Friday Fiscal Wellness Check, December 12, 3025

                                

       Before I dive in, has anyone heard from Linda at More Or Practical Parsimony? I think her last post was the day after Thanksgiving and I haven't seen any comments from her. I hope all is well in her home and maybe she's having computer issues again. 

     For Friday Fiscal Wellness Check,  I copy the previous week, delete the old and updated as I go along the week as a way even when busy and not in a blogging mindset, I'm accountable to myself. Here's my recap of Friday, December 5 to Thursday, December 11. I just sort of list things as they come up, then edit before publishing. 

Avoiding Spending/ Saving on Needs

  • Resisted the temptation to hire out snow removal. While we got a lot, it came in 1-2 inch amounts and gave me free exercise, though Wednesday I was quite annoyed that my driveway, and I my mine, reaped the rewards of the street plow with a three foot wide deposit of chunky and packed snow. 
  • I plan for birthday dinners and the restaurant we chose had good size portions, enough for leftovers which I sent with my youngest. It was not an inexpensive outing though.
  • My friends Sister-in-law, who I really enjoyed meeting on my trip, is going to join us in Greece. As I had upgraded room size to a triple already, there was no added cost for the hotel. I updated the count so we would not have an issue with breakfast reservation (included). Now we have three of us researching options to both enjoy the trip and economize where it will work. 

Opportunities to add Funds/Windfalls 

  • Entered receipts I could find still in date in Fetch and MS rewards points
  •  Renewed a CD before the updated Federal Reserve interest rate changes and am still getting 4%. It only give me about $4.50 more in interest over a four-month period (on a $5,000 CD) but heck, that's my $4.50. 

     Then, there are often other things that impacted my check book that came up without much planning or notice, an extra optional expense, or an all-out splurge. 

  • The plant for my friend's dad was very expensive but as travel conditions were sketchy, I'm not sure I will get there today for the service over two hours away. I was thinking ahead and at least could order it for delivery in time for the visitation. 

     Daily Dinner Diary (Friday 12/5 to Thursday, 12/11). 
  • Fri - Shared appetizer dinner before a dessert service with niece and sister
  • Sat-   Pulled beef sandwiches, potato chips, veggies at book club/ card night
  • Sun-  Ham and pea pasta salad with toast 
  • Mon-  leftovers
  • Tues- Cottage pie
  • Weds- Shish for (early) sons birthday
  •  Thurs- Leftovers with fresh made pearl cous cous and cucumber salad
       As I said above, I'll need to check both road and temperature before setting off, but need to decide before 7:30 and last night the road condition forecast was unkind. No one else can join me and I am not of the mind to drive round trip, two hours each way alone should the elements not be good and temps are dropping by the hour. Tomorrow is expected to be our first -0 degree day. I'll stay in pretty much all day except to get dogs some play and just look out windows. As much as I am already tired of the snow, I can't deny the beauty of snow on trees. How was your week?
           
     
  

Comments

  1. BelindaDecember 12, 2025 at 7:03 AM

    I’ve not heard or seen anything from Linda either and have also been wondering about her. I hope everything is ok with her and Tommy.
    Those road plows sure can dump a lot at the foot of a driveway and it has to be moved or it can become impossible to drive through there. Snow shoveling is very good exercise, but can be hard work too, as you know.
    Greece will be so exciting for you to see! I’m excited for you. I checked back into MS Rewards this week and started accumulating points again. The issues I had before seem to have resolved themselves while I was on my hiatus.
    I personally wouldn’t try to go to the funeral with possible travel issues like that. You’ve sent a plant and your friend will certainly understand, especially with your long commute. I would play it safe and stay home. Maybe plan a day with her when the weather is better? Just my two cents. I hope you have a very good weekend and stay safe and warm. ❄️

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousDecember 12, 2025 at 8:01 AM

    I'm with Belinda & wouldn't go, although I hate driving in snow & ice. I like the idea of connecting her when the weather is better, and she will need support over a longer time period, so that might work better anyway. That restaurant looks great for your son's birthday! - Hawaii Planner

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cheryl KimbleyDecember 12, 2025 at 8:17 AM

    Please just stay safe.
    I saw a comment on someone's blog from Linda like the first few days of Dec. and nothing since. I have wondered as well.

    ReplyDelete
  4. LoriDecember 12, 2025 at 8:19 AM

    We have someone do our driveway mainly because of the snowplow piles at the end of the driveway. That stuff is always rock hard and deep.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousDecember 12, 2025 at 8:29 AM

    The restaurant for your son’s birthday looks amazing ! Hope he had a great day
    Siobhan x

    ReplyDelete
  6. AprilDecember 12, 2025 at 8:44 AM

    I echo others: stay safe in weather like this and especially on the roads. Stay warm!

    ReplyDelete
  7. jjDecember 12, 2025 at 8:50 AM

    I would probably not drive either - especially such a long trip alone. I haven't checked up on Linda either but hopefully she is OK. I miss Rhitter as well but I think she is ok. We had about 5-10cms of snow on Wednesday - wet and heavy, even with the snow blower it was tough. Luckily, they do clear the bottom of our driveway, but not my mom's :/

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

If you comment anonymously, it'd be nice to have a name to go with the comment. It helps me string other people's comments and therefore their experiences together.

Popular posts from this blog

It's Worse Than I Imagined

      The shit show since January 20th has been a big reason for my reclusiveness the last few weeks. Let the comments fly. Create a crisis. Lie that you resolved it. Get your sycophants to suck it all up. Rinse. Repeat...for four F' ing years.  Oh, and let's shout, "but her emails" while a foreign oligarch is raiding our private personal data with his hoard of teenagers. Let's pardon January 6th criminals, several of which immediately committed additional crimes.  I said it was going to be my only political post election post but man, it's even worse than I could have imagined.
Read more

So Very Tired

      Apologies to Michb as I think I deleted her comment from my last post. I've never read anything but kindness from you, so please know the lost comment was not intended. I'm just really tired- who knows if others were deleted too. Any supportive comments are appreciated, though likely won't be discussing my in-laws in my blog much in the future. It's not fair for me to write about them or have any expectations.      We think the raccoon issue is resolved, but not before yet another call. It's not cheap to have critter incursions resolved. I was lamenting to my son that maybe I shouldn't try and keep the house. He's a help of course, but this isn't his long term plan, or quite frankly intermediary plan. His response was that yes, it is a lot of house and property to take care. He knows my husband handled the bulk of house maintenance and outside care. My son's been a city living apartment dweller since his junior year of college. He'll be a c...
Read more

Cancelled

      Twice Friday I was notified of cancellations. First, my original flight to Athens in March was cancelled and they rescheduled...two days later!What for the sake of Pete is that crappy rescheduling?  Sure, I want to fly  and sit in layovers for 17 hours just to lose two days of my vacation. I rejected that reschedule obviously my. Lots of back and forth with options presented with multiple four+ hour layovers, and eventually landed on one that diggers by about four hours total from the original, but is a 2-stop. I kept reminding myself the journey is part of the opportunity and round trip tickets to Greece from Minnesota for $600 are about as low as a person can find. This was why I bought my Kindle as to do more and frequent travel, I'll have to exchange time, lots of layover time, for money.      Then, several hours later, as I'm checking for updates on the flight, I got notification of another cancellation. This one was for that bloggers c...
Read more