Ktmarvels's Personal Finance Blog

I got some clothes for Christmas that didn't fit so I needed to return them. I went to return them and found that the mall was having some really great sales! I have been needing some nicer clothes, particularly collared shirts. Well JCPenney was having a 40% off the clearance price sale. I went a little crazy and bought 11 shirts for $120 dollars. However, I saved $244.51 since all but one of the shirts were on clearance...and that shirt was on sale.

Then I went to Old Navy they were also having a good clearance sale with half off. Since I had about $20 in store credit after the return I scoured the clearance racks, but didn't find anything I really liked. So I bought a pair of shorts that ended up costing me only $1.25 oop.

So I'm going to add that $244.51 to the savings part of the my challenge. Oh, and I got a check from pinecone, so I'll add that too.

New addition: $249.51
Previous total: $70
Total: $319.51

Well today I finally got mail from when I was gone visiting DH. I am completely floored with how generous my grandparents were this holiday season! I am so thankful and it will definately be put to good use because our expenses are so much higher now.

In addition to leftover holiday wishes, I also got a check for tutoring and 2 pinecone checks. That will start my 2008 challenge off with $70.

New Additions: $70
Total: $70

So I was really bored today and MTV was having a "The Hills" marathon. For those of you who have never heard of the show, it's a reality show who follows Lauren, a girl who works for Teen Vogue in LA and her friends.

For the first couple of episodes I saw today they were having a pop-up-video of sorts where they selected certain items the the girls were wearing to show how much they cost. Several of the shirts and shorts were $300, headbands and bracelets were up in the $100s. The least expensive thing I saw was a pair of sunglasses for $11. Then at the end of the show they would total up the price of everything shown. One of the shows the total was $69K (they did show a $60K car), and for the other two they were about $8,000 and $9,000.

Many teenagers watch this show, what sort of ideas are they getting that to be cool and trendy like the people on the show they need to spend $300 on a shirt?!?! To the shows credit there was about once or twice per episode they had an advertisement saying "get this same look for cheaper at ______(insert Target, Kohls, etc)" But still, way too much money!!

Needless to say, I am NOT living the Hills lifestyle, nor will I probably ever be!

DH and I finally got around to calling the insurance company and telling them our new addresses. We got our new automobile rate quotes and with DH living in Maine, we saved $3!

I also learned that our renters insurance is a global plan so that it covers us wherever we happen to be living. I was sort of hoping there'd be an additional savings there, but hey, at least they didn't decide to raise it since it now will cover 2 households!

Other than that I'm trying to enjoy the last few days up here in Maine with DH and snow. Although I hear Florida is going through its own cold snap!

To join the bandwagon I’m going to look back over the past year to see where DH and I have come and try and look forward to where we want to go.

This year DH and I both opened Roth IRA accounts and were able to put the max out the 2007 contributions. We also currently have over $2400 saved for the 2008 contributions.

In January we had nearly $20,700 in car loan debt. Today we completely paid off my car and only have 6100 left on DH’s car. We could have paid off more, but we decided that it is not financially beneficial to pay off his car early as the interest rate is only 3.59%.

Our savings account has nearly $20K more in it than it did last January. At first I thought this was awesome, but then I realized that it’s been artificially inflated. At the beginning of the year we had several savings accounts. In May, we decided to combine them all into the account earning the most interest. So that was nearly 8K of it, and we received 10K of life insurance, and are holding nearly 7K from student loans. So adding all of those together, we’ve actually lost money in savings! Most of the money came from our down payment fund, which won’t be needed for several years. Regardless, the money was put to good use: retirement, paying off debt, and keeping us fed and sheltered.

We only started tracking purchases in August of 2006, so I can’t easily compare 2006’s spending to 2007, but I’m looking forward to seeing how our spending will change from ’07 to ’08.

Looking ahead to 2008 I don’t know what to expect! We are starting out the year with 2 households and if things continue at their present rate we will only be making about $50 more than our expenses. So that will drastically change the progress we are able to make. We also will have to deal with deployment…well, not technically deployment as it will only be for 3 months. In theory DH will be making more money during this time, and as he won’t be at home, his expenses will go down. So that might be a time for us to play catch-up. In December though, he will be deploying for real, and that will have major tax and income implications. Which I’m sure I’ll be learning more about as we get closer to that date.

Our priorities for 2008 are as follows:
1. Max out our 2008 Roth contributions, it goes up to 10,000 for both of us, so we have our work cut out for us.
2. Save for a down payment. We’ll only start putting away for this after we’ve got our Roth maxed as we are still several years away from actually buying a house.
3. Minimize the amount of school loans I have to take out and/or pay off the loans I’ve already taken out.
4. Pay off DH’s car. As I mentioned before this is not really a priority as the rate is so low.

