Thursday, November 19, 2009

How to Make a Medical Folder

I have filed all of my paperwork you saw HERE away!

You read that correctly! I have filed all of the random piles of paperwork, including the heaping basket full, away. It's unbelievable and feels great to know I don't have some looming task that I wouldn't otherwise know about because it's buried somewhere. I found a few of those tasks, and took care of them!

This post is mainly, though, to show you how I made a medical folder (see pics below) with all medical, dental and vision info, EOBs and bills.

I've also made an insurance folder with our auto & home insurance information & coverage (pics to come).

For the Medical Folder, here's what I did:

3-hole punched everything to fit into my 3-ring binder
Put it all in, according to medical or dental and arranged by clinic for medical, and date (newest in front)
Dental is all in one category with no other dividers by clinic, I may change that down the road (?)
All insurance booklets & general coverage brochures are in the front and back inner pockets of the binder
Label sections with a sharpie or pen

How I made dividers:

I didn't have dividers laying around and didn't want to spend money on them or go to the store in yesterday's nasty weather. So below, I have outlined how I solved that problem with what I had available. You could also make dividers from larger construction paper (you want to be sure it's bigger than a regular sized piece of paper so you can have a tab sticking out to see your sections), pocket/peechee folders, etc. Be creative!

Cut a regular manila file folder in half, up the folded seam
Cut about an inch or so off the bottom (because it wouldn't fit in my 3-hole punch)
There are 3 types of file folders in a box that you buy from the store-
Tab at the top, tab at the middle, and tab at the bottom
You want to make sure that's the order that you make dividers from them so you can easily see your sections
Label sections with a sharpie or pen

Whalla! 




I also labeled the outside of my folder so when it's on the shelf, I know which folder it is. 




This label I am showing is only temporary because I want to get more creative with it. I will be printing something off of the computer for the spine of the binder and the front. I will post pics here once I have done that.

This is a great way to have all of your medical information laid out in front of you, organized by clinic and by date. For me, I like to have all of my bills available to look at and I just can't do that when they're lying around in a pile or in a folder unorganized.

Once a bill is paid, I will keep only the last statement and/or reciept of last payment.

If you have tons of medical information (I purge every year unless I still owe for some reason), use a bigger binder or use more than one! They make huge binders and they have a good selection at Walmart (cheapest retail prices I have found during non-sale times) and I have a liquidation store in my area that sells binders and other office supplies for up to 75% off the retail prices. Check out what you might have in your area!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

FINALLY Gave the Dog a Bath!



This has been needed for about 2 weeks now. I finally found some good dog shampoo at one of the liquidation stores here so I paid $2.99 for some good stuff. My dog has very sensitive skin (she is a golden retriever and that's common) so I can't buy her just anything. Plus, she's on Frontline so I don't want to wash her with flea medicated shampoo. The stuff I found for her today actually... smells... really good! Like cherries. I smelled it and then kept smelling it because it smelled so yummy! Now, I can cuddle with my dog and instead of smelling like fish in a water cooler after a long day of fishing, she will smell delicious!

Menu Planning

I usually plan my menus on Sunday because I shop for what's on sale with a coupon for items that I can get for free or super cheap on Sundays and I plan our meals around that for as long as I can.

This weeks dinner menu:

Tuesday (last night): Grilled cheese & Tomato soup (one of my husband's favorites!)
Wednesday: Hamburger gravy & Rice
Thursday: Tater-tot casserole
Friday: Crockpot chili & Cornbread 
Saturday: Spaghetti
Sunday: Breakfast for dinner- Omelets
Monday: Meatballs & Gravy
Tuesday: Corn Chowder
Wednesday: Spaghetti


That's as far as I have gotten. I could probably squeeze a few more meals out of the items that we have on hand without going shopping for any extra ingredients, although I will still go shopping every Sunday. I have everything needed for all of these recipes EXCEPT for a few things that the corn chowder recipe calls for. Menu planning saves so much money and time! I have a monthly calendar wipe-off board with the menu filled in- I will have to take a pic and post it! It's nice because if we have Spaghetti written down one night and that night comes and we feel more like chili, I can quickly erase it and change the board accordingly.

Work day 1 of 2 this week

I am working Wednesday & Thursday now, so just very part time. It is my goal to be a full time SAHM by February 2010 and it's looking good! If I could sell my car, I could stay home now but I don't think selling my car is going to happen just yet. Here are the main 2 reasons why:

1. I am not actively posting it. I did post on Craigslist once and put a flyer up @ my husband's job. But other than that, I haven't been too motivated because of the next reason.

2. I owe too damn much! When I financed the car I have now, I traded in another car in that I owed more than it was worth, so I had to roll my leftover loan from that car onto my new loan. DON'T EVER DO THAT! I would owe $3,000 less if I hadn't done that (although I wouldn't have been able to get the car!) Oh, and I don't have any money saved to put towards the car so I can sell it for less, so I have to sell it for what I owe, or really close to it.

