Accountability: the Sunday list

1. Bake 2 kinds of cookies
2. Clean out my room
3. Write article for work
4. Prep shipping
5. Plan out 25 fun Christmas things to do for December 1-25
   

Happy Thanksgiving!

We certainly had one. We covered all the traditions...

Watched the Macy's parade (I missed Tom the turkey!)
Watched the dog show (how this became a tradition, I still don't know.)
Made the usual holiday fare: turkey, stuffing, corn, spinach, sweet potatos, turnips, mashed potatos, rolls, pumpkin pie, apple pie, etc.

Watched Miracle on 34th Street (the original, thank you) and It's a Wonderful Life.
We went for a long walk after dinner and enjoyed some holiday lights this year.

It was beautiful weather, warm and still, more like mid-September than late November.

All things considered, it was a fun and successful holiday. Of course, what Thanksgiving would be complete without a mishap, and we made our requirement... after I'd given the Bride and Groom my dining room table, thus leaving my dining room bare, they forgot the folding table at home. Thus this was our first Thanksgiving picnic on the living room floor.

New recipe to try

I've fallen behind on this particular goal, but during the holidays, as calorie counting goes more or less to the winds, I'll have to get caught up.

This caught my eye:

Indian Pudding, from Real Simple.

Accountability: The Weekend List

1. Wrap Son's birthday present DONE
   
2. Gather up MD gifts, wrap and mail
3. Send out other mail DONE
   
4. buy holiday stamps DONE
   
5. Wrap 10 additional gifts
6. 20 Christmas cards
7. Make grocery list DONE
   
8. Grocery shop (mostly for Thanksgiving) DONE
   
9. Library DONE
   
10. Pick up meds/drop off scrip DONE
    
11. Fix cabinet door
12. Clean the little island DONE
    
13. Clean off home desk DONE
    
14. Five blog posts (this one doesn't count)
15. Catch up on my daily readings
16. Watch 2 movies and review
17. Start the Thankful basket
18. 2 loads of laundry DONE
    
19. Museum??
20. Take 10 photos
21. Shop for the Dude's stocking stuff DONE
    
22. Figure out where I am with gifts/stockings
23. Chase out the varmints
24. game DONE
    
25. Bank deposit DONE
    
26. fill out FSA
27. drop off Toys for Tots DONE
    
28. Drop off clothing donation DONE
29. Read 20 pages in Morrigan's Cross DONE
30. Pick up Freecycle DONE
    
31. Give out Freecycle DONE
32. Mail ebay stuff DONE
    
33. Work:

• Press clips DONE
  
• 810 breakout
• Invoice breakdown
• Newsletter DONE
  
• Clean off desk DONE
  
• update audit DONE
  
• clear out scans DONE
  
• update advo DONE
  
• creative brief
  

If I can get all this done, I'll need another weekend to make up for it. Yoiks and away!

Without Lost...

...it becomes necessary to haunt You-Tube in search of tidbits, or re-watch old episodes.

This one is particularly clever.

25 Ways I Save Money

It's become a focus of late, and Dawn over at Frugal for Life has posted not only her own list, but a collection of others' lists as well. I thought I'd list some of my own.

1. Quit drinking soda. That's right, the Diet DP-aholic has given it up. I'm on water.
2. Dropped my Blockbuster home delivery subscription and started making use of the library.
3. Lapsing my magazine subscriptions. Again with the library.
4. Buying music from WalMart's download service. $.88/download is a lot cheaper than buying a whole CD for one song.
5. Packing my lunches.
6. Only filling my tank halfway, and keeping the car relatively empty. Stuff (including gas) = weight = lower mileage.
7. Switched to VOIP phone service. No long distance fees, and the price is lower overall.
8. Shopped down my car insurance cost. The goal is to be able to pay the full premium up-front and avoid the monthly service charges.
   
9. Double up on my credit card payments. In a few months, I'll be able to transfer what I paid on the cards to paying down my mortgage principal.
10. Trading old DVDs on flipadisc.com. Selling on ebay or half.com (or the Disc Recyclery) only returns a fraction of the purchase cost. Flipadisc is a 1:1 trade.
11. Trading old books on paperbackswap, frugalreader or bookmooch. Same logic as above.
12. Paying bills online to avoid postage and late fees.
13. Maxing out my 401(k) contribution and employer matching.
14. Making use of my employer's FSA.
15. Shopping thrift and dollar stores (but never assume that just because something is "only a dollar" that you can't get it cheaper elsewhere)
    
16. Watching grocery sales flyers for the best prices and stocking up.
17. Buy used whenever possible, cars, housewares, furniture
18. Selling unwanted items on ebay
19. Cooking dinner at home
20. Cooking "in season." This involves buying fresh produce in season when the prices are lowest.
21. Basic cable. Not having cable isn't an option here if we want to have any television service at all, but we use the lowest-priced service available.
22. Switching to flourescent lightbulbs.
23. Decluttering. Less stuff = less stuff to clean = less cleaning products.
24. Christmas all year. I pick up items at sales that I know someone will like and save it for upcoming birthdays and holidays.
25. Homemade cleaning supplies. Most of the chemicals we buy in the store are easily, frugally and effectively replaceable with homemade.
    

Accountability: The weekend list

1. Clean the living room DONE
   
2. Pack 3 boxes for the Bride and Groom
3. Mail DONE
   
4. Bank
5. List 20 on half DONE
   
6. Clean kitchen DONE
   
7. Clean Bear pit
8. Office - batches DONE
   
9. Dispose of the Hanging Man and pumpkins DONE
   
10. Decorate for Fall
11. Buy new lightbulbs, hedgie food, drug store items DONE
12. list 20 on ebay