Well there you have it! I’m really impressed with what we have done so far, a little worried about the near future, but really excited to see where we’ll go from here!!

Wow, I don't think DH and I have been here before! Before anyone gets too worried about us, in the back of our minds we knew this was a possibility and we have prepared for it. Despite the fact that we have the money to cover the bill, it's still a scary and uncomfortable place for me to be.

To bring everyone up to speed, DH moved last month for his job (The Navy) whereas I stayed to finish pharmacy school (and no, Grandma, that doesn't mean we are splitting up or going to get a divorce!)

So November we had increased expenses because of the move and rent deposits and the like. However we also got some money from the Navy for the move. So at the end of the month I did my normal draining of the checking account down to our cushion and transferred it all to savings. With the additional money for moving, it was quite a bit, so I thought we would be fine dealing with 2 households.

Now looking a little deeper into our finances, MS Money says we only made $48 dollars last month…including the moving money! I didn't quite realize that everything DH paid for after he moved wouldn't be on the credit card until December! So this month we have moving expenses, plus his utilities, plus Christmas, plus we've been eating out a lot, plus all our normal charges. Needless to say it has added up to a lot.

Thankfully it was the plan that for November and December, that any profit that was made would go into our EF in anticipation that we might spend more than we make while getting the apartments set up. I’m glad we have the money available, I’m just sad, ‘cause it quite literally means we are spending the money that would have been earmarked for retirement. Oh well, we are 25, have already maxed out our 2007 Roth contributions, and already have some money set aside for our 2008 contributions. So despite this set back we are doing well, and will continue to do even better!

It's been forever since I've added anything to my $20 challenge, but since I want to get back in the habit for 2008 I figured it wouldn't hurt to start now!

Using my card at the grocery store I saved $4.12.

New additions: $4.12
Previous total: $1074.76
Total, since 4/15: $1078.88

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last made an entry. School has been keeping me busy and I haven’t been as diligent about tracking the $20 challenge like I had been. I think in the New Year I’ll start it up again. It’s always fun to see how much I’ve made and how much I’ve saved.

DH has moved up to Maine and his just stuff just arrived today. He was a little overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that he had, particularly since he’s been living without all of it for over a week. With no TV, no internet, no furniture, no nothing, he went a little spend happy. Although he was pretty good and got mostly things he needed. And he rented movies from the grocery store which only cost $1. Much better than the $3ish they charge at Blockbuster! To be fair I also spent about $30 today on household stuff too. Despite this, we still had had a profit last month! Some of the expenses will spill over into December, but I don’t think we’ll have a problem then either.

Financially, we have made some changes in the past month or so:

*We decided not to pay off our car early the interest rate is so low that it isn’t worth it.

*In January we are going to put all money earmarked for our Roth into our Roth accounts. I don’t think we’ll be able to max it, but we should have about half of it. So we’ll keep saving for both 2008 and then maybe the 2009 years.

*We decided to refuse my unsubsidized loan for next term of school. I still have some money from last semester so we were only going to take out the subsidized loan and pay the difference in the cost of tuition. Well last weekend I got a call from the in-laws and they have offered to pay for next semester’s tuition! So that is great. I think we may still take out the subsidized loan as it will basically be a 3 year interest-free loan. We’ll throw it into a CD or something to make some money!

Well I haven't written in forever. Mostly because pharmacy school had been taking up waaaay too much time, but also because DH and I have been spending money left and right.

We are actually doing ok in terms of actual money available since we both made some extra money this month, but we've spent much more than our normal alotted amount in several categories. Like 2x the amount of gas and 1.5x dining out budget.

We did make a financially responsible decision though. Instead of me flying to Maine and then both of us flying to Oregon, we decided that we were going to just spend Christmas in Maine. My mom might fly out for, but otherwise it will just be the two of us.

Since DH has to put his first and last month for his new apartment, we decided that we are not going to put our extra money toward the car. That shouldn't really affect us, the rate is super low and we don't actually have that much owed on it.

As you may recall DH is moving to Maine next month while I'll be staying in Florida. We'll end up living apart for about a year and a half.

We are currently living in a 2 bedroom apartment that we got for a steal of $800.
In order to save money I'm going to stay in the same complex, but move to a 1 bedroom apartment. So my rent will be about $640. DH just found an apartment in Maine that sounds nice and is in a great spot. The rent is $740/month. So all together our rent will increase from $800 to $1380.

Thankfully almost everything is covered in his rent...even heating since Maine winters can be rough. The only real bills I anticipate him having will be electricity and TV.

