As y'all can see, this is my first post since December. I had full intentions of starting to post daily {or almost daily} on New Years & doing a year in the life of a Frugal Single Mom. But Life happened. Enough said.
Since it's now February, I'll update you a bit. It's been COLD here, interspersed with days in the 60's & 70's. It's Texas - that's just how the weather is. But those below freezing nights are bad - I end up either staying up all night, or waking up every couple of hours to run water to keep the pipes from freezing. Our House is 40+ years old & has issues....a LOT of issues. One of which is a severe lack of insulation. Another of which is old drafty single pane windows. And yet another of which is no central air / heat {although it IS setup for one - we just don't have a working system}. So we use space heaters sparingly, and dress warmly in winter. And on nights like this past week when it gets down to 25, I work all night to keep the house warm & the pipes thawed.
Ebay has gone very good for January. Made around $175, and after fees / costs / shipping, took home about $130 or so of that. Sold some things on FB, not a ton but some at least. Need to work more on that next month. My sales goals for February are: $250 ebay {I did $175 this month there}, $200 Sweaters & $100 FB sales. So a total of $550. That should leave me with around $250 left after paying all the basic bills. More if I can get back into the program that was helping us with our electric / gas bill.
Still worried about the house taxes - they are almost $800 and due NOW. From here out they start adding penalty $$$ on. I am hoping to be able to pay at least part of it in late February if I meet my sales goals.
Christmas was good. We were adopted by a message board we are a part of, through their holiday adoption program. DD got exactly what she wanted thankfully! And a bit more besides. I actually got a few things too that I requested - a good space heater, new sheets, and GC's to Walmart & Home Depot for things we need for the house. I dug some bision steaks out of the freezer that had been in there who knows how long for dinner.
We have been getting by on Groceries. With the recent SNAP cuts, I am really feeling the loss of that $20 a month. It doesn't seem like much, but that cut, coupled with the prices going up, means that most of the time we are out of SNAP by the 3rd week of the month now. It used to last all month & I'd have some left over, but with prices going up it's creeping smaller & smaller. I have started using the local grocery {HEB} freshness policy to get free groceries - never know what you'll get, but mostly I can figure out some way to use it if I google, unless we are allergic. If I can't then it goes to a local group that feeds the homeless - they can use anything. Mostly we get bread, produce, and dairy items. On rare occasion meat too.
And I'm dealing with Mt. Washmore. The sewer line on our house needs snaked for tree roots {or it's partially caved in - we're not sure}, but my handyman won't do it. So I need a plumber - which is costly $$$ that I just don't have right now. So until then, we deal with the water issues. If I run too much water at once, or do too many loads of laundry too close to one another or too many days in a row, it backs up & floods a good chunk of the house. Right now I can do maybe a load a day every other day without it flooding the house. And that's IF I don't do dishes! Clearly not enough to even make headway on Mt. Washmore. After thinking on the problem, I came up with a temporary solution. I pulled the washer over to in front of the back door, took off the knob, put the drain hose through the door knob hole, and added an extension hose to get it away from the house. So now I'm in business again doing laundry, and no worries about the house flooding! I'll have to move the hose occasionally to prevent a major muddy spot, but hey it works.
I've been working on small projects around the house to make it work better for me. We were gifted a Home Depot Gift Card to put towards home repairs, and I'm working down my list. Mostly small things, like extending the shelves in the pots & pans closet, so they actually fit in there properly. And adding a shelf in the hall linen closet, so there is enough storage to put all the blankets in there. And adding shelves in a old bookcase we picked up years ago in the bulk pickup, so I can use it for storage in the storage room. And caulking all the cracks in & around the windows - that will help the heating bill hopefully. Like I said - small projects, but they will make life much easier around here.
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