazy panic mode in general over all this, so I could not bring myself to tell him that when I took the bleach out from under the sink - a place I go several times a week - there was water on the floor of the cabinet. I wiped it up while he was out of the room. I then traced it and it seemed to be coming from the outgoing pipe - I put down paper towels and tied one around where the leak seemed to be - where two pipes joined. I had in my mind that he had washed his hair in the sink the night before - perhaps something happened?
Saturday afternoon we packed our van with the items we would need for a reenactment event with our unit on Sunday. We have a rain date for this event, but the scheduled day for the event is the same day as two other events in the same community - one across the street from where we will be - which brings people to the area and we have more guests than otherwise. Reports were for rain - maybe in the morning, maybe afternoon, maybe all day - maybe light, maybe heavy... So we packed so that if the event was moved inside our headquarters we could bring much less with us than for a regular event, but had the rest of the stuff with us just in case it is nice. (In case you are wondering - we have two wooden boxes with rope handles which are storage for our stuff and also seating for us. We packed what we would need no matter what all in one of the boxes. Husband portrays a person who is printing and selling period publications so we have his inventory and a table setup - that would not be needed if raining. Members of the unit eat the cooking demonstration so we each bring period looking tableware. I bring my embroidery setup - I had just what I needed in the box we would take and the backup stuff in the other) Sunday it was dreary but dry and the idea of setting up a bit outside and planning to run inside if it rained was decided on. We brought just the one box. Luckily the day stayed passable with just some passing showers. At one point during the day - I was sitting outside stitching and talking to people - husband and our unit commander came to me and asked me to move inside. Why? There is a staircase - really a ladder on an angle - which goes to the attic. We keep it tied off unless we have members (generally two young men who are brothers) upstairs for safety in many ways. Well, apparently people were not keeping track of their children and the children were walking up the stairs. So I was relocated to sit in the front of the stairs and block them with my box. I ended up doing tours of the room and house also while there - with the box left to block the stairs. Oh, I could not find the reproduction cap I bring to events to wear. I keep an older one that is a bit youthful for me in one of our boxes - in case I forget. So I brought a new, unworn one that I did not want to use, just in case, but found the old spare one to wear. Later at home I was talking about the cap I normally wear with husband and he mentioned that the last time I wore it was December when we did the Candlelight Nights event. I went and checked my older winter jacket that I had worn to those events - safe and snug in the pocket was my missing cap!
Monday we started the second step of the dewinterizing process - we need to sanitize the tanks and system - in case anything grew in anything during the winter. Again, this is a fairly easy thing to do - fill the tanks with water, add a small amount of bleach to each and then drive the RV up and down the driveway with short stops to mix together. Normally we would have done this after the what we did on Friday on the same day. We then run the water through the same taps as we Friday (but not the toilet bowl - bleach cannot go in it) until we smell the bleach in the water coming out of them. Husband decided to replace the water that had been used from the rear tank (front tank full as the rear tank runs into the front tank). We normally have a problem with the rear tank after this process as some sort of bubble forms and we cannot put water in it when the tanks are emptied after this bleach process and he thought this might resolve the problem as there would be a full tank in the rear. Well, the problem was already there and we needed the setup he had made to deal with it - it is a bunch of plumbing parts put together so we can put a long, thin tube (think fish tank tubing) on the end of the hose and feed the tube all the way into the tank and fill it from the bottom/inside of the tank. He took it out to use. It was so cold this past winter that parts of the assembly burst. So off to the home stores for replacement parts. We went to the “orange” company’s store - no one to help us and no parts that we needed. We went to the “blue and white” company’s store and the man in the department tried hard to help us - he found where the part should be, but was out. We walked around and husband came up with an alternate assembly and we bought what we needed. In the confusion of all this, we forgot to take the insulin (which needs to be kept cold) we picked up at the pharmacy from the car - in just under 80F weather - at least it was in a cold bag, so hope it is okay - this is something I never would have let happen if not for all this craziness taking over my mind.
Tuesday we let the water out of the RV (This involves unscrewing a small cap from underneath the RV - guess who gets to do this.) We then refilled the tanks - and again ran the water through the lines. We repeated filling, emptying and letting the water through the lines. We needed the special setup for the back tank all but the last refill. I brought in the other bag of bedding to wash.
Today we let the water out for the last time and now the water system is ready to be used.
We also received on Tuesday a notice that our reenactment company’s insurance will not be renewed as they are no longer writing the policies in our state - so now I am looking for a new policy for them. Husband searched online for coverage - all listed the company we had the insurance with. Today I called our personal insurance broker and asked if they can help - they had me fax the info to them - but of course the fax machine (an all in one with printer, scanner and copier) decided that there phone number was “restricted” and we could not fax to them. We have never heard of this. After about 40 minutes online husband fixed the problem - we hope. In the meanwhile I emailed the information to the broker. In scanning in the paperwork, I managed to get ink on the scanning unit - all pages had a line down them - and we then spent about an hour finding and cleaning the ink off the scanner - of course the instructions were not in the manual and he had to find them online. I also sent an email to our national reenactment unit - located in the same state as us - asking them about the insurance they have.
For good measure I burned my hand in steam while cooking dinner last night - and in recoiling from the steam, put a bad cramp in my side. While my hand is not badly burned, it does still hurt (last night I could only type on the computer with my left hand - not as easy I would figure to do). Today while we were taking apart the RV electric plug in system that we plugged in to make things easier, I dropped a large and heavyish circuit breaker box on my foot - the opposite side - so now my hand and my foot hurt.
I did tell husband about the leak under the stove last night. The other night I fit a plastic container under the pipe and since then it has been dry. We will keep monitoring the box for water.
Hopefully tomorrow I will be have time to do the bank recs. Time to email reminders to embroidery chapter members who have not renewed to do so - I have to have them in the mail by May 31. Send out a check owed to a reenactment unit member who overpaid the family’s dues.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Sometimes it all just gets away from one. One can go crazy - as my husband does - or try to keep calm and know that somehow and sometime (hopefully soon) the craziness will end and one will be able to start over and catch up. Laundry is being done - but some of last week’s was still in the dryer. Bills are paid. Garbage and recycling has gone out. (While we were in the garage during all this I found a good sized cardboard box for next week’s recycling - I need to have a big enough box to include the empty and rinses out old bleach bottle.) My hand is better, but not perfect today and will recover. My foot has a small bruise but will recover. The biggest concern left is finding replacement insurance in the just over a month we have to do so - but hopefully it will be resolved in time and not for much more than we used to pay.
Does this ever happen to you?
We managed to get the propane detector installed in the RV - but it does not give the signal that it is checking that it is working that the old one did and this one (same company, same model) says it should - manufacturer says that it does not do it as much as people complained of the noise. We did test it - twice - with the gas from a cigarette lighter and it does go off.
The carbon monoxide detector was sent back yesterday to the company we bought it from. It is not only, not the one we were told it was, it also was not the one pictured online and does not work in an RV. We had to find it elsewhere and order it again and are waiting for the new one to come - again, we can’t go anywhere until it is in the RV and is working.
Now that the weather is nice husband announced it was time to dewinterize the RV. This is two processes. First we dewinterize it - we fill both water tanks and run water through the water taps - hot and cold - sink, shower and outdoor taps, as well as into the RV until the water runs clear so that the non-toxic antifreeze is no longer in the lines. We did this last Friday. This is a fairly quick straight forward thing to do. Since we had planned a trip in December which we did not take, I did not bring the bedding in (sheets and pillowcases were washed as I do them all season) to wash. I pulled one set of bedding (in a laundry bag in a plastic bag) and brought it in when we were done.
We knew we needed bleach for the next step - but since I don’t use bleach for laundry, we decided to check how fresh the bleach we had was - it was not fresh enough to use as it did not smell like bleach. Husband was at full crazy panic mode in general over all this, so I could not bring myself to tell him that when I took the bleach out from under the sink - a place I go several times a week - there was water on the floor of the cabinet. I wiped it up while he was out of the room. I then traced it and it seemed to be coming from the outgoing pipe - I put down paper towels and tied one around where the leak seemed to be - where two pipes joined. I had in my mind that he had washed his hair in the sink the night before - perhaps something happened?
