A Few Minutes To Myself

The husband is bowling, son is at school and the baby is napping - so I have a few minutes to myself. I know there's things I should be doing, like another load of laundry or cleaning up the bedroom, but I just feel like sitting here for a few minutes.
I'm working on a stock-up list in Excel. We used to use something like it when I worked at the restaurant to ensure we did not run out of product before the truck came again. So, I have made a list of all the products we use that are non-food. I labeled each category at the top - for example: Baby, Bathroom, Cleaning, etc.. My goal in doing this is to only shop once a month for these products. I figure the less time I spend in Walmart (or wherever) the less chance I will buy extra stuff. For the first few months it may be a little hard to figure out how much we use in a month, but after a while I'll know how much we use. I plan on buying extra then we need for the first few months. I will start this next week after the husband gets paid and will post how it is going.
Here's a tip for saving a little toilet paper. You know how kids (and some adults) use way too much toilet paper? Well, all you have to do is when you put a new roll on squish it. This will make it harder to pull and your kid won't be taking using half the roll....

Online Bill Pay

Paying online through my bank is one of the best things I have ever found. My bills always go out on time so I need not worry about forgetting to mail them and end up with late fees. I also save money on stamps. I figure we send out at least 20-25 bills a month (we have 3 hospital bills that we pay on weeekly). It's also nice because you can pay your bills weekly and it feels like it's not such a big thing as when you take out one lump sum. I also have it set up to pay credit cards and loans 2 times a month; half at the beginning and half at the end. I'm thinking that this will reduce the amount I pay in interest, though I am not 100% sure because I just started doing this. We shall see.

Taking classes

I shall be taking a few classes at the local community college beginning January 16. They had the books online today through the college's website. Wow. I'd forgotten how expensive they can be. Even if I buy them used at the bookstore the one is $58 and the other is $104. But, I looked on Half.com and Amazon to see what I could do about getting a better price. Unfortunately, my economics book is still really expensive even if bought through one of these sites, probably because it is a newer book. The computer book is from 2004 so I was able to snag that up for $20 including shipping and handling. I saved $38.. not too bad. Textbooks really are pricey and you never get back very much for them. I used to sell mine online because our university bookstore didn't give back much at all for them. I like to get a head start on getting organized so I will be going up to the bookstore tomorrow to get the other book I need. Any jump start is probably good, with having a 4 month old around....