Nope, there is no peace here.  *sigh*  Back on the crazy train.  I suppose I spoke too soon.  My one remaining 'dumpster fire' employee had *two* significant emergencies this week.  & my Dad got some all clear for maybe a week or two and is now sent back for a bajillion medical tests.  So... Back to the same old, same old. 

December is shaping up to be busy busy.  

My plan for this weekend was to get through all things financial aid and scholarships.  Instead of just completing everything ASAP, we moved some assets around and maximized our timing.   Sorted everything out by 11/30, so completing all of the financial aid forms this weekend. 

I did end up adding a College category in Quicken.  We've been spoiled with the schools paying for all things AP/ACT/SAT.  But...  Will probably spend $400 on college apps this month and $60 on financial aid form submissions.  I am just using MH's unemployment money to cover all of these fees.  MM applied for two State colleges already and will probably spend winter break finalizing his private school applications. 

The plan for next weekend is to do side work and to renew my professional license.  I guess my general plan was to free up the last two weekends of the year to be more relaxed.  

Work is so busy this time of year, I generally don't participate in the Holidays.  This year is probably extra low key with the cancellation of my work Christmas party.  I bought the kids some stocking stuffer type gifts, but that's about it.  Gum for DL, because he is getting his braces off!  I spent a whole whopping $14, and that may be the extent of my Christmas spending.   Charity instead of consumerism, is more of the focus for us.  

If things don't shut down entirely, DL should be getting his braces off around New Year's eve.  That's exciting!  (I don't know if dental/ortho is on the shut down list.  Prepping for a big shut down due to lack of hospital beds in our region).

It sounds like DL(15) is going to pass on getting his driver's permit right now.  I am not surprised whatsoever.  MM, MH and I were all "get our driver's license the minute we turned 16" personalities.  DL is the tortoise to MM's hare (they are so complete opposites) and so I was not surprised.  That said, he also never learned to ride a bike.  So we are going to lean on him pretty hard to at least get the license and the practice (even if he never buys a car and just embraces uber/lyft culture).  He just needs to rip off the band aid and do it.  He will never get easier practice than just driving to school every day.  In the end, he told us he wanted to wait out the pandemic.  I think that's fair enough and I will save the 'leaning on him' for next winter if he is still balking.  Winter break is a good time to do the online part of the driving course. 

Will have to sort out the car situation in that case, but will cross that bridge when we get to it.  It sounds like DL might be open to getting his permit over the summer.  At that point, we should have a much better idea if MM has any use of a car (based on college choice).  Then we sort out all things car.  

I did buy $500 in Target gift cards yesterday, 10% off.  I've never done the max before, but we had so much extra income this year.  And...  Expect so much less income next year.

In the end, I decided to load up all our (old) gift cards in our Target account.  So...  I ended up with $300 (probably everything I bought last year 10% off and never used).  We have $300 sitting in our account now and $500 gift cards to load once we get through these old ones.  We used to keep a bunch of $20 gift cards in hand for random gifts and stuff, but we don't seem to be using.  I had also earmarked some for school supplies, but didn't use the last couple of years.  (For high school, kids really mostly seem to need paper and pens/pencils, which MH stocked up on some point when on sale).

We spend about $100/month at Target, for groceries.  So is why I bought the $500 gift cards this time.  Instead of "saving gift cards for later", this time will just spend them down while MH is unemployed.  

In other complete randomness, I bought some nail wraps a while ago.  I picked them up on Etsy for $3-$4 per set.   They were so easy to apply and lasted for so long... I wanted to pick up some Christmas/winter ones for December so did my second order.  

I share because I have some friends doing Color Street? and a co-worker was buying some of those.  When I told her these were $3 on Etsy, she told me she had been paying $10 for some of them.  Yeesh!