January 26

$22 Tax Software

$5 College Application Fee of some sort

$0 Target (Groceries)

Dinner:  Tortellini Soup (Instant Pot)

MH asked me if I needed anything from Target.  I thought about it this morning when going through and paying bills.  I checked and he has $80 in the Target cart, but we bought up a bunch of gift cards while on sale in December.  Will be $0 from our budget.

This would have put our grocery/household spending to $740 for the month (without the Target gift cards), or about $110 below budget.  It was just a weird month.  I do think some of the high calorie baking and deep fried fritters and stuff like that has maybe helped to keep the teen boys fed.  But... I think mostly it was how the timing worked out.  

As hospitals are less impacted and more people are vaccinated, I presume that MH will go back to grocery shopping every 10 days.  Once every two weeks is a *lot*.  He refuses to take anyone with him to get a second shopping cart and I feel bad adding anything to the grocery list (unless it is necessary).  So that might also be a lot of it.  Will probably just re-assess in another 10 days.

We had a whole whopping $12 balance on our dining out card, so I sent the payment in a couple of days ago.  & then I completely forgot and did it again today.  Doh.  At least it was just $12.  I will probably order a pizza some time in February, if things get less grim here.  A somewhat pre-paid pizza...

Groceries are done for the month probably, so paid off the grocery card.  I usually pay off the balance of our credit cards around the first every month (pay day) but I have the cash for such a low-spend month.   We enter every new month 'debt free'.  It's just my thing, I use the credit cards for convenience, but pay them off before the new month begins.  When I was younger and less wealthy, always utilized the float more.  Now I just don't care and like to make life very simple.  Could also be motivated by having too many credit cards (for rewards).  Rather than 'manage several credit cards' I just put them all on a monthly billing cycle and pay them all off the same time every month.  

Oh yeah, and I noticed that MM(17) paid off his credit card though he had charged $5 at some point for some transcripts (obviously for some college application).  I just sent the $5 payment to his card today, to make us square. 

So...  I had a big DOH moment when I entirely forgot to buy tax software this year.  I bought around Black Friday the prior couple of years.  Before that I was spoiled by 'free professional tax software' at work, for about 20 years.  Which is no doubt why they thought hadn't crossed my mind at all.  Anyway, I realized around New Years.  I had set up in camelcamelcamel last year (they only time I have ever used this website).  I was able to look back and see that prices are usually good around January 31.  I set up a price watch for the 2020 tax software and figured I'd probably be buying this weekend.

I did set it up to tell me if it dropped even one cent, but I didn't get a single email until today.  Dropped from $30 to 22.  Which was same as Black Friday pricing.  It is done. 

I did also put it on my calendar, for every future year, to remember to buy tax software on Black Friday. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

January 27

NSD

Dinner:  Thai Basil

Wow, what a night!  Crazy storm, not sure I remember a storm that powerful before.  60mph gusts in our neighborhood.  Mostly wind.  Surprised I got any sleep.

Decided to work from home and not navigate the mess.  I checked that electricity was on at work, but was told, "Just stay home, it's a mess."  Lots of fallen trees and electricity outages.  I personally wanted to get out of the house and not work from home two days in a row.  

MH was griping about me ending my "surge mode" and resuming normalcy next week, so I just finalized one more week with two days at home.  One day at home was what I was doing before the pandemic (this job) and the only thing that seems to really work well.  So I will resume that the following week (phew!).  But...  I am taking a 4-day weekend for the holiday so will just give it a couple of more weeks before I am literally in the office 4 days per week.  I'd say with all the year-end deadlines, it's been okay, but I think it's more about ergonomics and productivity than anything else.   I just feel more achy when I work at home. This day just happened to work better to be at home, for my flow.  In the middle of a giant deadline, and my employee was out sick anyway.  She's probably going to put a pile of stuff on my desk Thursday, but then I will be there to tackle it as it comes.  Wednesday I worked through my giant project without any distractions.  Phew!

{Oh yeah, and with the kids' school and everything, Wednesday is the best day to work from home.  Other days, we are stepping on each other's toes more.  DL has more of an independent study day on Wednesdays and less very loud band practice.  Wednesday was the day I chose in the before times because the kids had short days and I helped with that.  Also, just breaks up the week nicely.  I probably wasn't appreciating how hard it would be to work from home other days, until I tried it this month.  This is probably the first time this school year.  Last year, school was just kind of abandoned in March.}.

MH mentioned going for a walk later on this day.  I told him, "Meh, don't think I want to go outside today."  But I did later change my mind and figured it would be a more interesting walk than usual.  If there was anything canvas like a flag or a shade cover, it was all ripped to shreds.  All of the construction road signs had blown away.  I grabbed some winter jacket I bought in Utah 20 years ago.  Smart choice, but the zipper crumbled when I touched it.  MH thought I might have worn it to the snow once or twice.  Other than that, has just sat in the closet.  

I probably personally would never go outside in the winter.  & not like we get much winter anyway.  But...  With the gyms closed and everything, have been just suffering through it.

Saw more headlines of what a disaster our state unemployment system is.  But MH called and sat on hold for hour, and supposedly got his account all cleared.  Will see...