DD needed four fillings and two sealants.
We found out she had the cavities in early December at her routine cleaning appointment. With everything going on (action packed December) I thought it would be easier to wait until January/February to make the appointments for the fillings.

*palm to forehead*

That was so dumb! And the kicker is I *know* better. I *know* how to make dental insurance work for you. AND I didn't even realize I screwed up until after DD's fillings appointment.

Our insurance is an incentive plan. They pay 100% up to $1k for routine dental needs. This means we just maxed out DD's dental benefits for this year.
AND we'll have to pay about $100 out of pocket.

We barely used any benefits in 2013, so if I would have just found *a* day in December to do some of the work we wouldn't be paying anything.

Can't believe I so totally dropped the ball on this!
Crap! (& the other four letter words too!)

Friday we had a wonderful flow of money into our checking account.

First, our state and federal tax refunds were direct deposited.
This is the first time I have done direct deposit - it was uber fast. I e-filed with FreeTaxUSA on February 6th and the deposits were pending in our account on February 13th.

Second, I deposited the check for our horse trailer sale.

Third, I deposited mine and DH's payday checks.

All together it came to just over $8k!

Makes a girl a bit giddy to have all that deposited into her account at one time.

Yeah, it is all spoken for.. but I enjoyed the giant checking account balance all weekend. Tomorrow I will split it up.

Highlights are:
$4300 - Roof Savings
$1000 - EF
$ 550 - Tree Removal Savings
$ 255 - Payoff a CC

I have decided to send B's hubby (who changed the trailer tire) $40 extra when I mail the horse board check on March 1st. It will be an unexpected and welcome surprise I think.

------
As far as sickness goes..

As of Sunday, DS's daycare lady (GrandmaB) was still in the hospital. On a positive, she is doing better. I did talk to her by phone for a minute after I was briefed by her daughter on everything. She has pneumonia and also a urinary tract infection. Thankfully no heart related problems. She might even be back home at this point.

DS is pretty much feeling 100%. Every once in awhile he has a nagging little cough.

I am getting better (MUCH better than I felt on Saturday) still a bit of stuffy nose. I also have a cough that makes it sound as if I'm a lifelong smoker (I'm not at all!).

DH started feeling sick Sunday afternoon. He was in bed by 7pm tonight.

*Fingers Crossed* DD doesn't get it - so far she is fine.

Our daycare lady, GrandmaB, is very sick, so sick she is in the hospital!
The doctors at first thought she had bronchitis. Now they also think she is having heart failure with congestion/fluid accumulation from that.
We are very worried about her!!

That meant I stayed home again today.
Thursday we only work for a half day, so I didn't miss much.

It was good for me to stay home anyway because now I am sick with the cold DS is recovering from. Phooey!

DS and I did venture out to drop DD at school. Then we drove to the next town up to care for the elderly cat I see twice weekly and leave flowers and a card for GrandmaB with her daughter.

Tomorrow I will go to work and DS will go to preschool. Next week we will need to find someone to watch DS Wednesday and Thursday. Depending on what exactly is going on we might need someone for the next several weeks...

Well that was fast!

It's the kind of thing where you don't know if it will sell in a week or take months. This type of trailer, in good condition like ours, is in pretty high demand, so I had a positive feeling about it selling eventually. When I posted it I was thinking, "I hope the right person will see this right away."
Turns out that's what happened.

The buyer offered $4400 cash, which I accepted.

The ranch owner, B, took care of the transaction for us since we live 3+ hours away.
She set up the time to meet the buyer.
She also had to cart air to where the trailer was parked in order to fill the tires enough to tow it out. Turns out one of the tires had a leak, so B's husband changed the tire using the spare on the trailer.

B also checked all the cash bills with her counterfeit marking pen and wrote a very detailed bill of sale.
(I told her I picked the right person for the job - she was more thorough than I would have been. )

I had told B previously that we would give her $100 for her help selling the trailer. Given the extra effort B and her hubby had to put in (changing the tire especially!) my DH feels we should pay them a little more and I don't disagree. She is thrilled with getting *just* the $100.

Would you pay any extra? What do you think is fair?

DS seemed to be feeling fine and then he spiked a fever while he was down for a nap Sunday.

This is very scary for us because last year he had a seizure when his fever spiked.

It seems likely that he might have had a fever seizure while in his room for nap. I didn't see it, but he seemed "off" when I came in to see why he was crying. DH and I cooled him with a washcloth and dosed him up with meds and he was better.

He is doing okay now. Has a low grade fever (still giving Advil/Tylenol), little runny nose and a cough.

Monday I stayed home in the morning and DH came home early so I worked in the afternoon.

Today I stayed home.

Then our daycare lady, GB, called me and she won't be able to watch him tomorrow because she is sick.
She sounded terrible.

So now I'm taking tomorrow off from work. It is fine - extra fine actually because it is slow at work.

I will take Wednesday as a paid sick day; otherwise my paycheck is going to look pretty sad.

----
In other news:
I had a call on our horse trailer this morning.
She is headed out to the ranch now to see it. Sounds like a sure thing.. still keep your fingers crossed though..

I have had a Gold card for two years now. Initially I applied for it for the $250 reward, but kept it because AmEx is the only cc you can use at Costco. I almost always buy gas once a week there. We also shop inside, usually once monthly. I earned points that I cashed in for gift cards.

