Out of Debt Again Has Moved to Wordpress

Hi!

If you are visiting Out of Debt Again at the blogspot address, please bookmark the new site which is here: Out of Debt Again. I have a brand new look, thanks to the lovely and talented Mrs. Micah, she was a gem to work with and helped me with the migration process on February 21st. All of my posts from this version of my blog have all been moved over to my new site, where I'm using Wordpress. Thank you Blogger, for the great time I've had here with you!

And for my dear readers, please come visit me at the new blog!

Yours Truly,

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Do You Do Routine Maintenance on your Vehicle?

When I got my 6 year old Nissan Pathfinder in 2002, it was beautiful. It still cleans up nicely and no one can believe it's 13 years old.

Anyway, it was the first vehicle I'd ever owned that I actually considering doing routine maintenance on. You know, the schedule that tells you when to change this and when to replace that? I had my credit union help me locate my vehicle and I discovered the original owner left identifying information in the glove box so I was able to contact the dealer where he'd not only bought the vehicle, but where he got all the routine maintenance done regularly! So my vehicle was in VERY good condition when I got it. That was such a blessing to have a vehicle that was practically brand new. Of course we did pay $14,000 for it, but it was definitely worth it.

After I learned that Mr. Previous Owner had kept up with scheduled maintenance, I became a bit obsessed about keeping up with the routine maintenance, until I took it in to a shop near my job and discovered it was going to cost nearly $2000 just to replace parts that were still in perfectly good working order!

If I was wealthy, I would probably keep up with routine maintenance. But until then, we'll do like everyone else does (I do not know even one person who does scheduled maintenance) and fix it once it's broke.

My thirteen year old vehicle keeps springing leaks. There are several very small bypass hoses in very tight spots. Some are hidden pretty well and you can't even see them, but once they start to leak, they are easy enough to spot. Mr. A spent four hours last weekend replacing another of these little hoses. He's replaced four or five of them now, and thinks this most recent one is the last of them.

I have to say I am a diehard believer in doing routine scheduled maintenance for timing belts and chains. I lost an engine once due to the timing chain breaking. Timing belts are even less reliable. We also do regular oil changes, and Mr. A keeps a close eye on the tires, making sure they look good and are aired up properly.

So, back to my original question: Do you do routine scheduled maintenance on your vehicle?

Yours Truly,

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Is It Just MY Vacuum Cleaner?

One of these days I'm going to do some research on the best vacuum cleaners, then I'm going to write the names of them in my tiny purse phone book and when I'm at Savers or Goodwill on a sale day, I'm looking for a new vacuum cleaner.

Our vacuum cleaner is probably two years old. It's a cheap one that we bought from Walmart - similar to this one Bissell Upright Bagless Vacuum but mine is a 6594-W and I doubt that we paid more than $60 for it.

About 1 time out of 5 that I attempt to vacuum, it's clogged. Either that, or the dust container is full. Now granted this is probably because the men I live with aren't too alert when it comes to the fact that the vacuum cleaner is not sucking very well, or not at all. I have always been able to hear when any vacuum isn't working properly. So I start testing all the trouble spots. Unplug the hose from where it connects to the container, sound better? The clog must be in the hose. Sounds the same as when attached? Move on and unplug the hose where it connects to the floor sucking section. More suction power once you remove the hose? The clog's there. Or maybe the filter's clogged. I was given a really nice vacuum cleaner one time that was worth hundreds. The person getting rid of it said it didn't work, but when I checked it out, it was just a clog!

I keep extra belts on hand, and a second filter. Living in the desert, we have a LOT of dust, and the filter gets clogged with powder fine dust that chokes the vacuum's sucking power dramatically.

Do you have a favorite vacuum? Let me know in the comments because I am going to be on the lookout for a new one eventually.

Thanks!

Yours Truly,

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Financial Update

When I started this blog in September 2007, our lives were quite a bit different than it is now. Mr. A was "working for the man" making a steady $15 an hour, forty hours a week. We had around $10,000 in debt, which had been accumulated within one year due to circumstances beyond our control. From what I could see on paper, we should have money to throw at the debt, but we weren't making much progress. I was inspired by Mr. Debtbeater and started this blog. For a while, we were making fairly good progress with our debt. But then Mr. A started getting strong feelings to get going with his business, which he'd been running on his days off. He worked four 10-hour days and was working at his own business Friday, Saturday and often Sunday. He decided to make the leap in February, 2008. He already had many of the tools necessary since he used his own tools while working for his employer. So basically the start up costs were zero.

