2 weeks of insane spending.... and more to come

I've been avoiding this post for some time now... simply because this month we spent a lot of money with family in town, our wedding, and a week off to relax meant that neither one of us wanted to cook much and handle the dishes when we already playing catch up to begin with.

and going back through everything to post on this blog has taken far too much time then I originally planned. I can't wait for next month when we get back to "our normal." It's a lot easier to just track things through out the week as money is spent... but i'm making progress... (I have 2 weeks of it done and its below for your pleasure --and for my own personal means of tracking).

We are also in the process of slowly gathering photos from the wedding and going over our wedding contract with a fine tooth comb to see what we can PROVE Orange County Beach Weddings did not provide us with that we had specifically outlined in the contract to see if we can get some money back from them for their horrible job... Every time I start going through it all I just feel sick to my stomach. Since we didn't pay them 10's of thousands of dollars we realistically know there isn't much money we'll be able to get from them (Probably $500 or so)... but we can also petition in small claims court for punitive damages as well.... We are just wondering if it will be worth all the hassle and the emotional stress.

I think our game plan is to create a document with photographic proof and copies of emails sent/received that verify our claims and send it to Orange County Beach Weddings with a statement demanding a refund. Then follow up with a few phone calls... then go to court if need be.

Part of me wants to just let it all go so I don't have to deal with it, but part of me also doesn't want them to be able to do this to anyone else... It was all bait and switch... the whole thing. I'll post the breakdown here for everyone of what we will be demanding and maybe if we never get another dime back... who knows... maybe this blog will get more traffic then their website and  others in the orange county area will choose a better company instead.

But for now, spending reports...
July 4th

• Ice Cream (Ralphs) $3.49 (To celebrate the 4th of July after I got off work because I missed the street fair and I didn't get to see fireworks... but my mommy in law brought me a huge packet of sparklers from Utah to play with... So when I find an area that let's me light them up i'll enjoy that!)

July 5th -

• Air Mattress pump, Small twist Tupperware, Gatorade and Bendy Straws (Walmart) $53.78 (With our pending house guests taking our bedroom, we needed to get a pump for the air mattress so SCB had the option of sleeping on the couch or using the air mattress. We also needed it because I would be sleeping on the blow up mattress the night before the wedding during the Slumber Party.)
• Nails & Full propane tank (Home Depot) $53.73 (We didn't know how empty or full our propane tank was, so we bit the bullet and got a new full one so we now have a spare... which is kind of nice for emergencies and power outages because our whole house is electric everything and our outdoor BBQ has a place for pots and pans so we could theoretically boil water and make pasta still.... the nails were so we'd be able to hang up all the picture frames we used as decoration at our wedding up on the walls. 

July 6th -

• Plunger (True Value) $4.28 (I do believe I mentioned that the toilet wouldn't flush a mere hour or two before family started arriving?... this little guy made all the problems go away.)
• Ice (Staterbros) $5.80 (To keep food platters and coolers chilled since family was showing up at different times all throughout the day and we wanted to have food and munchies on hand.

July 7th-

• Parking at the Zoo $3.00 + Entrance Fees for 4 ppl $4.00 (We went to the local zoo with my new soon to be family and it was fun. His mom even printed off some coupons for everyone to use to get in since a lot of my husbands brother's have larger families. We paid for SCB's friends to get in and carpooled with them so we only had one car to park since we knew that money was going to be tight for them with all they have been going through lately. After the zoo we hung out in the park and picnic'd and tossed around a Frisbee... it was a really nice simple time with family... I'm glad my mom and sister weren't there because they would have complained and flipped out. I really think I mix better with my in-laws then I do with my regular family members.) 
• Electric Bill $68.96 (Lots of AC running last month with all the bug worries-- we kept the house shut until we knew we were on the safe side... and you can't not run the AC when you have 16 people in and out of your house all the time.)
• Gasoline $58.12 (Filling up the Camry since it has AC and we drove it around everywhere.)
• Bathing Suit for SCB $11.24 (He left his good one at a house we house sat for a while back... and won't be going back there for another week or so, so we hit Target and got him a replacement and picked up some sun screen ---woot for gift cards we received from the wedding.)
• Rehearsal dinner $293.38 (Stone Fire Grill...... mmmmmmmmmmm Yes we paid and we were glad to. Everyone was incredibly thankful and appreciative.)
• Frozen yogurt $19.60 (After stone fire my close friends --basically the bridal party-- and I went over and got frozen yogurt for dessert.)

