**Update on the fire: We had some rain and the fire is now 87% contained. It is looking fairly good for the family cabin. Phew!!! It did rain one inch (Thursday?) and there was a flash flood warning; concerns about all the debris from the fire. You can't win! But in the end, it seems the rain helped substantially.**

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Today I decided to sit down and get the October bills paid since I won't be in town next weekend. Now that I think about it, it is wise to get the October bills paid regardless. Where did the month go???

Bills paid (er, set to pay next week):

--Gardener
--HOA
--Gas
--County (sewer)

{These all come from the checkbook; can't throw on credit - so I pay around the first of every month}.

I set to pay these because I have enough cash in my checking account to cover.

After I get my paycheck deposited next week I will immediately pay:

--Mortgage
--Piano teacher
--September Visa charges
--September Gas/Grocery charges (Amex Rewards card)
--September Target charges (groceries)

Also, will fund monthly investments at that time.

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This month has been spendy.

Where to begin?

**This weekend I am doing a shoe purge.

It is *impossible* for me to find (work/nice) shoes for my feet. BUT, I did a shoe buying binge and actually found some comfortable shoes. I think. (I can never tell until I wear them for like a whole week).

The short version is that after buying more and more expensive shoes at the urging of others ("expensive shoes are always better"), I found a pair of very comfortable and nice looking shoes in my closet. They were FREE. (I had gotten them in order to receive free shipping on a large purchase). I bought a second pair (same shoes) on sale this week for $25. They are not some expensive or fancy brand, I got them at Sears.

Conclusion: Spending more money is NOT solving my problem. I have been thoroughly unimpressed with the quality of any more expensive shoes that I have bought in recent years. The best shoes are free?

Today I will work on returning ill-fitting shoes. I also purged 5 pairs of shoes from my closet. (Kept them for backups but am purging everything not 100% comfortable, now that I have more than one pair of shoes suitable for work. Also, one pair of shoes went to the trash).

**Edited to Add: Final tally. Kept 3 shoes for a total of $75 spent (average $25 x 3). Returned the rest today.**

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Other spending:

--Dh's car had a $600 repair. (We save $750/year per car, for repairs, so that is covered with those funds).

--Dh bought tickets to a show in San Francisco next month. $20/each.

--Target had monkey PJs (basically monkey costumes) on sale for $19.99. That was actually my anniversary present! Dh told me he would have gotten one for himself too (they were in the mens section) but they were out of stock. I saw them on sale online and then the kids wanted them too. PERFECT anniversary gift. Will have to get a picture of us all in our monkey PJs.

Spending other people's money:

Dh's family gave us $80 for our anniversary. Woohoo!

$40 in cash and $40 in checks.

We had planned a decadent lunch out and so spent about $40 on that.

The cash was perfect because we have the school fall festival this weekend. It's like one of the only kind of things we ever go to the ATM for any more. So, it saved us a trip to the ATM. Was happy to donate $40 to the school, in exchange for lots of food and entertainment.

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Dh's aunt returned to Hong Kong and so we turned off the cell phone she borrowed. It is the second time we have activated a 5th phone for a purpose like that. It was $6 for the month (Ting). She did not run up enough minutes or data to push up our bill at all. So, we were able to make her life very easy for $6. We will get the cell phone back from dh's family later.