This was my first week without Rocket Boy, and that's always kind of a challenging week, with the joys of January tacked on to make it even better. But it was also a quiet week -- my only scheduled activities were the dentist and orthodontist on Monday and the book group (via Zoom) on Tuesday. That helped. As the week went on, I managed to get a few things done. Mostly reading, not cleaning, but it's OK. I also ended up with another appointment, but I'll talk about that more in a bit.
Successes:
- Made dinner every night (all the things I'd planned to make and shopped for).
- Started working on my novel again, four days this week.
- Started taking the ornaments off the tree and finally got them all packed away and the box taped up (the tree is still up, with just the lights on).
- Did some cleaning -- some parts of the Weekly Home Blessing but not all.
Not Yet Accomplished (i.e., Failures):
- Exercise (it's really cold and icy and snowy)
- Working on the files and taxes
- Vacuuming and mopping
- All FlyLady missions (every weekday there's a special mission to do -- I skipped them all)
Oh, but there were other activities this past week -- unpleasant ones. We're currently in the midst of a financial disaster with the rental house next door, as I think I mentioned before. Let's see, how did that go?
- The tenant asked (over and over) if she could have her furnace inspected. Our property manager didn't respond to her requests or our requests to have this done. Finally, after months, the property manager sent someone over. At the same time they noticed that our rental license had expired, so they sent someone over to inspect the property prior to renewing the license.
- The inspector found a few things to fix, nothing big. But the furnace guy discovered a leak in the crawl space (where the furnace is) and refused to inspect the furnace until the leak was fixed.
- We called a plumber who discovered that it was a leak into the cast iron pipe that leads to the street. A fairly serious repair (on Friday the 20th), to the tune of $1650.
- Then we hired ServPro to clean up the mess in the crawl space. They got the mud out and set up fans. The fans were removed early this past week, but I still haven't gotten a bill, despite filling out a lot of paperwork saying I'm willing to pay, etc. Nervous about the bill. Our insurance company can help, but we have a $1000 deductible.
- Then our property manager insisted we get a mold testing company in to see if we have a mold problem, following the leak. The mold tester came out on Thursday, and since the tenant was out, I let him into the house and followed him around. He did some extra testing beyond the standard amount, because he found some suspicious areas. Cost of testing: $664.35
- Now we have to get a handyman in to fix the little things required for the rental license, plus the damage done by the plumber. Cost: unknown.
- Oh, and we have to pay a fine because we let the rental license expire. Cost: unknown.
- The mold tester wasn't impressed by ServPro's work. I thought I'd wait to see what the furnace guy thinks when he goes back down in the crawl space, and then if he's not impressed, I might challenge ServPro's bill, when and if I receive it. Cost of furnace inspection (maybe this week?): unknown, hopefully not a lot,
- We should get the results of the mold testing on Monday. Cost of possible remediation: unknown, but likely to be significant.
- And on and on and on...
We really don't have much money, having spent it all on the new kitchen floor, the tile in the shower, medical expenses not covered by insurance, my stupid braces, our trip to St. Louis last summer, and on and on. It is not the year to have gigantic rental house expenses. We'll be able to deduct them eventually, but not this year.
Oh, and property taxes will be due soon. For some reason, I've only gotten one bill so far, for our house, but I estimate that the total for the three properties will be just under $9000. In good years, I save up for the taxes over the course of the previous year, but 2022 was not a good year, and 2023 is starting off HORRIBLY.
Where is this money going to come from?
***
Ideas for earning/saving money (other than getting a job):
- Spend as little money as possible. No retail therapy. Read books off my shelves and from the library. Eat food from the cupboards. Make snacks instead of buying them. Stick to vegetarian cooking (lots of beans, even though Teen B does not like beans). Buy food on sale and in season. For example, at the grocery store yesterday I accidentally bought a serrano pepper for 8 cents (I wanted a poblano pepper but they didn't have any). Immediately, I thought: how can I plan our meals around serrano peppers? I mean, come on, 8 cents. But serrano peppers are very hot. I don't even want to cook the one I bought. Oh well, beans are cheap too, even canned. And lentils (bought some of those too).
- On our Saturday restaurant trips, only get stuff for the kids, not me. So last night I got Noodles for the kids, but I ate leftovers at home. Also, aim for cheap restaurants. McDonald's is fine when Rocket Boy's not here. I'm not quite willing to give up eating out altogether, because it gives me a break from cooking, but I don't need to eat the food myself.
- Sell things on craigslist
- Sign up to participate in studies at CU
- Write more Chicken Soup stories (haven't gotten one accepted in years, but I could always try again)
- Do weird online work such as Amazon Mechanical Turk, which I signed up for but I'm not sure if I'm going to do it. It pays very little.
I've been walking around the house looking for things I could sell. There isn't much. Considering all the junk we have, you'd think there would be things, but I'm not coming up with anything. When the kids were little, we had lots of baby items to pass on, but it's different now. What we mostly have are a lot of old books. And Legos, but craigslist is full of Legos and it doesn't look to me like they're selling (and we didn't save any of the boxes). I might be able to sell a few jigsaw puzzles. I don't know.
I think I'm going to set a goal, to be added to my 2023 Resolutions: do one thing each weekday to either save or earn money. It could be something like baking cookies (instead of buying them), or making dinner using something that's been sitting in the cupboard for a while. Or it could be selling something on craigslist or doing a little Mechanical Turk job.
I know, I know. I need a job. In the meantime...
So, since it's about to be February, here are my plans for the month:
February:
- February's
theme is Valentine's Day -- hearts and love and all that. I have pink bands on my braces!
- My
goal off my master list is to do the taxes and work on the files and the desk room.
- I'm not going to try to do anything with the kids this month unless they want to go to a movie or something. It's February, month of snow.
- Social life: Hmm, maybe a few Valentines? I don't see a lot of in-person stuff happening this month, except the book group (coming here on the 28th).
- Reading: five more books from the pile by my bed plus the book group book plus 2 Barbara Pyms.
Schedule for the Week Ahead:
Also, I've got to say, it's very interesting to try to make do with what you've got. I feel as though I've already cut our budget a lot in previous years -- there isn't a lot of fat to work with. We don't have a Netflix subscription, for instance. One thing that would help is if our local newspaper would go belly up (which it's about to). I'm currently paying $80/month for that. But that would be so sad, I'm not going to hope for it. Just keep trying to find ways to earn and save money.
And start coming to terms with the fact that somewhere in my future there needs to be a job.
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