July 8th -

• SCB's got to have his Bachelor Party since I myself went out the week before and lived it up (still the best night ever in my mind)! $35 for Buffalo Wild Wings (after our $25 gift card) and another $46 spent at Dave and Busters. He had a great time out with my "brother" and his best man. They ended up bringing home a marshmellow gun and some hot pink cave man ties and shot glasses as prizes... little did I know that two of those three items would appear at our wedding. 
• We also got SCB's haircut so he'd look nice for the wedding and while he was there he also got some style cream since he wanted to make sure he could re-do the look the next day for the wedding. The haircut, tip, and style cream stuff came to $39.28. 
• My friends and I went and got Mani/Pedi's the day before the wedding. Mine only ended up costing me $25 because I was given a giftcard to the place from my sister.... and because I didn't get acrilic nails because I hate them.
• We also went and hit up Ralphs because I needed to get 4 similar flower arrangements to use as "thank yous" to our parents during the ceremony and to my "grandma" and the family who hosted me for a few months just to again say thank you for everything they have done for us. $55.99

July 9th-

• Chilli's- $65 On the night of our wedding we decided to go and get dinner at chili's because its SCB's favorite restaurant and we were tired and hungry and couldn't really appreciate going to the nice place we originally had in mind. It was perfect though.
• I also wrote out a check to my "Bro" to cover the few bits of sound equipment that he needed to rent for our reception. $110

July 10th- 

• We paid for My old cell phone bill with AT&T $56.67.
• We also went over to Chipotle that day $13.68......... While we were eating I found a hair in my burrito and discretely told the manager about it and asked if they would just remake me one... They did and gave us a gift card for a free burrito on our next visit as a way of saying they were sorry.

July 11th- 

• Toyota Repairs $453.20. It pays to be nice to people you come in contact with at work. An old member of the gym I work at also works in the service center at Toyota. We chat and he always makes sure to only charge me what he has to... and cuts me a special friends discount. Despite needing to get my 60k maint check up, we also had to get some break stuff cleaned, replace a tail light, and flush my power steering fluid I believe.... He cut a ton off our bill, especially when he found out we had gotten married two days before. He also dropped the bomb on us that we'd need to buy new tires... all 4 of them for our car and hinted to us that Costco would be the cheapest place to do them. 
• We headed over to Lowes and spent $7.07 on some small parts and tools SCB needed to do something with... I've forgotten by now what he bought.
• We walked over to the friends of the Library bookstore and spent $10 on a bag full of awesome books since I've taken to reading more recently again I think I got around 6 paperbacks and SCB ended up with about 6 as well (Gotta love awesome B1G1 sales!). 
• We also hit Rubios while we were out for lunch since we were hanging around by the car dealership blowing time until we could have the car back. We spent $12.26 and again, I found a hair in my food.... and again, we got a coupon for a free taco order on our next visit.

July 12th - 

• Sprint $298.91 We decided to bite the bullet and get on the same network and upgrade to smart phones because we'd be able to download a book reader and we had been considering buying a Nook as a wedding present to us... In 61 days we will get a credit of $175 to our bill which made my phone free and should cover any cancellation fees i'll accrue from AT&T. Its our new favorite toy... and the first luxury item we have bought since we started dating and got married. I love playing games and reading on it!
• While we were waiting for our phones to link up to the network, we hit Subway for lunch ($11.47) since it was right next to Sprint and we had to kill 20 mins and we were both hungry.
• We also hit Walmart and spent $28.56  on a pair of shorts for SCB and 2 pairs of gym shorts for him as well. Before we get comments about us spending money on him and not me, please remember, he moved from Snowy Utah to Sunny California... He only owned one pair of shorts and its the middle of summer. (Don't worry i'll be buying make up and getting my hair cut and spending money on me too, but i'm not going to deny him NEEDS so I can have a want...)

July 13th-

• Costco-- we bough 4 brand new tires for $398.31 because we had a coupon for $100 off.
• While we were waiting at Costco for the car to be finished, we grabbed lunch $6.98.

July 14th - 

• An actual No spend day....

July 15th - 

• We paid what we thought would be the last cell phone bill for SCB's old line... but apparently that isn't the case and i'll have to call the corporate office at the end of the bill cycle to figure out if they will prorate it since we don't use that line.... So the bill we did pay was $55.09

More to follow later...