Saturday afternoon we packed our van with the items we would need for a reenactment event with our unit on Sunday. We have a rain date for this event, but the scheduled day for the event is the same day as two other events in the same community - one across the street from where we will be - which brings people to the area and we have more guests than otherwise. Reports were for rain - maybe in the morning, maybe afternoon, maybe all day - maybe light, maybe heavy... So we packed so that if the event was moved inside our headquarters we could bring much less with us than for a regular event, but had the rest of the stuff with us just in case it is nice. (In case you are wondering - we have two wooden boxes with rope handles which are storage for our stuff and also seating for us. We packed what we would need no matter what all in one of the boxes. Husband portrays a person who is printing and selling period publications so we have his inventory and a table setup - that would not be needed if raining. Members of the unit eat the cooking demonstration so we each bring period looking tableware. I bring my embroidery setup - I had just what I needed in the box we would take and the backup stuff in the other) Sunday it was dreary but dry and the idea of setting up a bit outside and planning to run inside if it rained was decided on. We brought just the one box. Luckily the day stayed passable with just some passing showers. At one point during the day - I was sitting outside stitching and talking to people - husband and our unit commander came to me and asked me to move inside. Why? There is a staircase - really a ladder on an angle - which goes to the attic. We keep it tied off unless we have members (generally two young men who are brothers) upstairs for safety in many ways. Well, apparently people were not keeping track of their children and the children were walking up the stairs. So I was relocated to sit in the front of the stairs and block them with my box. I ended up doing tours of the room and house also while there - with the box left to block the stairs. Oh, I could not find the reproduction cap I bring to events to wear. I keep an older one that is a bit youthful for me in one of our boxes - in case I forget. So I brought a new, unworn one that I did not want to use, just in case, but found the old spare one to wear. Later at home I was talking about the cap I normally wear with husband and he mentioned that the last time I wore it was December when we did the Candlelight Nights event. I went and checked my older winter jacket that I had worn to those events - safe and snug in the pocket was my missing cap!
Monday we started the second step of the dewinterizing process - we need to sanitize the tanks and system - in case anything grew in anything during the winter. Again, this is a fairly easy thing to do - fill the tanks with water, add a small amount of bleach to each and then drive the RV up and down the driveway with short stops to mix together. Normally we would have done this after the what we did on Friday on the same day. We then run the water through the same taps as we Friday (but not the toilet bowl - bleach cannot go in it) until we smell the bleach in the water coming out of them. Husband decided to replace the water that had been used from the rear tank (front tank full as the rear tank runs into the front tank). We normally have a problem with the rear tank after this process as some sort of bubble forms and we cannot put water in it when the tanks are emptied after this bleach process and he thought this might resolve the problem as there would be a full tank in the rear. Well, the problem was already there and we needed the setup he had made to deal with it - it is a bunch of plumbing parts put together so we can put a long, thin tube (think fish tank tubing) on the end of the hose and feed the tube all the way into the tank and fill it from the bottom/inside of the tank. He took it out to use. It was so cold this past winter that parts of the assembly burst. So off to the home stores for replacement parts. We went to the “orange” company’s store - no one to help us and no parts that we needed. We went to the “blue and white” company’s store and the man in the department tried hard to help us - he found where the part should be, but was out. We walked around and husband came up with an alternate assembly and we bought what we needed. In the confusion of all this, we forgot to take the insulin (which needs to be kept cold) we picked up at the pharmacy from the car - in just under 80F weather - at least it was in a cold bag, so hope it is okay - this is something I never would have let happen if not for all this craziness taking over my mind.
Tuesday we let the water out of the RV (This involves unscrewing a small cap from underneath the RV - guess who gets to do this.) We then refilled the tanks - and again ran the water through the lines. We repeated filling, emptying and letting the water through the lines. We needed the special setup for the back tank all but the last refill. I brought in the other bag of bedding to wash.
Today we let the water out for the last time and now the water system is ready to be used.
We also received on Tuesday a notice that our reenactment company’s insurance will not be renewed as they are no longer writing the policies in our state - so now I am looking for a new policy for them. Husband searched online for coverage - all listed the company we had the insurance with. Today I called our personal insurance broker and asked if they can help - they had me fax the info to them - but of course the fax machine (an all in one with printer, scanner and copier) decided that there phone number was “restricted” and we could not fax to them. We have never heard of this. After about 40 minutes online husband fixed the problem - we hope. In the meanwhile I emailed the information to the broker. In scanning in the paperwork, I managed to get ink on the scanning unit - all pages had a line down them - and we then spent about an hour finding and cleaning the ink off the scanner - of course the instructions were not in the manual and he had to find them online. I also sent an email to our national reenactment unit - located in the same state as us - asking them about the insurance they have.
For good measure I burned my hand in steam while cooking dinner last night - and in recoiling from the steam, put a bad cramp in my side. While my hand is not badly burned, it does still hurt (last night I could only type on the computer with my left hand - not as easy I would figure to do). Today while we were taking apart the RV electric plug in system that we plugged in to make things easier, I dropped a large and heavyish circuit breaker box on my foot - the opposite side - so now my hand and my foot hurt.
I did tell husband about the leak under the stove last night. The other night I fit a plastic container under the pipe and since then it has been dry. We will keep monitoring the box for water.
Hopefully tomorrow I will be have time to do the bank recs. Time to email reminders to embroidery chapter members who have not renewed to do so - I have to have them in the mail by May 31. Send out a check owed to a reenactment unit member who overpaid the family’s dues.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Sometimes it all just gets away from one. One can go crazy - as my husband does - or try to keep calm and know that somehow and sometime (hopefully soon) the craziness will end and one will be able to start over and catch up. Laundry is being done - but some of last week’s was still in the dryer. Bills are paid. Garbage and recycling has gone out. (While we were in the garage during all this I found a good sized cardboard box for next week’s recycling - I need to have a big enough box to include the empty and rinses out old bleach bottle.) My hand is better, but not perfect today and will recover. My foot has a small bruise but will recover. The biggest concern left is finding replacement insurance in the just over a month we have to do so - but hopefully it will be resolved in time and not for much more than we used to pay.
Does this ever happen to you?
Thursday, May 3, 2018
FINALLY STARTING TO CATCH UP
Husband gave up on his weaving project this past Monday - someday he will try to do this type of weaving again, but not now.
I have been working on catching up and getting the house and chores back up to date.
I have stored away the several pairs of boots each of us had out for snow this past winter. We have a sort of charm that we believe in (which did not work this winter) - once a pair of boots comes out for the snow, it is bad luck to put them away before the winter is over and will result in even more snow. Yeah, it is stupid and certainly did not work this winter, but we leave them out anyway. Since my teeth are in their seasonal ache period (spring and fall) and I have my seasonal stiff neck (ditto) I am pretty sure the weather will actually stay warm now. So I put the boots away. Our setup for the boots is 2 good sized plastic boxes with lids at the bottom of the front closet. The bottom box holds the boots for more severe weather - the actual snow boots, a pair each of rubber (plastic?) covered shoe boots and such. The upper box holds the boots that might also be worn in rainy weather - the leather ones - and a pair of my old sneakers which slip on. The latter has nothing to do with boots or bad weather. If I have to run out of the house - take out the garbage, recycling, forgot something in the car - they are easy and quick to slip on instead of stopping to put on shoes with laces to go out. They sit at the front and top of the top box so they can be quickly and easily reached. The lid of the upper box becomes a boot tray when we have the boots out - it is placed next to the front door and wet boots are left on it to dry and await their next wearing. I washed and dried the top of it well before putting it back on the box in the closet.
While I managed to fit in the bank reconciliations for our main bank accounts and those of the clubs of which I am treasurer, I did not get to the other accounts - personal savings accounts and a couple of small checking accounts that are used for money transfers, as well as since it was the quarterly statements, the statements for our IRAs. At this point the new statements will be here next week - so I will do the two months of statements together as that is quicker than doing one set now and one set next week. I did find time today to go back and post the purchases and credits on our main credit card statement from last month. I had matched the slips to the statement and paid the bill - in full of course - but had not had a chance to post it to my computer records - so today I did so. Providence must have been helping me as the items for this statement rarely comes out even (posts done with what was billed and paid) on the first try - sometimes it takes lots of tries - but this was one of the time that it worked out on the first try.
