October Spending overview...

Overspending:
We ended up over spending by $52.80 this month. I assumed our auto debit of $70 for my cell phone was not going to go through this month because I had a $70 credit on my cell phone (from when we were accidentally double charged when we activated my new account.) But it went through...

So, we ended up overspending this month by $52.80. To make life easier, i'm just going to deduct that from Novembers budget and just carry it over since I just stopped our auto payment for next month.

(It's moments like this that I am reminded why we carry a $2k cushion in our checking accounts-- for life's auto-payment oopsies.)

Sally is legit:
We finally got "Sally" (our new to us '03 Ford Escort) California SMOG'd checked and Registered, so she's legal now and officially part of our car family now. SCB misses Wanda because she had more get up and gp and because he understood her clutch better, but Sally should last us longer in the long run. It cost us $110 to register her with the state, and another $71.24 to get her SMOG'd...

Thankfully we were able to pull most of this out of savings from our annual bill slush fund, so next month we will have to replace that money so we have the funds for next year lined up to go and ear marked for our cars.

Home Improvement:

We also did a little home improvement. SCB and I are sold on the idea of getting a chest freezer... and in order to accommodate one in our kitchen, we decided it was finally time to replace my free kitchen table with something smaller, and more space saving.

We ended up getting THIS from IKEA for $199.99 in white. I love that it has 6 drawers built in (we keep spare napkins and place mats in some of the drawers but most are still empty), and that we can pull up the other panel and seat 2 more people. If we take it out from the wall, we can cram in a total of 6.

When we were finding a home for our free old kitchen table, a family from our church expressed interest in it. While we were talking, we told them they could have 2 of the 4 chairs and the bench immediately, but that we needed to get at least 2 new chairs for the table before we could part with the final 2 since we weren't big fans of the chairs at IKEA. They offered a swap so they could take the whole set now and we landed these cool wicker chairs for FREE... Initially we planned just to keep them for a week until we had time to go and get 6 matching folding chairs, but we decided that we actually really like them and they match our place settings really well. So instead of 6 matching chairs, we ended up getting 4 white folding chairs from Costco for $86.75 that we plan to keep in the closet and bring them out when we have more company over, and leave the wicker ones for every day use since we keep our table set up for 2 people.

I also got SCB to put up a new coat rack we bought at Target behind our door so he stops putting clothes on the bar stools and I got more of those hooks I love from target so I could hang up his work tote and a few other bags we like to keep around this area so they don't have to live on the floor anymore.

And then there were lights 
We have kind of decided to re-decorate and improve our little condo for the holidays as our main gift to each other... and because I've been here for 4 years and we finally have money coming in and a lot of projects on the back burner... (Hence the new table, chairs, coat rack, and hooks-- are you seeing the trend?)

I love snowmen

Well I've always liked those battery operated candles they sell at costco... and they were on sale this month... (6 candles with a remote for $25)... and we bought 3 sets...

Why three sets?

Because I bought one set and SCB liked them so much he wanted to have them in the bedroom... and some in the bathroom for bubble baths.... and a couple by his desk (my husband likes candles and anything associated with fire even if its fake) so when we went back we picked up 2 more sets before the sale ended....

and we love them. Totally frivolous, but its so nice to watch TV in our bedroom and be able to turn the candles off with a remote and not worry about burning our house down if I forget and leave them on.

Speaking of TV...
We also bought a better TV antenna with a built in booster because we have started watching some TV together at night (and SCB likes the news in the morning while he's getting up) ... and our original antenna wasn't all that great only really gave us one channel constantly... so for around $30 we now can enjoy free TV.

The Attach of the bugs...

Ya, bugs... in my kitchen.... gross.

Somehow the last batch of oast we purchased either got infested or was infested with weevels when we bought them and we didn't notice...

The oat lid to the air tight container wasn't closed properly because it was a cheaper container so they were able to escape...

and they tried to get into other things...

which thankfully they didn't... but in the process of killing and cleaning, we learned something about some of our smaller counter air tight containers...

The bugs couldn't get into the food... but they could get into the lids and right up to the air tight lock ring... which meant when you took the lid off, they would fall in... or your had to pry the lid components apart to get the bugs out of them...

Needless to say, we spent north of $100... maybe closer to $150 (I have a few walmart receipts that I didn't itemize on my spread sheet) on new air tight containers for our kitchen... and the new ones have lids that are constructed out of a solid piece!

So we are hoping to get the new chest freezer next month and when we do, we will replace our oats and will stick them in the freezer for 2 weeks before transferring them to the storage containers so if we do get a bad package, we will kill anything in there from the get go.