Anyway, today is going to to pretty quickly, I think. I work from 8:30am to 1:30pm. I am supposed to be working 7 hours a day. I wanted to work Monday/Tuesday but my boss needs me on Thursdays to help with childcare @ a live-in drug & alcohol recovery center. Since I don't want to work split days, my only other option would be Wednesday & Thursday because I will not work Fridays- I haven't worked a Friday in 2 years and I love it that way. The reason why I can't work 7 hours today (or any Wednesday) is because my flexible job allows me not to use childcare so I only work when my daughter is in school. And at her new school, she gets out early every Wednesday.

I have to admit, I am a little bit worried that I'm not bringing in enough money. I am selling quite a bit on ebay but I have only sold $7 worth of items on Craigslist. I need to repost my Craigslist items and keep on top of it because it's my goal to go shopping at Goodwill outlet 1x per week. I figure if I can do that, I should be able to sell enough to bring in a sufficient amount of money. But in order to do that, I need to sell what I'm buying!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

On way way to organized paperwork!

Remember the overflowing basket and random piles of paperwork I shared HERE?
Well, I really got into an organizing groove today and I'm about 1/2 way done. I have filed some, but while I was filing away in my filing cabinet, I decided I am going to make notebooks for certain categories. I am going to 3-hole punch and put into a 3 ring binder the following categories:

Medical
Dental
Insurance- Auto, Home, Life coverage & monthly statements

I am also thinking about doing a financial binder, but I'm not yet sure what it would look like and exactly what purpose it would serve. That's a thought in progress.


Pics of my paperwork progress (including binders) to come!

Cleaning day was pretty much a bust!

I got the kitchen clean yesterday! And only the kitchen. Although, it was VERY clean. Did you see my pics in the last post? 1/2 on the living room was cleaned, too... better than none if it! I'll be updating pics HERE as I finish them.

What went wrong, you ask? Well, I definitely do not want to get into specifics because having to deal with it is enough let alone talking about it. But I will say that I did a mystery shop where I had to call 2 specific auto insurance companies and get quotes. I was in the market for new insurance anyway, so I was like "Cool, I'm getting paid $30 to do something I would already be doing anyway!" Turns out, one of the companies could save me $50 a month on auto and over $200 on home insurance! So, of course, I switched. Long story short, it has taken me 2 weeks to make sure hat all of my policies with my old company have been canceled. We had 2 auto, 1 motorcycle, home and life. So, I spent a good chunk of time yesterday calling around and getting that taken care of.

Also, I sold my iphone and thought I broke it because I shut it off while it was clearing all data (stupid!) and then it didn't want to turn back on... There went almost 2 hours of my time with Apple phone support. But, I can't really use that as an excuse because that was BEFORE I was supposed to start cleaning..

Wish me luck because today is Cleaning Day, take 2!

Monday, November 16, 2009

iphone crash! *OH NO!*

Well, it's partly (id not mostly) my fault that my iphone crashed. I was erasing all content and resetting all settings (to sell it because we no longer need cell service) and I decided to turn the phone off because it was going to take too long and I needed to take it to the AT&T store for them to take the SIM card out... long story short my phone wouldnt do anything for 2 hours and thank goodness apple aupport helped me by phone because someone already paid for it on ebay!!! 

Cleaning Day!



I am going to spend most of the day cleaning today. I will leave for lunch @ Evan's work at 10:45am and be back by 11:45am so I have from then until 2pm before Evan comes home. I have made some small goals and have attached BEFORE pictures for all to see:

Clean kitchen and move Evan's crap out to the garage (it has been sitting there for a week!)

BEFORE







AFTER









Pick up living room...

BEFORE




AFTER





Organize all paperwork (don't judge!)






Clean computer room if there's time left...





And... play with Miyah because she's following me around with her ball and I think she's sad that I haven't have time for her!


More AFTER pictures to come!

*cough, cough*

I coughed myself awake at 3am this morning, stayed awake coughing until my right before husband got up for work at 4:30am, and later, I had such a terrible nightmare that I wish I would've just gotten up at 3am in the first place.

I dreamed first about being at a truck stop. This part isn't very nightmarish, but not my most favorite dream ever...
Evan and I were dancing inside a truck stop restaurant (I have only been to one in my life and it was like 7 years ago!), holding each other close and slowly moving our feet to the music round other people who were eating. He pointed out to me that in between all of the tables, there were shower heads coming out of the ceiling and he thought that it was a great idea to take a shower. I went with it without much protest, and we were suddenly naked, in front of everyone, showering AND dancing. Oddly enough, I felt safe and secure in his arms and he was hiding me from the many eyes that were on us as best as he could.