Right now I am doing my Wednesday night laundry. Forgot that I had done a load of jeans last week and it was left in the dryer to dry - so I had to bring them upstairs to be able to use the dryer. I also have 2 extra loads I need to do this week. I change the bed’s “underwear” once a month. While I bought new pillow undercovers during the month (as the ones I had were really icky when I saw them - stained and such) I need to wash the mattress pad I took off. We sleep in winter with two blankets. Since it is now in the 70s during the days husband suggested that we only need one blanket now for the warmer weather. I only made the bed with the green blanket and the blue one is waiting to be washed and put on the bed next week. Why do we have two different color blankets? When we needed a new blanket after we had the bed bugs we bought the blue one. Later when it got colder we decided we needed a second one and the store only had the green ones in the correct size. Since I like blue, I wash the blue one first when we are switching to one blanket and leave the green one on the bed to use while the blue one is washed. Then I will put the clean blue blanket on the bed and wash the green blanket. The green blanket will be put in a clear plastic bag when it is clean and after squeezing as much air as I can, the bag will be sealed. The green blanket will then be store in the bedroom in a piece of furniture (a plastic end table with a shelf under it and a closed cabinet area below that - it used to be in our living room in our apartment). In the fall I will put the green blanket on the bed and again wash and dry the blue one.
Today was my embroidery chapter meeting. Due to illnesses somehow not only was I the treasurer, but the secretary asked me during the week to take minutes for her and then this morning the membership chair called and said she was ill and asked me to take care of the renewals (our national group sets the membership year as June through the following May, so everyone has to renew right now), getting a sign in list of members, etc. for her. Plus the VP is out of state and she asked me to get the list of who will bring what to her house for our annual party next month.
After the meeting - which was the first one I went to since January (February and March meetings were canceled for weather and husband’s birthday meant that I could not go to the April meeting). I ran errands which have been waiting since late January to be done.
I had packed some items to donate. Many of them were old computer disk storage items, some were household serving pieces and others were clothes. The bags have been sitting in front of the office closet door since they were packed in late January - each time I thought it would only be a month before they were taken to Goodwill. So if I needed our business checkbook, new paper for the printer, my other laptop bag (I have one for travel and one for work - they hold different things) or the box of 2017 paid bills that I temporarily stuck in the top of the office closet until I clear out the 2008 box from the top of the closet and pack the 2017 papers (bills, statements and anything else) in it and put it in the top of the closet I had to move all the bags, open the closet door, take out what I need (or put away what I no longer needed) and then put all the bags back. So nice to be able to just open the closet.
Similarly I had not been able to bring back our recyclable plastic (soda) bottles for refund of their deposit since early January. I managed to get rid of one small bag (10 bottles, 50 cents) when I suggested to husband that we get rid of a small bag of bottles easily and quickly in the interim, but I kept forgetting to bring another small bag and get rid of them. There still is about half a month’s bottles in the porch - if all goes as it should, they will be returned next month along with any bottles between now and then.
I even managed to fit in a quick trip to the bank branch where we have a safe deposit box and switch an updated offsite data stick drive for the one in the box - also not done since January and intended as a monthly thing to do. I also ordered new checks as I am down to one book while I was there.
So catching up is progressing. I even fit in one of our VERY long telephone conversations with mom.
I mentioned late last year that we had accumulated and submitted a variety of paperwork to our local township for us to receive a senior real estate tax exemption, which is income based. I am happy to say that I received the paperwork saying that we have been given the exemption. This will cut our property taxes for the school year 2018-2019 and our other real estate taxes for 2019. We have to reapply later this year for the following year - at least now we know what to do and what we will need. I have already started collecting the papers as some of them come in without us having to request them. I start contacting the places I will need additional paperwork from either late this month or the beginning of next month - it is all due by the end of the year, so there is time to get it done easily and they will not send out the forms until late August.
For a bit of extra fun, we need to put a new carbon monoxide monitor alarm and a new propane monitor alarm in our RV. We have actually replaced the carbon monoxide monitor before and did not anticipate any problems with it. We have not needed to replace the propane monitor before, but the instructions seemed pretty straight forward. We had to order both monitors. The propane monitor had to be ordered from Canada. Husband found the carbon monoxide monitor listed for sale online, but the one he found said “marine” across it and is intended for a boat. He emailed the company selling it and was assured that it was it the same one - same model number and all.
The carbon monoxide monitor arrived first at our PO Box. When opened it did say “marine” across it. It also has not only different specifications than the one we have, but also they are different than those in the listing it was purchased from. Husband emailed the company about this on Friday. On Tuesday he telephoned as he had not heard back. The employee had him leave a message for the person he needed to talk to and he was assured he would be called back later in the day - today (Wednesday) he called again, spoke to the same employee and was told the same thing and he was a bit less pleasant and she told him that he had written to the wrong email address (the one in their listings) and gave him her email to send the info to - hopefully this will get resolved.
Husband went to take out the old propane monitor - should be easy - push two pieces of plastic on the front together and pull. Apparently the wire was too short for it to pull out. While we need the wire to attach the new one, we had to squeeze in a small wire cutter and cut the wires to get the old one off. We have attempted to remove the piece of floor in this section to get to where the wire connects - but it won’t lift out even after the screws were removed.
Hopefully both of these will soon work out and be installed or we cannot travel in the RV. Next we will progress to dewinterizing the RV - a messy job over 2 days to drain the antifreeze in the pipes and tanks out, add a vinegar and water mixture, run it through the pipes and shake it around the tanks by driving forward and backwards (I mean backwards or forwards or there will be a hole in the garage door) and stopping quickly. Then the vinegar and water mixture is drained out and plain water put in the tanks - then run out through the pipes and taps (3 pairs of taps and toilet) and then the plain water put in again and run out.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK - If the work that needs to be done seems immense, do it little by little.
Figure out what is most important to be done and do that work.
Take what can be set aside “for now” and do so - but put all of the items set aside as same together.
Then do the next the thing which needs to be done and so on.
It is amazing what will get done this way and you will get closer to catching up, if not caught up completely.
I have been working on catching up and getting the house and chores back up to date.
I have stored away the several pairs of boots each of us had out for snow this past winter. We have a sort of charm that we believe in (which did not work this winter) - once a pair of boots comes out for the snow, it is bad luck to put them away before the winter is over and will result in even more snow. Yeah, it is stupid and certainly did not work this winter, but we leave them out anyway. Since my teeth are in their seasonal ache period (spring and fall) and I have my seasonal stiff neck (ditto) I am pretty sure the weather will actually stay warm now. So I put the boots away. Our setup for the boots is 2 good sized plastic boxes with lids at the bottom of the front closet. The bottom box holds the boots for more severe weather - the actual snow boots, a pair each of rubber (plastic?) covered shoe boots and such. The upper box holds the boots that might also be worn in rainy weather - the leather ones - and a pair of my old sneakers which slip on. The latter has nothing to do with boots or bad weather. If I have to run out of the house - take out the garbage, recycling, forgot something in the car - they are easy and quick to slip on instead of stopping to put on shoes with laces to go out. They sit at the front and top of the top box so they can be quickly and easily reached. The lid of the upper box becomes a boot tray when we have the boots out - it is placed next to the front door and wet boots are left on it to dry and await their next wearing. I washed and dried the top of it well before putting it back on the box in the closet.
While I managed to fit in the bank reconciliations for our main bank accounts and those of the clubs of which I am treasurer, I did not get to the other accounts - personal savings accounts and a couple of small checking accounts that are used for money transfers, as well as since it was the quarterly statements, the statements for our IRAs. At this point the new statements will be here next week - so I will do the two months of statements together as that is quicker than doing one set now and one set next week. I did find time today to go back and post the purchases and credits on our main credit card statement from last month. I had matched the slips to the statement and paid the bill - in full of course - but had not had a chance to post it to my computer records - so today I did so. Providence must have been helping me as the items for this statement rarely comes out even (posts done with what was billed and paid) on the first try - sometimes it takes lots of tries - but this was one of the time that it worked out on the first try.