From March to December, Mr. A's business grossed over $30,000. I haven't exactly figured out the net, but there were hundreds of dollars, if not thousands for gasoline, and materials for the jobs has to be deducted. I am pleased at the amount of money he generated in his first year of business. Even the IRS allows that you'll lose money in the first few years of business. In September 2008, Mr. A decided to start another business, work which could be manufactured at home. Between slow business and the startup machinery for this second business, our debt has more than doubled.

This is why I've been shying away from the financial update posts. For one thing, it takes enough time for me to track our personal finances, and since I'm the money manager in our family, Mr. A's bookkeeping has fallen into my lap. As well as checking his email, promoting his business online, paying bills, depositing the money and so on and so forth.

Mr. A's business has picked up since the beginning of the year. I heard on the news the other morning that two businesses that will survive our nation's economic difficulties are auto mechanics and handyman type businesses.

And as always, it seems just when I think we'll be able to really sock it to the debt, something else comes up, like Mr. A's medical procedure, which has ended up costing over $1000 in co-pays. He is beside himself, he feels ripped off. He hasn't had medical insurance for most of his life, and when he gave his notice at his job last year in February, I insisted that we pay for the COBRA insurance. It was very reasonable - just over $200 to cover Mr. A and AJ, and after AJ turned 19 it dropped down to $145/month. Mr. A says I may as well drop the insurance right now, because he'll NEVER use it again. My insurance is pretty good - my co-pays are stated right on my insurance card and hospital visits are $125 maximum.

I'm going to try to talk more about our financial situation, since that was the main purpose of starting this blog, and I want to remain dedicated to getting us out of debt. If it's only $25 a month, that's better than nothing!

Speaking of $25, I am going to run a contest soon for a $25 gift certificate from Amazon. One day this week I will post the details, and the contest will run for ten days. Stay tuned.

Yours Truly,

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Valentine's Day Soup

We stayed home and had a nice relaxing day. Well, it was fairly relaxing for me, as I stayed in the kitchen cooking most of the day. Mr. A spent several hours replacing a bypass hose on my 13 year old vehicle.

One of the recipes I made today is one I came up with years ago, but never got around to making it. Now that I've finally made it, turns out I was right! It is delicious! If you love potato soup, you will love this version. The soup basically tastes like potato soup, with coloring from the beets. If you are a beet hater, you can just pick out the hearts.

Valentine's Day Hearts Potato Soup

2 1/2 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced celery
2 Tablespoon butter
4 medium potatoes
2 small beets
1/4 cup cream
salt to taste

Slice the beets into 1/4 inch thick slices, put in a small pan, cover with water and simmer until tender.

While the beets are cooking, melt the butter in a pan and add the onions and celery. Saute until the celery is bright green and the onions are turning translucent.

Peel the potatoes and dice 3 of them. Quarter the fourth potato.

Add the stock (or water) to the celery and onions, and add in the potatoes. Cook until the quartered potato is fork tender.

Check the beets periodically, when they are fork tender, remove them from the water. Keep the bright colored water for later. After a few minutes the beets will be cool enough to work with. Use a knife or box cutter to cut the beets into heart shapes. They don't have to be perfect and you can cut larger, or smaller, or tiny hearts.

Remove the quarter potato, mash and add back into the soup (it has a nice thickening effect).

Add some cream until the soup looks nice and creamy. Now add in the heart-shaped beets. The beets will color the soup. You can also add in a few tablespoons of the brightly colored water if you want it to look pinker or redder. As you can see in the picture below, the soup looks creamy, and I've added in some beets which are starting to color the soup. But I wanted more than light pink swirls, so poured in a few tablespoons of the water leftover from boiling the beets.

We're having a very nice dinner with a nice New York Strip steak that was on sale for $3.87/#. Asparagus was $0.97/#. We'll grill both of those. We'll have the pink potato soup on the side, with sauteed mushrooms. For dessert, I made chocolate sorbet and a heart shaped upside-down cheesecake, which I am not sure if it will turn out since I thought I had sour cream on hand, but turns out the containers had other items in them. Well, that's what happens when you recycle.

I made the chocolate sorbet mix last night, and got my Donvier ice cream maker insert in the freezer. The cheesecake was made in a heart-shaped baking tin, and I've also made tiny truffles to decorate the cheesecake, as well as cranberry sauce for decoration. Improvise, improvise! I wanted raspberry or strawberry sauce, but we had cranberries in the freezer so I used them. I put about 20 cranberries in a small pan with water to cover, boiled about 10 minutes. Added some honey and then hit them with the stick blender. Added a bit more honey to sweeten the sauce a bit and that was that. The truffles were so simple.