Then, across the way, I see that a man staring at Evan with the biggest, ugliest googly eyes I have ever seen. He looked as though he were literally raping him visually. I pointed it out to Evan and he looked over at the guy and said something about it and the guy asked something like "What's wrong with being attracted to a big, beautiful woman?" At this point, I had not yet taken my eyes off the nasty old man and I looked back in Evan with shock on my face to see what his reaction to that comment was, and Evan was now a larger framed blonde woman in her 40's. This took me by surprise, but I went with it. We pretty much immediately quit showering and started to get dressed when I was awakened by Evan's Alarm Clock. At least that dream didn't get sexual. Thankful for that.

When I fell asleep the next time, I dreamed about my neighbors. My neighbors have been in my dreams more than once and it's never good. Someday, I will have to go into detail about why (there are so many reasons...), but in the mean time I am working on having patience with them. Anyhow, In my dreams, our backyards were not connected by a fence (if that was true, I would build one by hand by myself if I had to!) and I walked from my backyard to their backyard. At least 30 cats and a few dogs (this has some truth to it) came running up to me and also to an unknown (at the time) male who was by my side. Even if I don't see Evan in my dream, I usually know it's him but this man was not Evan, although I seemed to know this man well.

Hailey came running up out of nowhere and scattered all of the cats like you would see a child run into a flock of birds to scatter them away. I tell her to stop but she had already given me a crazed look and was gone before I knew what happened. I made a comment to the man at my side that I wasn't sure what was going through that child's head sometimes, when I realized it Was Danny. Danny is Hailey's bio-dad. The only source of real stress in my life lately.

I was suddenly a little bit uncomfortable and had my guard on, but I continued standing with him when my neighbor came up to me. She was drinking and smoking a cigarette, slightly buzzed, when I decided that I had completely had enough and said "You know, you have way too many animals. It's not healthy. I shouldn't have to worry about your animals meowing and barking me awake in the middle of the night, coming into my house every time I open my door, and shitting all over the place." At this point, she laughs and tells me she doesn't care what I think so I tell her "That's great, it doesn't matter too much if you care what I think but I just called animal control and in a few moments, you might care what they think." Those were my actual words.

She looks a little worried, but continues to sip on her beer. I walked away by myslef, leaving Danny standing there with my neighbor. Instead of calling animal control, I went over there because well, they were only a few houses down! If only life were so convenient. I marched right in and told them about all of the animals and as I was talking to the lady, I realized i wasn't wearing any pants. Great. Well, at least I had a long shirt on :) I kept pulling my shirt down while I was talking and intermittently apologizing for my lack of pants but never offering an explaination. I suppose there wouldn't be many explainations out there, huh?

She, in a nut shell, tells me there is nothing that they can do. Great. So I was talking to them in my undies for no reason. I start back toward home and pass my neighbor and somewhere around 10 other people out back drinking and smoking, just hanging out. I walked right through the crowd and past my neighbor who was not mad or confrontational (yeah right) and I thought to myself "I love that drunk people will just forget and forgive... while they're drunk anyway... maybe she won't remember..." And it was then that I spotted Danny again.

He came up to me like he belonged at my side and we walked. We went to sit on a porch deck and as soon as we get onto the porch, it is suddenly barred and contained to the point in which I could not escape. I realize that Danny is completely drunk and he tells me what types of liquor he's been drinking. In real life, Danny was the absolute meanest drunk that I have ever seen when he drank hard alcohol. Drunk from beer and he was an asshole, but drunk from liquor and he was unthinkably angry and almost evil. He then, in the dream, pins me down and begins torturing me. He's pulling my hair, calling me names, telling me how worthless I am. This is all bring back such a sense of de ja vu. I feel that this is real because it happened so many times when we were together. The look in his eyes was exactly the same as it always had been; like he wasn't even posessing his own body. Like he couldn't stop if he wanted to.

I begin screaming and begging him to stop. Telling him everything that he wants to hear. "I'll be with you again!" "I'll do anything you want!" He rips off my shirt and then starts ripping and tearing my pants into shreds tries to slide something over my foot and onto my ankle, some type of device to chain me down. I fight with all of my might so he cannot get it over my foot to trap me there. This goes on for what seems to be an eternity. He suddenly lets go and says "You're right, I am an asshole when I'm drunk" and laughs hysterically. At this point, I break from his grip and wiggle free and the deck was no longer contained so I run. I run for a long time until I know I am safe. And I wake up.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Selling on Craigslist & eBay

It seems like I am always selling something. I don't know how I accumulate so much to sell! Trips to the Goodwill outlet help... I have made so much money that way. I've gotten my trips there down to a science! And, I am not a packrat (I am the exact opposite, actually) so I'm always trying to get rid of clutter and things taking up space in my closet.