Right now I am doing my Wednesday night laundry. Forgot that I had done a load of jeans last week and it was left in the dryer to dry - so I had to bring them upstairs to be able to use the dryer. I also have 2 extra loads I need to do this week. I change the bed’s “underwear” once a month. While I bought new pillow undercovers during the month (as the ones I had were really icky when I saw them - stained and such) I need to wash the mattress pad I took off. We sleep in winter with two blankets. Since it is now in the 70s during the days husband suggested that we only need one blanket now for the warmer weather. I only made the bed with the green blanket and the blue one is waiting to be washed and put on the bed next week. Why do we have two different color blankets? When we needed a new blanket after we had the bed bugs we bought the blue one. Later when it got colder we decided we needed a second one and the store only had the green ones in the correct size. Since I like blue, I wash the blue one first when we are switching to one blanket and leave the green one on the bed to use while the blue one is washed. Then I will put the clean blue blanket on the bed and wash the green blanket. The green blanket will be put in a clear plastic bag when it is clean and after squeezing as much air as I can, the bag will be sealed. The green blanket will then be store in the bedroom in a piece of furniture (a plastic end table with a shelf under it and a closed cabinet area below that - it used to be in our living room in our apartment). In the fall I will put the green blanket on the bed and again wash and dry the blue one.
Today was my embroidery chapter meeting. Due to illnesses somehow not only was I the treasurer, but the secretary asked me during the week to take minutes for her and then this morning the membership chair called and said she was ill and asked me to take care of the renewals (our national group sets the membership year as June through the following May, so everyone has to renew right now), getting a sign in list of members, etc. for her. Plus the VP is out of state and she asked me to get the list of who will bring what to her house for our annual party next month.
After the meeting - which was the first one I went to since January (February and March meetings were canceled for weather and husband’s birthday meant that I could not go to the April meeting). I ran errands which have been waiting since late January to be done.
I had packed some items to donate. Many of them were old computer disk storage items, some were household serving pieces and others were clothes. The bags have been sitting in front of the office closet door since they were packed in late January - each time I thought it would only be a month before they were taken to Goodwill. So if I needed our business checkbook, new paper for the printer, my other laptop bag (I have one for travel and one for work - they hold different things) or the box of 2017 paid bills that I temporarily stuck in the top of the office closet until I clear out the 2008 box from the top of the closet and pack the 2017 papers (bills, statements and anything else) in it and put it in the top of the closet I had to move all the bags, open the closet door, take out what I need (or put away what I no longer needed) and then put all the bags back. So nice to be able to just open the closet.
Similarly I had not been able to bring back our recyclable plastic (soda) bottles for refund of their deposit since early January. I managed to get rid of one small bag (10 bottles, 50 cents) when I suggested to husband that we get rid of a small bag of bottles easily and quickly in the interim, but I kept forgetting to bring another small bag and get rid of them. There still is about half a month’s bottles in the porch - if all goes as it should, they will be returned next month along with any bottles between now and then.
I even managed to fit in a quick trip to the bank branch where we have a safe deposit box and switch an updated offsite data stick drive for the one in the box - also not done since January and intended as a monthly thing to do. I also ordered new checks as I am down to one book while I was there.
So catching up is progressing. I even fit in one of our VERY long telephone conversations with mom.
I mentioned late last year that we had accumulated and submitted a variety of paperwork to our local township for us to receive a senior real estate tax exemption, which is income based. I am happy to say that I received the paperwork saying that we have been given the exemption. This will cut our property taxes for the school year 2018-2019 and our other real estate taxes for 2019. We have to reapply later this year for the following year - at least now we know what to do and what we will need. I have already started collecting the papers as some of them come in without us having to request them. I start contacting the places I will need additional paperwork from either late this month or the beginning of next month - it is all due by the end of the year, so there is time to get it done easily and they will not send out the forms until late August.
For a bit of extra fun, we need to put a new carbon monoxide monitor alarm and a new propane monitor alarm in our RV. We have actually replaced the carbon monoxide monitor before and did not anticipate any problems with it. We have not needed to replace the propane monitor before, but the instructions seemed pretty straight forward. We had to order both monitors. The propane monitor had to be ordered from Canada. Husband found the carbon monoxide monitor listed for sale online, but the one he found said “marine” across it and is intended for a boat. He emailed the company selling it and was assured that it was it the same one - same model number and all.
The carbon monoxide monitor arrived first at our PO Box. When opened it did say “marine” across it. It also has not only different specifications than the one we have, but also they are different than those in the listing it was purchased from. Husband emailed the company about this on Friday. On Tuesday he telephoned as he had not heard back. The employee had him leave a message for the person he needed to talk to and he was assured he would be called back later in the day - today (Wednesday) he called again, spoke to the same employee and was told the same thing and he was a bit less pleasant and she told him that he had written to the wrong email address (the one in their listings) and gave him her email to send the info to - hopefully this will get resolved.
Husband went to take out the old propane monitor - should be easy - push two pieces of plastic on the front together and pull. Apparently the wire was too short for it to pull out. While we need the wire to attach the new one, we had to squeeze in a small wire cutter and cut the wires to get the old one off. We have attempted to remove the piece of floor in this section to get to where the wire connects - but it won’t lift out even after the screws were removed.
Hopefully both of these will soon work out and be installed or we cannot travel in the RV. Next we will progress to dewinterizing the RV - a messy job over 2 days to drain the antifreeze in the pipes and tanks out, add a vinegar and water mixture, run it through the pipes and shake it around the tanks by driving forward and backwards (I mean backwards or forwards or there will be a hole in the garage door) and stopping quickly. Then the vinegar and water mixture is drained out and plain water put in the tanks - then run out through the pipes and taps (3 pairs of taps and toilet) and then the plain water put in again and run out.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK - If the work that needs to be done seems immense, do it little by little.
Figure out what is most important to be done and do that work.
Take what can be set aside “for now” and do so - but put all of the items set aside as same together.
Then do the next the thing which needs to be done and so on.
It is amazing what will get done this way and you will get closer to catching up, if not caught up completely.
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
MAJOR OOPS - MANAGED TO STAY ON SCHEDULE - AND A TIME TO CONTEMPLATE
I wrote this post for last week on Tuesday night and set it up to post itself on Wednesday night when I would normally post it, as Wednesday night was a major Jewish holiday - as you will see in the post itself. Sorry. It is now a week later and I am about to write this week's post a night late. My apologies.
I was going to call this post “Treading Water” but in light of the continuation of hurricanes I decided that was in bad taste. I cannot believe that there is another hurricane, Maria, hitting in the Caribbean again. I hope that anyone you might know there is safe and well and stays so. I feel so bad for those in that area.
My thoughts and prayers also go to those in Mexico who have been hit by the earthquake. Back in 1973 I was in Mexico with a college friend. We had spent a few days in Mexico City and then took a 2 day tour bus ride down to Acapulco, with a stop in Taxco for the night. We had two nights in Acapulco (one day). The first morning there we woke to the telephone ringing. My friend’s mom was calling from home - “Are you both okay? Is there a lot of damage there?” Apparently there had been an earthquake then also in Mexico City - and we did not know about it. Others on our tour who flew down to Acapulco instead of the taking the bus arrived with stories of the outside wall of the hotel they were in (and we had been in) splitting between the beds in the room they were in! It was terrifying to have been that close to an earthquake and I feel terribly for those who are there.
I have to say - not as a joke, but a statement of fact - we think we have terrible organizing, decluttering and cleaning to do - but those who are losing their “stuff”, including their homes, possibly their jobs, and worst of all family, friends or even pets, have it much worse. When my mom’s house was hit by Hurricane Sandy, her basement filled 4 feet with sea water and all in her basement had to be tossed out. A crew came in and did it for her - it included her washer and dryer and furnace and water heater - in addition to my dad’s tools and our toys and a lot of books that were down there. Instant forced getting rid of stuff. 5 years later I will still be somewhere at a flea market or such and see something and remember that I had it and it is gone. Perhaps this can be a incentive to go through what you have and get rid of what is unneeded and less precious to you, so that you have room to safely store that which is precious to you.
The hurricane that was headed here, Jose, is no longer a hurricane and is still south of us, but is to pass to the east of where we live and has been affecting here all day today. We had rain today on and off - much heavier to the east of us as they are closer to Jose, but not terrible. Wind has not been bad. But there is still tonight and Jose is suppose to circle around a bit out in the ocean - which apparently is good as it will keep Maria from hitting us.
