I didn't do as bad as I expected. I headed out this morning with $41 in my pocket ($36 from garage sale and $5 from money I pulled out to go out to lunch at the garage sale but never spent). I came home with $21. Not bad at all. Still gives me some breathing room since I had to cut out my personal budget this next pay period.

I found out after church that the couple I rode with to the fair were going to treat me to breakfast so I didn't have to worry about that. I did pay for dust masks*, water from the store, parking**, fair entrance fee, and a deep fried snickers bar***. My friends bought a funnel cake but couldn't eat it all, even between the two of them, so I got some of that as well.

Animals were looked at. Llama show (agility maybe) was viewed. Small dog agility was viewed. 4 H exhibits were viewed. Food was consumed. Exhibits featuring items my friends had entered in the fair were viewed (bread, jam, dried herbs, and a bunch of different knitting things). Bunnies were looked at, and my friends purchased an orangeish angora bunny (that took 3rd place even) to replace their recently departed angora bunny. They have to go back tomorrow though to pick it up after the fair is over.

*the dust masks had nothing to do with going to the fair however we stopped at a Fred Meyer's for water on the way and I figured since I was there and I wanted it for this evening so I could continue working on the paper monster without having alergies that I should go ahead and get them.

**the fair does offer free parking however the line of cars and traffic lights to be gotten through to get to it, not to mention the winding through the parking lot to find a space, was just more than we wanted to deal with. We saw a small parking lot offering parking for $3 and decided it would be worth the money and the walk to avoid the headache. And it was. I paid for parking instead of contributing to gas. When we left there were bottlenecks in the parking lot trying to get out and the line to get in was just as long.

***I had to try it to say I've tried it. I didn't like the fried shell. It was almost like a corndog batter, very thick, that encased the candy bar. I was expecting something more along the lines of fried ice cream in terms of the outer bit. Although the inside was a nicely melted gooey mess of chocolate and carmel with peanuts. And the powdered sugar and chocolate sauce was a nice touch. I'd still like to try the fried twinkie and fried oreos but not for at least a year.

Wow it's amazing how fast money can go once it gets into your hands. Or at least my hands.

I found out on Monday that the gal I rent a garage from was having a garage sale on Saturday. I asked if she minded if I join in and try unloading a few things. She said no problem so Saturday morning I headed out there (it's about 45 minutes away) armed with stuff from my apartment that I already knew I wanted to sell and an idea of stuff from my garage that I wanted to attempt unloading.

In the end I wound up selling $153 worth of stuff. The $100 was to a friend of my friend's mom for this set of collectable wolf plates/music boxes that I've been trying to get rid of for a while now. But she's going to be making payments so I only have $35 so far. I spent $5 on a funky keyboard for my computer from the other person selling stuff because she was trying to raise money for her dog's surgery and I wanted the keyboard so I felt it was the best of both worlds.

We skipped past lunch somehow while packing up and by the time all was said and done it was just about 3pm. From 3 to 6 is Happy Hour at a restaurant we used to go to often so we headed over there for food.

I ate way too much. Cheeseburger ($2.95), Spinach Dip ($1.95) and a smoothie ($3.75). Add in tip and I spent $10 total. But that counted as lunch and dinner. Of course I spent cash so that brought my total down to $38 cash and $35 check.

When I got home, all the chance went into my coin bank so that leaves me with $36 cash $35 check.

I already know what I'm doing with the check, it's going into savings. But, I got invited to go to the state fair today. It was a last minute deal (email that got sent out last night). I've not been to the state fair here, the friends I'm going with have won ribbons so I'm curious to see what they won. Admission is $9. I'll be carpooling with them so I'll probably give them a couple dollars for gas. I can't really go on any rides (nothing adrenaline inducing anyway and what's the point if it's not?). I am downsizing my crap so I won't be buying anything from the vendors. Except possibly a deep friend snickers bar or twinkie. I've always wanted to try one of those. And there's a good chance we'll stop for food before we go to the fair because it'll be cheaper than fair fare.

At any rate, I totally see my $36 cash being reduced to well, nothing by the end of the day. I wouldn't have gone to the fair if I didn't have money from the garage sale. I don't get paid technically til Tuesday, though the bank shows my pending deposit so I have an idea of what it will be.

At least the $35 check will be safe in my savings. I think.

I have not received a bill yet from the clinic. Usually I should have received one by now. I'm thinking that means that I don't need to send in a payment this month. When I sent in $100 last month there was only $71 left on the balance, but I also had a dr's apt ($20 copay) and an echo cardiogram ($145) in July that wasn't on that bill so I knew it would be coming up. I'm guessing that they didn't need to bill me for the dr visit since I already paid it and the echo they haven't heard back from insurance on yet. That's just a guess though. The gal I need to talk to is out of the office til Tuesday so I won't know for certain til then.

The reason I want to know is...I got a bill from my dentist. I did read the insurance paperwork correctly and they paid less than the dentist expected. *sigh* Don't get me wrong, I totally appreciate the fact that I have insurance. But until now my dentist has been really good at estimating how much my insurance will cover and how much my responsibility is. It's a struggle when they tell me the bill will be one thing and then two months later I find I have to come up with even more.

If I am correct on my clinic bill, that I don't owe anything right now, then I'll take that $100 I would normally pay to the clinic and send it into the dentist. They want $210 total. I would call and arrange payments but I don't know yet how much I can actually pay and I'm annoyed at them for waiting a month to bill me for it and showing it as 30 days past due. Although in their defense if they only do billings once a month, the insurance payment came after their last billing statement went out.

I am not going to whip out the credit card and just pay it off.

This looks worse than it actually is. Really. Credit cards went up significantly because of the balance transfer loan I did for my step brother. He's in the process of paying me back so that'll give me extra to pay it down faster. Also my time share transfer has not officially gone through yet. It will go through next month. Once it does, $7600 will be gone from my responsibility to pay back. Also with the whole Student Loan mixup I'm still just only paying interest on my big loan. Once that gets caught up my student loans will start decreasing faster.

Assets $ Diff % Diff
Cash $318 ($14) -4.22 %
Retirement $22,811 $864 3.94 %
Cars $2,380 ($75) -3.05 %
Total Assets $25,509 $775 3.13 %

Debts $ Diff % Diff
Student Loans $36,462 ($31) -0.08 %
Credit Card $18,040 $2,520 16.24 %
Other $16,970 ($267) -1.55 %
Total Debts $71,472 $2,222 3.21 %

Net Worth ($45,963) ($1,447) -3.25 %