Some of my best finds so far: 
a L.A.M.B. purse by gwen stefani. Paid $6.99 +tax, Got over $80 for it on ebay.
a TON of clothes that was donated to the goodwill outlet by Target. All brand new with tags. Scored hundreds of $$ from those, paid around $50 for all of them.
a Juicy Brand Tanktop @ goodwill. Paid $3.99 +tax, got over $35 for it.

I can't even name all of the awesome finds. Tons of garage sale finds, too. But... summer is over :( No more g-sales until next year...
That's ok- craigslist & ebay are year round : D

Saturday, November 14, 2009

4 gallons of milk in one week.

Can you believe it? Actually, in 6 days! 4 gallons of milk. I just went to make myself a slimfast drink for lunch, and realized the last gallon of milk was sitting, empty, on the counter. *sigh*

Friday, November 13, 2009

Is it really Friday?



Is it just me or does it completely not feel like Friday? It feels like Thursday. Or maybe even Wednesday. Some day other than Friday, anyhow. This whole part time work thing has got me all messed up schedule-wise! Except get this: I have no piled up laundry, no piled up dishes, and my living room is clean! I seriously cannot believe it. I got a lot done today:


Took Hailey to school
Posted items on ebay
Replied to questions on ebay and craigslist about items posted
Did dishes... TWICE! (I can't remember the last time I had time to do dishes twice in one day!)
Did a million like 10 loads of laundry
Folded and put it ALL away (I usually let it sit on the back of my couch for a while... so this is a definate improvement and goes to show how much extra time I have)
Made lunch and met up with my husband at work like usual
Came home and cleaned the living room
Called Mcafee because their website was being ridiculous and I couldn't download some software (there went an hour of my day on the phone)
Picked up my daughter from school

(insert something here because i have no idea what I did between that and the next one)
Made dinner....at 9pm....lol but hey it was made!

And actually, speaking of dinner, I am super proud of my self control this evening! I love to have pizza on the weekends and I will admit, it is almost every single weekend- usually on Friday. Pizza is my fave food and I could eat it for every meal until the day I died. Seriously.

Anyway, I talked myself out of pizza and made spaghetti. My self control doesn't stop there! I also, forwent the garlic bread (the best part!) and instead, made corn. Yes, I know lots of carbs and starches still, but a lot of the time we don't even have a veggie with dinner so this is good for us. And, to top it all off, I only ate 1/4 to 1/3 of my usual spaghetti serving (maybe 1/4 to 1/2 cup?), 1 regular sized scoop of corn, and a slimfast. And I was full!

I don't know about you, but I always feel obligated to eat what my family eats, and then usually feel guilty because A) It's usually a cheap meal made from hamburger with tons of carbs and B) I almost always eat more than I know I should. So this whole 'eating just a tiny bit with a slimfast' thing could work out great for me. I already eat a slimfast for breakfast. I L-O-V-E The french vanilla powdered slimfast with nonfat milk. I crave it. It takes like vanilla cake batter to me. mmmmm.

Tomorrow on the agenda: Taking Hailey and her BFF to the free (gotta love that!) Lowes kids clinic. She loves these and we all get to spend time building a free project provided by Lowes.
Also: Probably driving 45 minutes to drop hailey off with Grandma for the night. And the driving 45 minutes back. We will see about this one, though.

Finding my Blog Niche!

I've tried starting a blog a few times but even though I may be completely interested in something and totally into it (couponing, online bargains, organization, reducing debt, etc.) I just can't seem to stay interested in it enough to actually WRITE about it for more than a week! Go figure.

So, I decided it is time to create a blog that's about what I love most: My family. A place for me to ramble about my busy days, family events, and share my personal and financial endeavors. Maybe throw a pinch of advice in there somewhere, sarcastic remarks, meaningless nonsense, and WHALLA! You have my personality on the internet in a blog for all to read. Sounds great, right?

Right now I am somewhere near a crossroads in my life, I guess you could say. I went from FT working Mom to Very Part Time (14 hours a week with a non-profit) by choice. Interestingly enough, after we paid down debt enough for me to be able to make that choice, I find out less than 24 hours after I informed my boss of my near future changes that I was going to Part Time whether I wanted to or not! Funny how the world works sometimes...

So I am in the middle of getting used to the changes at work, planning to become a FT SAHM soon, being able to actually clean and organize my house (hooray!), getting my daughter adjusted to a new school (choice transfer), being newly married (almost 1 year!), dealing with a dead-beat bio Dad, planning for a baby somewhere in between all of this, eating healthier and losing a bit of weight (hopefully before pregnancy).... Can you relate to any of this? Anyone?

I am excited to come here to tell all so hopefully someone is at least motivated to TRY to come by and read it once in a while!