We did get to the quilt show last Saturday - barely as we were not sure about the, yes, the weather. He really is weather phobic. While it is a quilt show there are many different fiber/textile vendors mixed in as there are no other similar sales venues. The first booth in the show is a woman with a farm who sells wool yarns, fiber, etc. We spent some time there on entering as husband does do weaving. Her wool is lovely, but beyond our budget. We were at the show for about 4 and a half hours. I had a small tote bag with me as husband had brought a fabric tool he bought a few years ago which had broken and the vendor is usually at this show and he hoped they could tell him how to fix it. (“That’s the old model - if you buy a new one we will give it to you for half price.” Same being about twice what he paid originally - he will try again to fix it himself.) So it was not obvious that we had bought - nothing as what we bought might have been in the tote bag. The first vendor stopped us and asked what we had bought - she was shocked to hear “nothing”. We saw many lovely things. The shop my husband bought his loom from (we first saw them at this show a few years ago) was there - interesting add ons for his loom. I got an idea for a Christmas ornament to make and sell - the thread at one booth caught my eye to make it - but they did not have the variegated color as it appeared on their sample and I was not going to spend $10 to get both colors separately. Lovely quilts were entered in their competition and also were displayed in various exhibitions of quilts. We had a wonderful day, bought nothing as we have so much of similar stuff at home that cries out to be used, and had a chance to see wonderful quilts (oh, and in one exhibition - clothing, accessories and house items - all handmade by people who had entered them into a competition). Dinner in the Lancaster are and home.
Despite the impending possible hurricane, we went this morning to the dentist. I have new (and more) teeth. Despite having worn an upper partial for decades, this one is much larger as it replaces more teeth which have “left me”. I am having trouble adjusting - I keep needing to swallow to avoid gagging. Oddly I am biting the inside of my mouth with one of my real teeth which is in the same place it has always been. On the other side of my mouth I have two teeth hitting - but, again, the problem seems to be one of my teeth not the plate. Next Monday we will start on making a spare - using part of my old one. He wanted me to have my old one just in case. I know I will adjust - when I got my first one it took a week before I could talk or eat. Of course between an upper partial and a repair for him and ditto for me, the budget will not adjust for some time.
We came home and then went to the doctor. All was well. He is as nice as his dad was - husband gets upset easily and now feels much better about going to this doctor. And we had a great health report for all of our various “conditions”. (And all covered by our medical insurance - his and mine.)
I am writing this a day early as tomorrow night - Wednesday - when I normally write and post is the start of one of the major Jewish holidays of the year and traditionally one does not and I choose to not do secular things - work or such on these holidays. I set the holiday apart by watching no television other than religious services. I pick out a book that is contemplative and read it - in the living room - in my chair - alone - with no other distractions. Yes, I pray.
I have our Friday afternoon banking and all the bills due this week ready to go tomorrow before the holiday starts. I have tomorrow night’s laundry being washed and dried as I write. So that none of these will need to be done during the holiday.
I use the time to contemplate the year that has passed, what I did that was good, what I did that was not so good and what I can do better in the year to come.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
I am not looking to proselytize (Jews do not do so), but a few customs we have for our “New Year”, which is what this holiday is, are good ideas. As I said, this is our New Year and we take time to contemplate the year that has passed. What have you done right? Done wrong? What could you do a bit better? We take the period following this holiday (we have another one next week to end this period) to apologize to those we have injured - whether or not the person accepts our apology - it is as if they had and the weight of slights or wrongs against others are lifted from us - those who follow the religion more as it was originally will go to running water on a certain day and cast their “sins” into the water (with certain prayers). Apologizing to others, and let negatice thoughts of the past and thoughts of slights against you go - clears one’s mind and lets one focus on what is good and what is to come instead of stewing about the past. Start a new year now cleared of the past and going forward with what you need and want to do. If now then pick any day to do this. I have pointed out in the past that any day is actually the start of a new year.
I was going to call this post “Treading Water” but in light of the continuation of hurricanes I decided that was in bad taste. I cannot believe that there is another hurricane, Maria, hitting in the Caribbean again. I hope that anyone you might know there is safe and well and stays so. I feel so bad for those in that area.
My thoughts and prayers also go to those in Mexico who have been hit by the earthquake. Back in 1973 I was in Mexico with a college friend. We had spent a few days in Mexico City and then took a 2 day tour bus ride down to Acapulco, with a stop in Taxco for the night. We had two nights in Acapulco (one day). The first morning there we woke to the telephone ringing. My friend’s mom was calling from home - “Are you both okay? Is there a lot of damage there?” Apparently there had been an earthquake then also in Mexico City - and we did not know about it. Others on our tour who flew down to Acapulco instead of the taking the bus arrived with stories of the outside wall of the hotel they were in (and we had been in) splitting between the beds in the room they were in! It was terrifying to have been that close to an earthquake and I feel terribly for those who are there.
I have to say - not as a joke, but a statement of fact - we think we have terrible organizing, decluttering and cleaning to do - but those who are losing their “stuff”, including their homes, possibly their jobs, and worst of all family, friends or even pets, have it much worse. When my mom’s house was hit by Hurricane Sandy, her basement filled 4 feet with sea water and all in her basement had to be tossed out. A crew came in and did it for her - it included her washer and dryer and furnace and water heater - in addition to my dad’s tools and our toys and a lot of books that were down there. Instant forced getting rid of stuff. 5 years later I will still be somewhere at a flea market or such and see something and remember that I had it and it is gone. Perhaps this can be a incentive to go through what you have and get rid of what is unneeded and less precious to you, so that you have room to safely store that which is precious to you.
The hurricane that was headed here, Jose, is no longer a hurricane and is still south of us, but is to pass to the east of where we live and has been affecting here all day today. We had rain today on and off - much heavier to the east of us as they are closer to Jose, but not terrible. Wind has not been bad. But there is still tonight and Jose is suppose to circle around a bit out in the ocean - which apparently is good as it will keep Maria from hitting us.
We did get to the quilt show last Saturday - barely as we were not sure about the, yes, the weather. He really is weather phobic. While it is a quilt show there are many different fiber/textile vendors mixed in as there are no other similar sales venues. The first booth in the show is a woman with a farm who sells wool yarns, fiber, etc. We spent some time there on entering as husband does do weaving. Her wool is lovely, but beyond our budget. We were at the show for about 4 and a half hours. I had a small tote bag with me as husband had brought a fabric tool he bought a few years ago which had broken and the vendor is usually at this show and he hoped they could tell him how to fix it. (“That’s the old model - if you buy a new one we will give it to you for half price.” Same being about twice what he paid originally - he will try again to fix it himself.) So it was not obvious that we had bought - nothing as what we bought might have been in the tote bag. The first vendor stopped us and asked what we had bought - she was shocked to hear “nothing”. We saw many lovely things. The shop my husband bought his loom from (we first saw them at this show a few years ago) was there - interesting add ons for his loom. I got an idea for a Christmas ornament to make and sell - the thread at one booth caught my eye to make it - but they did not have the variegated color as it appeared on their sample and I was not going to spend $10 to get both colors separately. Lovely quilts were entered in their competition and also were displayed in various exhibitions of quilts. We had a wonderful day, bought nothing as we have so much of similar stuff at home that cries out to be used, and had a chance to see wonderful quilts (oh, and in one exhibition - clothing, accessories and house items - all handmade by people who had entered them into a competition). Dinner in the Lancaster are and home.
Despite the impending possible hurricane, we went this morning to the dentist. I have new (and more) teeth. Despite having worn an upper partial for decades, this one is much larger as it replaces more teeth which have “left me”. I am having trouble adjusting - I keep needing to swallow to avoid gagging. Oddly I am biting the inside of my mouth with one of my real teeth which is in the same place it has always been. On the other side of my mouth I have two teeth hitting - but, again, the problem seems to be one of my teeth not the plate. Next Monday we will start on making a spare - using part of my old one. He wanted me to have my old one just in case. I know I will adjust - when I got my first one it took a week before I could talk or eat. Of course between an upper partial and a repair for him and ditto for me, the budget will not adjust for some time.
We came home and then went to the doctor. All was well. He is as nice as his dad was - husband gets upset easily and now feels much better about going to this doctor. And we had a great health report for all of our various “conditions”. (And all covered by our medical insurance - his and mine.)