I used this Dark Chocolate Truffles recipe here, which was amazingly simple. Basically you use equal parts dark chocolate and cream. I had a part of a Lindt Excellence 70% Cocoa Intense Dark candy bar that had been sitting in the fridge for several weeks, and 5 Dove Dark Chocolate pieces of candy. Between the two I had 2.8 ounces of dark chocolate, so then I measured out 2.8 ounces of cream. Heat the cream until it boils and pour over the broken up pieces of chocolate. Let sit one minute and stir. Refrigerate and make into balls. Simple! I'm going to use the truffles to decorate the cheesecake.



Some of the truffles were dipped in cocoa, some were dipped in white sugar and pink sugar, and some were dipped in crumbled chocolate sandwich cookies.

And here's the Valentine's Day upside-down cheesecake.



Okay a little bit more tweaking, using some beets as decoration. I'll let you know how it tastes sans beets. :-)


I hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day.

Yours Truly,

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Yay - My Glasses are Being Replaced!

Back in August I blogged about how I fell into a pothole at one of the outlet malls in the big city. I tried calling back a few times, because my glasses were really scratched badly and I got the feeling they were just trying to wait me out. You know, if they never returned my calls, maybe I wouldn't be tenacious enough to keep calling. They were right. I gave up after about four calls. I'd already told them straight out I wasn't going to sue them, but I did ask if they would at least help me with some of the cost of replacing my glasses, so I figured they weren't worried about me in the least.

To my amazement, I got a phone call in late January from a lady asking me how I was doing after my fall at the mall. It turns out she is the "risk management" that I was told about during my one phone conversation with security at the mall. I told her I was really frustrated that no one had called me, and she was very apologetic. She asked me if I was okay, and I told her my bruises had healed, the soft tissue damage to my knee had healed. I told her that I had not yet been able to replace my glasses, and they were pretty scratched up. I volunteered that I had taken pictures, and she asked if they were on my cell phone or a regular camera. I told her I'd had my digital camera with me and she asked if I would send the photos. Also, she asked if I would get an estimate on the cost of replacing my lenses.

I emailed the photos right away, and it took me a couple of days to get the estimate from Costco. I wear progressives - they are trifocals that blend so you can't see the lines. The guy confirmed that the price is about the same now as it was two years ago, and the cost would be $215. So I scanned that and sent it to her. In the email I asked that they consider replacing the frames and lenses, since both were scratched up pretty badly.

I asked her to please email me back when she got the photos and the estimate, but I never heard back from her. I thought she was brushing me off, like the others before her. I called her and got her voice mail, so I left a message and still never heard back from her. Last night I was digging through a stack of mail trying to find the other bill from Mr. A's medical procedure at the hospital, as a new "this is your portion, please pay within ten days" bill arrived in the mail. While digging through the pile, I found an already opened envelope, from the risk management lady! In it I found that she had sent a release form to have notarized and asking me to release them from all responsibility for the total sum of $215.00.

It was mailed February 6th! My boss is a notary, so I will be having her sign it for me on Tuesday and get it in the mail. I know some might say that I shouldn't sign the release, but I am perfectly okay and all I really wanted was to have my glasses replaced.

Yours Truly,

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I Have To Go To The Dentist

I should really go to the dentist more often, but I just can't bring myself to do it as often as my insurance plan allows which is one a year. My dentist told me at my last visit two or was it three? years ago that one of my molars needs a crown. He told me he'd told me at my previous visit, but I had no recollection of that conversation. The receptionist had me sign a paper indicating that I had been told. I guess they heard one too many "You never told me that" retorts and decided to cover themselves from liability.

So the tooth in question seems to be showing the tiniest hint of maybe starting to hurt. One corner feels really rough, like the tooth is beginning to break down. Sigh. I guess it's time to gather up my nerve and make the appointment.

At least I trust this dentist to not recommend procedures that aren't necessary. I had a dentist tell me about 15 years ago that a different tooth needed a root canal, and when I asked him how soon I needed to have that done (since hello, I was on welfare and poorer than a church mouse at the time) and he said, "They're your teeth" as if to say I was being really stupid for asking, of course he thought it should be done right away. I went to a very good friend's husband and he said the tooth did have a deep filling, but certainly didn't require a root canal. Whew. And my current dentist agreed, stating the deep filling might last for the rest of my life, so there was no need to just go and do a root canal without a reason.

So, I trust that he's not just trying to make money off me. The co-pay for a root canal is $500. Or used to be 2 years ago. It's probably gone up since then.

Do you like going to the dentist? I guess I'd rather go to the dentist, than to my primary care physician. At least the dentist doesn't require me to step on a scale.

Yours Truly,

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