The first year the annual membership fee was waived. The second year I called to cancel the card and was told I could have the fee waived again if I wanted to keep the card. This year I decided I would apply for a different card account - the one specific to Costco and with higher % back rewards.

Well, I was denied! *gasp!*
That really surprised me. I haven't been denied an account anywhere in years. In addition to the fact I have had an excellent record with my Gold account.

So today I dropped to Plan B and called to cancel my Gold account. I was hoping they would offer to waive the $125 annual fee *again* in order to keep me. They didn't.

On a happier note - I did cash out the little bit of points I had for a $25 Cheesecake Factory card and a $10 Bath & Body Works card.

I figure by this time next year I'll be posting about how they have sent me an offer with a bonus reward I can't pass up. (So they've probably done me a favor.)

Just finished posting our horse trailer for sale on CL.
It is a very nice trailer and part of me wants to keep it. We looked long and hard to find it and get a good deal. We made a family road trip to pick it up in Oregon - so I suppose I have a bit of emotional attachment.

The logical part of me says that is silly!
It is a depreciating asset.
It has just been sitting for several years where we board our horse. It doesn't cost us anything to keep, but there isn't any benefit either.

Logic wins again.

I listed it for $4800 in order to negotiate a sales price of no less than $4000. (Roof money for us.)
I have offered the ranch owner $100 after it sells as compensation for her time to show it to potential buyers.

What I am hoping for is that people getting their tax refunds will be a position to make a large purchase like this.

Cross your fingers for us.

We are getting a super good, soaking, rain storm this weekend. It is so wonderful to hear the rain on the roof and watch the creek by the house fill up.

I did venture out this morning to take DS to a birthday party for one of his preschool buddies. On the way there we drove past two separate accidents. Solo spin-outs.. people going too fast with standing water on the highway.

DS enjoyed the party and we gifted a small toy truck that I had bought on sale months ago and tucked away. It was nice to not have to go shopping and the toy cost $4.

DH offered to go to the grocery store today.
He likes to spend the time hanging out with DS. I was thrilled with having the option to take a break from going out. I did write up a big list for him. DD left with them to visit a friend, so I have the house to myself. Watching some 'Downton Abbey' without interruption.

Last night I transferred DH's cell phone over to Ting. I am so excited about this mostly because of the big monthly savings. Secondly, because it's one less bill/company I have to deal with monthly.
I had offered many times to buy him a new phone just to get him to move to Ting, but he is very attached to his current phone.

Just a note: Ting is not fully supporting iPhones.. yet.. *Fingers crossed* for other Apple users. They are activating iPhone4 and 4s that are Sprint "branded" which basically narrows it to two phone models being eligible. This was where we got lucky because DH's phone is a 4 and he bought it through Sprint on Black Friday 2011.

I did have to maneuver a bit to make it happen.

First, I had to swap his Sprint service to an old cell phone so we didn't lose his current number. That meant digging around to pull out all our old phones. Then I was almost ready to give up because the first *four* I tried were not supported by the Sprint network anymore so they couldn't be activated. I almost didn't try the last one - glad I did 'cause the *fifth* old phone worked like a charm!
That made the iPhone inactive with Sprint (the phone must be inactive in order to re-activate with Ting).

Next, I logged into Ting a requested the number be "ported" and to activate the iPhone.

Two hours later I received the email that stated the number has been ported and to finish the activation steps.

My DH was happy because I told him he might be without his phone for 24 hours because I didn't know how long it would take to get his phone number switched.

I was/am so happy because the savings each month!!


**Previous monthly cell charges:

DH's Sprint = $86/mo (average)
Me & DD's Ting = $33/mo (average)

Total = $119/month

**New, anticipated, monthly charges:

Medium Minutes = $9
Large Texts = $8
Medium Data = $12
Device charge = $6 (x3)
Taxes = pocket change

Total = $49/month

$70/month SAVINGS!

**Happy Dancing**

This is great news, especially for higher usage customers!

Even though I use as little data as possible by connecting to Wi-Fi most of the time, my DD typically bumps us to the next level of usage with her YouTube surfing and music listening while not on Wi-Fi. Not that it is a *big* deal - about $10 additional per month that she pays for.

Here is the email I received this morning:




Then this evening I was able to read the blog post and saw their new rate table.



**Remember my referral code is on my sidebar and it will save you $25 when you decide to switch.

Woke up to rain this morning - YAY!
I was so excited. Which I know sounds silly, but it has been so sunny and dry here. Plus, on a rainy day it gives me reason to cozy inside all day - sunny days I feel guilty when I stay inside all day.

DH cooked up a delicious breakfast of eggs with cheese, brown sugar sausage links and biscuits. He had to run to the store for the sausage and biscuits. I also had him get a gallon of milk and fresh French bread to go with dinner tonight, but nothing else. We need to wait for the cc to end its billing cycle on Tuesday before any more shopping. If we can push our grocery run to next weekend it will have been three weeks since I made a big store trip.

I am going to work on our taxes today using FreeTaxUSA website. I have used this site for many years. It will cost me about $10 to file both federal and state.

This is another reason I love my Quicken. It makes tax time easy-peasy. Of course I double check my receipts and statements, but in case I forgot something my Quicken reminds me.

The other items on my To Do list today are:
laundry - including bedding
roll change
read
nap??
cook dinner

We will watch the Superbowl later today.
Hope it'll be a good game and if not, hope we enjoy some of the commercials.