I am writing this a day early as tomorrow night - Wednesday - when I normally write and post is the start of one of the major Jewish holidays of the year and traditionally one does not and I choose to not do secular things - work or such on these holidays. I set the holiday apart by watching no television other than religious services. I pick out a book that is contemplative and read it - in the living room - in my chair - alone - with no other distractions. Yes, I pray.
I have our Friday afternoon banking and all the bills due this week ready to go tomorrow before the holiday starts. I have tomorrow night’s laundry being washed and dried as I write. So that none of these will need to be done during the holiday.
I use the time to contemplate the year that has passed, what I did that was good, what I did that was not so good and what I can do better in the year to come.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
I am not looking to proselytize (Jews do not do so), but a few customs we have for our “New Year”, which is what this holiday is, are good ideas. As I said, this is our New Year and we take time to contemplate the year that has passed. What have you done right? Done wrong? What could you do a bit better? We take the period following this holiday (we have another one next week to end this period) to apologize to those we have injured - whether or not the person accepts our apology - it is as if they had and the weight of slights or wrongs against others are lifted from us - those who follow the religion more as it was originally will go to running water on a certain day and cast their “sins” into the water (with certain prayers). Apologizing to others, and let negatice thoughts of the past and thoughts of slights against you go - clears one’s mind and lets one focus on what is good and what is to come instead of stewing about the past. Start a new year now cleared of the past and going forward with what you need and want to do. If now then pick any day to do this. I have pointed out in the past that any day is actually the start of a new year.
Thursday, July 13, 2017
SO DISORGANIZED SO SUDDENLY
It is amazing how much one (or at least I) become dependant on electronics to keep one organized. The changeover in my cell phone has consumed a lot of my time and is not yet finished. In addition I have been losing touch with many things that needed to be done as my concentration is elsewhere - ie. the new phone.
I have been copying (and pasting) contacts into the new setup based on immediate/upcoming need. That means - immediate family, doctors, and insurance companies went in first along with the presidents of the 2 clubs we belong to. I am now in the midst of copying all the contact information for those in our reenactment unit as we have an event coming up this weekend. I have at least two listings for members (well, family units of members as we have couples, families, singles and married people who belong, but their spouse/family does not) as we ask members for an emergency number as we had a member get injured at an event and we realized that if he had not been married, we would not known who to call to let them know. We do have a cooking fire and the guys are firing flintlock guns plus a reproduction cannon so the possibility for injury exists. I have made my way all the way through the “P’s” of the membership list plus some needed non-member contact information. I hope to have all related to the unit in the new phone by the time we go to the event this weekend.
While away last week we found a plastic case for the back of the phone - only one vendor had any out of all of the stores and markets we have been to. When we returned we ordered a glass protector for the front. We are both rather nervous about putting it on. The protector (actually two of them) arrived today. It looks too small for the phone - which is odd as it seems to be the smallest android phone made. Husband contacted the manufacturer who thinks it might be too big for the phone - huh? When we were looking at phones and husband found this one - size is important and it was the smallest one he found with good reviews - I asked him “Is this a common enough phone that when we go to the farmers markets in Pennsylvania we will be able to easily get a back case and glass protector?” He told me yes. Apparently not. We also picked up last week, at one of the markets, a generic cell phone case as the one I was using was a bit tight on the phone - it was from old one which is about 3/4 the size of this one. It feels much bigger in my pocket and I have had to rearrange everything in the pocket - and move something to the other pocket as well. When we finally get the glass protector on - if we do - I will make a lighter, smaller case of felt for it.
But in concentrating on the phone things are slipping through my fingers. While away I received an email from the regional treasurer of my embroidery group. She wanted to know if I had received a check she had mailed to me. I replied that I had received the check. I remembered I had although I could not find the email I remember sending her when it arrived, I did find the email to the chapter board telling them about it. I also remember depositing the check and told her I had done so. When we returned home I went to look for the original email I had sent to her and found it. I looked for the deposit slip for the check and could not find it. Nor was it recorded in the checkbook. Nor was there a computer scan of the deposit (which I do now as printed deposit slips don’t show the entire account number - just in case). I also could not find the check. I had a day of panic over this before finding the check. I sent an email explaining (and why I was in such a state of disorganization) and that the check had not been deposited, but would be this week. Deposit slip has been made and scanned and is in the “banking” envelope to go to the bank.
In the mail when we returned home was an envelope with receipts from a member of our reenacting unit for me to reimburse him for purchase for the unit. I put it on my desk to pay and also sent him an email to let him know I will bring it to the event this coming weekend.
But then I remembered. The fellow who does the cooking for the unit gave me receipts for his purchases for the food he cooked at the last event. I told him I would send him a check. But the day after the phone switch occurred. I would normally run the receipts through the suitcase heater as they came from someone’s house. I looked in my Organizer and saw that I ran a heating later in the week after I went to the embroidery guild meeting - the receipts from him, as well as papers I had written notes on, should have been included in that heating. I cannot find my notes either.
I have one place left to look - in our van which we used for the event - but the van is at the service station for state inspection tomorrow. If I do not find the papers there, I will have to apologize to the fellow and ask him for an estimate of what I owe him. (If I find the papers I will email an apology for the lateness of the payment.) Either way I will write the check for him and bring to the event this weekend.
I do not like making errors with finances - our own and even more so with other people’s money. I am very upset with myself that a simple thing that most people would think nothing of, getting a new cell phone, would be this upsetting and disorganizing. I hate having to admit to errors when dealing with other people’s money as it makes me feel that they will think me untrustworthy.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
We all have times when we loose our sense of direction (in this case organization). We have to be truthful about errors that result or cause the loss of direction and do our best to correct the situations which result and make amends to correct the situations. We can then start anew and try to make sure that we are more careful in the future.
I have been copying (and pasting) contacts into the new setup based on immediate/upcoming need. That means - immediate family, doctors, and insurance companies went in first along with the presidents of the 2 clubs we belong to. I am now in the midst of copying all the contact information for those in our reenactment unit as we have an event coming up this weekend. I have at least two listings for members (well, family units of members as we have couples, families, singles and married people who belong, but their spouse/family does not) as we ask members for an emergency number as we had a member get injured at an event and we realized that if he had not been married, we would not known who to call to let them know. We do have a cooking fire and the guys are firing flintlock guns plus a reproduction cannon so the possibility for injury exists. I have made my way all the way through the “P’s” of the membership list plus some needed non-member contact information. I hope to have all related to the unit in the new phone by the time we go to the event this weekend.
While away last week we found a plastic case for the back of the phone - only one vendor had any out of all of the stores and markets we have been to. When we returned we ordered a glass protector for the front. We are both rather nervous about putting it on. The protector (actually two of them) arrived today. It looks too small for the phone - which is odd as it seems to be the smallest android phone made. Husband contacted the manufacturer who thinks it might be too big for the phone - huh? When we were looking at phones and husband found this one - size is important and it was the smallest one he found with good reviews - I asked him “Is this a common enough phone that when we go to the farmers markets in Pennsylvania we will be able to easily get a back case and glass protector?” He told me yes. Apparently not. We also picked up last week, at one of the markets, a generic cell phone case as the one I was using was a bit tight on the phone - it was from old one which is about 3/4 the size of this one. It feels much bigger in my pocket and I have had to rearrange everything in the pocket - and move something to the other pocket as well. When we finally get the glass protector on - if we do - I will make a lighter, smaller case of felt for it.
But in concentrating on the phone things are slipping through my fingers. While away I received an email from the regional treasurer of my embroidery group. She wanted to know if I had received a check she had mailed to me. I replied that I had received the check. I remembered I had although I could not find the email I remember sending her when it arrived, I did find the email to the chapter board telling them about it. I also remember depositing the check and told her I had done so. When we returned home I went to look for the original email I had sent to her and found it. I looked for the deposit slip for the check and could not find it. Nor was it recorded in the checkbook. Nor was there a computer scan of the deposit (which I do now as printed deposit slips don’t show the entire account number - just in case). I also could not find the check. I had a day of panic over this before finding the check. I sent an email explaining (and why I was in such a state of disorganization) and that the check had not been deposited, but would be this week. Deposit slip has been made and scanned and is in the “banking” envelope to go to the bank.
In the mail when we returned home was an envelope with receipts from a member of our reenacting unit for me to reimburse him for purchase for the unit. I put it on my desk to pay and also sent him an email to let him know I will bring it to the event this coming weekend.
