Did You Know? In the old west a .45 cartridge for a six-gun cost 12 cents, so did a glass of whiskey. If a cowhand was low on cash he would often give the bartender a cartridge in exchange for a drink. This became known as a “shot” of whiskey.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BECCA… Our granddaughter turns 27 today (can I say that?) and she is busy carrying our fourth great-grand baby! We are so excited! We texted her and said when Sue gets better, we will take her out for a birthday dinner!
So Paul has been doing chores around the house including doing the bills. We got a notification, via email, of the Citibank bill being due so Paul logged on to Citibank and messed around on their site. Never had time to do that before. It was a bit of a shocker!
He asked for a summary of last years spending categorized and voila, it suddenly appeared:
OMG… We had no idea!
It did not take but about three seconds so look at the $64,000 dollar question… We spent $64,700+ dollars on dining out!
Catal (Downtown Disney) $7975
Candlelight Dinner Theater ~$9000 (That includes Christmas Play)
Himalayan Grill $2500
Kobe Steakhouse $4887
Malarkey’s Grill $5750
Patty’s Place $3567
Phoenix Club $3533
Seasons 52 $2225
…and a lot of other places!
Paul downloaded the complete set of charges for last year into a Excel spreadsheet and sure enough… in black and white… the spending became apparent! No wonder several of the restaurants treat us well! We had no idea! We were spending almost $180/day on eating out! That seems silly! We see adjustments in our future! If we cut that in half, Paul see’s a new Avalon in the near future!
However, we have been doing some savings… In October Sue says to eberyone “The house went dark”… Actually we turned off the electric spa (which we haven’t used in two years), put the house fan on “automatic” meaning it comes on when the heat or air comes on and not running 100% of the time, and put in LED’s and started looking behind us when we left the room! It’s magic!
But… On The “Bright” Side
Sue woke up around 12:30 AM and Paul fed her lunch which was pea soup, two 4-cheese raviolis with white truffle olive oil, and some cottage cheese. She was able to take her multi-vitamin with no problems so we are back on track to get her returning to normal! That’s a lot of good news!
Paul went diving into the “bill cart” which is a roll-around device we kept for years which is pulled out when bills are paid. Good thing… It had our taxes dating back to 1993 and other stuff like that. Paul went to the local Staples and bought five “bankers boxes” and re-hosted the materials into the storage devices! Needless to say, it rolls around a lot easier now! Paul also found $8,000 in savings bonds stuff in an envelope and about several hundred dollars in “real” twenty-dollar bills! The cart was a gold mine today!
IN the afternoon, Sue slept and Paul did some errands plus planned dinner and called some friends who have been wondering how Sue is doing.
Tonight… Vegetable soup from “Chez Ward”. Our great friends down the street. Paul visited them for about twenty minutes on the way home from doing errands.