But then I remembered. The fellow who does the cooking for the unit gave me receipts for his purchases for the food he cooked at the last event. I told him I would send him a check. But the day after the phone switch occurred. I would normally run the receipts through the suitcase heater as they came from someone’s house. I looked in my Organizer and saw that I ran a heating later in the week after I went to the embroidery guild meeting - the receipts from him, as well as papers I had written notes on, should have been included in that heating. I cannot find my notes either.
I have one place left to look - in our van which we used for the event - but the van is at the service station for state inspection tomorrow. If I do not find the papers there, I will have to apologize to the fellow and ask him for an estimate of what I owe him. (If I find the papers I will email an apology for the lateness of the payment.) Either way I will write the check for him and bring to the event this weekend.
I do not like making errors with finances - our own and even more so with other people’s money. I am very upset with myself that a simple thing that most people would think nothing of, getting a new cell phone, would be this upsetting and disorganizing. I hate having to admit to errors when dealing with other people’s money as it makes me feel that they will think me untrustworthy.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
We all have times when we loose our sense of direction (in this case organization). We have to be truthful about errors that result or cause the loss of direction and do our best to correct the situations which result and make amends to correct the situations. We can then start anew and try to make sure that we are more careful in the future.
Thursday, May 11, 2017
SHREDDING AND SCANNING
I have been very busy scanning bills and shredding papers - two separate, but slightly related projects. This has taken me only about 4 days - and by days I mean 4 sessions of a few hours each.
First the scanning - Last month I decided and posted about - 4-13-17 POST
- deciding to scan in bills as I pay them. Understand if I pay a charge card bill, I am only scanning in the statement, not every slip - even I am not that crazy - this is to make it easier if I need to view or need a copy of what I paid. Per the earlier post this is the result of needing a bill from last year and not being able to find it. I was lucky enough to have a scan of the bill and was able to use that for reference.
So I have since been scanning each bill as I pay it. For our personal checking account I am scanning them into my data drive. I set up a folder for the year with a subfolder for each month to make it all easier to find. For our business checking account I am just using a folder for the year as we write very few checks. I will go back when I have a chance shortly and scan in the bills from earlier in the year.
Once a year I empty out the oldest storage box of records - I have 9 boxes so it is the one from 9 years before - and refill it with the previous year. I cannot do this in earlier in the year as I want to include in the new year’s storage, the papers needed for income tax and our bank statements through the end of the prior year and I like to have the last statement we have at hand - some of our statements come in quarterly, so this can not be done before mid-April at the earliest and generally later than that. This year since I did not put our business return on extension I was ready to do this switch over now. I have been getting rid of 2007 records to make room for storage of 2016 records.
I was already to get rid of the 2007 records when the thought hit me - why not scan in the 2016 bills so I have them for reference before I store them away.
Second, the shredding - Before I get rid of the old records (in this case 2007) I shred them. I shred and shred and shred. I actually ended up with almost 39 gallons (3 kitchen bags) of shredded papers. Some papers I toss in the shredder without looking at, others I check first.
Which ones do I check? I look through the checking statements - personal and business - and keep any checks which paid income taxes or sales taxes (for the business). I keep these (or a scan of them - front and back) forever. I set them aside in my “to file” holder on my desk to file at the end of the week when I do filing. They will go in my tax files - personal or business - depending on what they are for. I also go quickly through our credit card statements. I look for any large amounts (over $100) and check what they are for. If they are for hotels, food, etc. I just skip them. If they are for a specific thing I look at them. This is especially true for expenditures for the house which may add to its cost (technically its “basis”) when we or our heirs one day sell the house and will lessen the profit on that sale. Anything else large I look at and sometimes discuss with my husband if we need to keep it for any reason. Almost always anything other than house related bills go into the shredder. For 2007 there were few bills that I looked at and those were large food bills or hotel bills. One bill was for a clothing item for me to wear when reenacting. I pulled that bill and made a note of the name of the company as reenacting friends have asked where I bought it and I did not remember. Now I have the name to give them.
Now here is where I took a big chance on being able to do two things at once. I had the large plastic box of 2007 records and a cardboard box (that originally held large manila envelopes) which was holding our 2016 bills. Two tasks to do - which to do?
Both of course. I would put a bill from 2016 in the scanner and hit the scan buttons. I would then take a handful of papers from the 2007 box and shred them - setting aside the bank and credit card statements. I did this for 3 days - working in checking the statements and shredding them also. I managed to not shred any of the 2016 records and not scan any of the 2007 records.
As of tonight I have finished shredding all of 2016 and the 3 white kitchen size bags of same have been put into a large black garbage bag - so that one cannot see what is in the bags through the white plastic - and the large black garbage bag is out at the curb for pickup tomorrow morning by the Town sanitation department (the garbagemen).
I have also finished scanning of our personal bills from 2016. I have maybe 30 bills for our business which I will scan tomorrow. The box from 2007 has been refilled with bank statements from 2016 and the personal bills from same - the business bills will be added. The information used to do our and the business’s income taxes are also in the box (but not the copies of the returns - they are in my accounting file drawer for my accounting practice - although they are also scanned into the computer as I also do with clients’s returns.
Right now my office is a mess. I end up emptying the shredded papers into our garbage pail in the office as the shredder fills. While I have a fairly heavy duty shredder, it can fill our 13 gallon garbage pail at least 3 times. Pouring this into the larger pail invariably ends up with shreds of paper all over - they have a good deal of static electricity and stick to things. I have promised husband now that I am finished I will vacuum the office tomorrow to clean it up - okay, they followed me out of the office door (it is a spare upstairs bedroom) into the hall and partially down the stairs and that will also need to be vacuumed.
After I scan the 2016 business records into the computer I will add them to the box. I have already gone through our personal and our business file drawers and pulled any records which are not needed at hand for last year and put them in the box. Before putting the box back into the closet I will take a folder in our file drawer marked “last year to file” and add some papers to the 2015 box. These are papers which for whatever reason were not stored or were not able to be stored away when I did this last year for 2015 (which replaced 2006 in a box). I know that something will always turn up which is why I have this file.
I also have a file called “this year”. It is the place I throw anything I want/need to keep and don’t know where to file - it is gone through when I do this switch over and the papers will either go into the 2016 box, be tossed or in some cases left in the folder. To give an example - we receive in the mail a card each from our election board each year with voting information for the year - where to vote, what votes there are and when they will be. I keep this card so when we go to vote we can figure out which of the, constantly changing in location, tables is the one for us to vote at. I keep it until the next year’s cards arrive. Last year we did not receive the cards when they were mailed for the primary (I telephoned and was told we should have received them and confirmed where we should go to vote) and we brought the one from the year before to help us figure out where to go in the room. (Mysteriously they did arrive, several months late, before the actual election.) Normally when we get the new cards I shred the old ones and throw them out - but they “reside” in this folder.
In past years in going through the records to be shed from the older year, I have found interesting items such as paper items from our 25th anniversary stay at a Colonial Williamsburg restored tavern - I did not keep any longer, but it was nice to remember the stay. (Yes, one can stay in restored houses and taverns on streets within the restoration as part of their hotels. It is rather pricey by our standards and this was the only time we did so - and even then, we stayed there for 3 nights during a reenacting weekend and stayed at a regular - much cheaper - hotel the rest of the stay.) This time I could tell by various papers and checks I found that this was the year husband quit his job (which is when I thought he did). Hard to believe that 10 years has passed.
Oh - you may wonder why 9 years in boxes - why not an even 10? Two reasons. The boxes were sold in packages of 3 boxes. Also I can fit 9 boxes on top of the closet in our office, but not 10. I figure that with the current year I have 10 years of records for taxes - and with scanning - even more.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
How do your store your old records? Presuming that you are in the U.S. you need to keep at a bare minimum 3 years of records for income taxes. Ten are generally recommended. IRS and states can generally audit you or say that there is an error for 3 years after you file a tax return, 7 years if after the due date if you do not file a return. (General rule - states can always have their own laws.)
I know that in the past our state has had “amnesty” periods when one can file a tax return which one has not filed and/or pay any taxes owed and apply to have any penalties on that amount waived so that one only pays the tax and interest (and sometimes one does not even have to pay the interest). I know that clients, as well as us, have received notices during these amnesty periods for return which were filed and paid. When I contacted the state about it being too long after the returns were filed and paid as no notices were receive before and it was past the 3 or even the 7 years I always got the same response - “We mailed you notices and we do not know why you did not get them so the action was started within the required 3 years.”
As a result of this I tell clients to keep all payments for taxes forever. This is the checks which pay estimated taxes or the final payment, W2 forms with withholding. 1099 forms of any type which have taxes withheld (these are the forms you receive in January for interest, dividends, stocks etc sold, amounts you received from pensions IRAs or 401k plans etc), Forms K1 from partnerships, small business corporations or LLCs, etc. You can scan in them into your computer to keep them or keep them as paper copies or both. I keep copies of same of ours.
First the scanning - Last month I decided and posted about - 4-13-17 POST
- deciding to scan in bills as I pay them. Understand if I pay a charge card bill, I am only scanning in the statement, not every slip - even I am not that crazy - this is to make it easier if I need to view or need a copy of what I paid. Per the earlier post this is the result of needing a bill from last year and not being able to find it. I was lucky enough to have a scan of the bill and was able to use that for reference.
So I have since been scanning each bill as I pay it. For our personal checking account I am scanning them into my data drive. I set up a folder for the year with a subfolder for each month to make it all easier to find. For our business checking account I am just using a folder for the year as we write very few checks. I will go back when I have a chance shortly and scan in the bills from earlier in the year.
Once a year I empty out the oldest storage box of records - I have 9 boxes so it is the one from 9 years before - and refill it with the previous year. I cannot do this in earlier in the year as I want to include in the new year’s storage, the papers needed for income tax and our bank statements through the end of the prior year and I like to have the last statement we have at hand - some of our statements come in quarterly, so this can not be done before mid-April at the earliest and generally later than that. This year since I did not put our business return on extension I was ready to do this switch over now. I have been getting rid of 2007 records to make room for storage of 2016 records.
I was already to get rid of the 2007 records when the thought hit me - why not scan in the 2016 bills so I have them for reference before I store them away.
Second, the shredding - Before I get rid of the old records (in this case 2007) I shred them. I shred and shred and shred. I actually ended up with almost 39 gallons (3 kitchen bags) of shredded papers. Some papers I toss in the shredder without looking at, others I check first.
Which ones do I check? I look through the checking statements - personal and business - and keep any checks which paid income taxes or sales taxes (for the business). I keep these (or a scan of them - front and back) forever. I set them aside in my “to file” holder on my desk to file at the end of the week when I do filing. They will go in my tax files - personal or business - depending on what they are for. I also go quickly through our credit card statements. I look for any large amounts (over $100) and check what they are for. If they are for hotels, food, etc. I just skip them. If they are for a specific thing I look at them. This is especially true for expenditures for the house which may add to its cost (technically its “basis”) when we or our heirs one day sell the house and will lessen the profit on that sale. Anything else large I look at and sometimes discuss with my husband if we need to keep it for any reason. Almost always anything other than house related bills go into the shredder. For 2007 there were few bills that I looked at and those were large food bills or hotel bills. One bill was for a clothing item for me to wear when reenacting. I pulled that bill and made a note of the name of the company as reenacting friends have asked where I bought it and I did not remember. Now I have the name to give them.
Now here is where I took a big chance on being able to do two things at once. I had the large plastic box of 2007 records and a cardboard box (that originally held large manila envelopes) which was holding our 2016 bills. Two tasks to do - which to do?
Both of course. I would put a bill from 2016 in the scanner and hit the scan buttons. I would then take a handful of papers from the 2007 box and shred them - setting aside the bank and credit card statements. I did this for 3 days - working in checking the statements and shredding them also. I managed to not shred any of the 2016 records and not scan any of the 2007 records.
As of tonight I have finished shredding all of 2016 and the 3 white kitchen size bags of same have been put into a large black garbage bag - so that one cannot see what is in the bags through the white plastic - and the large black garbage bag is out at the curb for pickup tomorrow morning by the Town sanitation department (the garbagemen).
I have also finished scanning of our personal bills from 2016. I have maybe 30 bills for our business which I will scan tomorrow. The box from 2007 has been refilled with bank statements from 2016 and the personal bills from same - the business bills will be added. The information used to do our and the business’s income taxes are also in the box (but not the copies of the returns - they are in my accounting file drawer for my accounting practice - although they are also scanned into the computer as I also do with clients’s returns.
Right now my office is a mess. I end up emptying the shredded papers into our garbage pail in the office as the shredder fills. While I have a fairly heavy duty shredder, it can fill our 13 gallon garbage pail at least 3 times. Pouring this into the larger pail invariably ends up with shreds of paper all over - they have a good deal of static electricity and stick to things. I have promised husband now that I am finished I will vacuum the office tomorrow to clean it up - okay, they followed me out of the office door (it is a spare upstairs bedroom) into the hall and partially down the stairs and that will also need to be vacuumed.
After I scan the 2016 business records into the computer I will add them to the box. I have already gone through our personal and our business file drawers and pulled any records which are not needed at hand for last year and put them in the box. Before putting the box back into the closet I will take a folder in our file drawer marked “last year to file” and add some papers to the 2015 box. These are papers which for whatever reason were not stored or were not able to be stored away when I did this last year for 2015 (which replaced 2006 in a box). I know that something will always turn up which is why I have this file.
I also have a file called “this year”. It is the place I throw anything I want/need to keep and don’t know where to file - it is gone through when I do this switch over and the papers will either go into the 2016 box, be tossed or in some cases left in the folder. To give an example - we receive in the mail a card each from our election board each year with voting information for the year - where to vote, what votes there are and when they will be. I keep this card so when we go to vote we can figure out which of the, constantly changing in location, tables is the one for us to vote at. I keep it until the next year’s cards arrive. Last year we did not receive the cards when they were mailed for the primary (I telephoned and was told we should have received them and confirmed where we should go to vote) and we brought the one from the year before to help us figure out where to go in the room. (Mysteriously they did arrive, several months late, before the actual election.) Normally when we get the new cards I shred the old ones and throw them out - but they “reside” in this folder.
In past years in going through the records to be shed from the older year, I have found interesting items such as paper items from our 25th anniversary stay at a Colonial Williamsburg restored tavern - I did not keep any longer, but it was nice to remember the stay. (Yes, one can stay in restored houses and taverns on streets within the restoration as part of their hotels. It is rather pricey by our standards and this was the only time we did so - and even then, we stayed there for 3 nights during a reenacting weekend and stayed at a regular - much cheaper - hotel the rest of the stay.) This time I could tell by various papers and checks I found that this was the year husband quit his job (which is when I thought he did). Hard to believe that 10 years has passed.
Oh - you may wonder why 9 years in boxes - why not an even 10? Two reasons. The boxes were sold in packages of 3 boxes. Also I can fit 9 boxes on top of the closet in our office, but not 10. I figure that with the current year I have 10 years of records for taxes - and with scanning - even more.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
How do your store your old records? Presuming that you are in the U.S. you need to keep at a bare minimum 3 years of records for income taxes. Ten are generally recommended. IRS and states can generally audit you or say that there is an error for 3 years after you file a tax return, 7 years if after the due date if you do not file a return. (General rule - states can always have their own laws.)
I know that in the past our state has had “amnesty” periods when one can file a tax return which one has not filed and/or pay any taxes owed and apply to have any penalties on that amount waived so that one only pays the tax and interest (and sometimes one does not even have to pay the interest). I know that clients, as well as us, have received notices during these amnesty periods for return which were filed and paid. When I contacted the state about it being too long after the returns were filed and paid as no notices were receive before and it was past the 3 or even the 7 years I always got the same response - “We mailed you notices and we do not know why you did not get them so the action was started within the required 3 years.”
As a result of this I tell clients to keep all payments for taxes forever. This is the checks which pay estimated taxes or the final payment, W2 forms with withholding. 1099 forms of any type which have taxes withheld (these are the forms you receive in January for interest, dividends, stocks etc sold, amounts you received from pensions IRAs or 401k plans etc), Forms K1 from partnerships, small business corporations or LLCs, etc. You can scan in them into your computer to keep them or keep them as paper copies or both. I keep copies of same of ours.
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