I'm starting to freak out a little bit because concrete numbers about how much this year apart will cost us are starting to trickle in. That increase in rent of almost $700 is going to eat up most, if not all, of the money that we had been saving or using to pay off debts.

Thankfully, we know this is coming and can plan ahead some for it. Instead of putting extra towards our car this month, we are going to add to our emergency fund. Moving always results in increased expenses (deposits and purchasing new items), and I'd like to have a little bit more of a cushion available if needed.

September wasn't that great of a month in terms of our budget..we had some areas that we overspent a lot, but we did pay off my car, so that made me happy.

The first area we overspent was in travel. DH had to buy plane tickets to move up to Maine after Thanksgiving. Normally we wouldn't have to pay for this, but the Navy kind of gave us a raw deal on how they wrote the orders. They were trying to save money, but it cost us money!

Next was clothing. DH and I rarely buy clothing, but in September we both had things we needed to buy so we spent $130 vs our budgeted $50. For the month of October, I've already spent our clothing budget and I have a feeling that we me needing to continuing to need "professional" attire and DH needing clothing to handle the winter in Maine, this will be an area we will continue to spend in.

We spent a lot more in eating out than normal, this month, but we didn't go over budget. I like to plan most of my budget with cushion, particularly eating out and groceries. So spending up to the budgeted amount is uncommon, but hey--that's why we've allotted money to that area!

Last night DH and I had our semi-regular meeting to discuss our money. For a while we've been hoarding cash since there were so many unknowns in our life: we didn't know if I would get into pharmacy school, where DH would be stationed, if one or both of us would have to move, and how all of that would influence our monthly expenses.

Well now we have a better idea about most of those and decided that even if expenses would be higher than expensive we could handle it. Since we aren't going to buy a house for 4+ years, we took $5,500 from our downpayment fund and used it to pay off my car.

Now we just have to pay off DH's car. It shouldn't take too long, but I'll crunch those numbers later.

Great news...our Roth's have finally made money again!

DH and bought our Roths a couple weeks before the market tanked this last time. It's been hovering around our purchase price, but today's been the first day that we've ended the day ahead in about 3 months.

Now I'm fully expecting them to have end down tomorrow, but hey, for now we are in the black!

In the three weeks since school has started I've been feeling so overwhelmed and have not had time for anything other than studying!! Having my in-laws in town this weekend and last haven't helped either since that means I've had to cram all school stuff during the week.

Anyway, I've had zero time for things that I have previously enjoyed like couponing and tracking our finances. Thankfully there haven't been too many good deals out there otherwise I'd either have to miss out or try to cram it in. Our finances are sort of working out as expected, but I'm not able to track and monitor it as much as I'd like.

School is also much more expensive than I was expecting. I was expecting for tuition and stuff, but now there are various club dues and eating out! I'm planning on joining a couple of different clubs and with dues being about $50, that quickly adds up to $100-150.

Grabbing lunch at the hospital is about $3, but if we go somewhere else it will easily add up quickly. Our schedule is so varied that some days we will have to eat at the hospital, and I can probably take my lunch most of those days. However other days it makes more sense for people to go out to lunch, and it would be harder to bring my lunch those days. Especially this semester when I'm trying to meet people and build relationships I'll probably go out to eat more than in future terms. We'll see though!

Well apparently at pharmacy school we have to dress professionally. For this normally jeans and t-shirt gal that means I need some new clothes.

A little while ago I went to a thrift store and got some clothes. I wrote about it in a previous post if you are interested.

Well this Thursday JC Penny's was having a major clearance sale. I got a collared shirt (half off), a pinstriped pant (less than $9), a pair of black sandals (less than $9), a pair of black pumps (half off), and a pair of earings (25% off). On top of that I opened a Penny's credit card and got $5, 10% off, and then an additional 15% off.

The recepit says I saved $145.

Since I don't have much to add to the challenge lately I'll add it here.

New additions: $145
Previous total: $929.76
Total, since 4/15: $1074.76

Argh, school loans are so hard. Actually the loans itself isn't difficult, it's just that my personal situation that is making it so complicated.

I currently have accepted all the loans they will give me. (For the year: $8,500 subsidized, $16,700 unsub.) As of this moment DH and I have a "profit" of roughly 1,000 a month, which we have been using to pay off our cars and put towards our Roths. If life were simple this would mean that we would only need to take out $12,000 worth of loans each year to cover tuition.

However, life isn't that simple for us. Starting in November DH will be moving. So we will suddenly have two sets of rent and utilities to pay for. I will be downsizing to a smaller apartment to save money, but our finances will still change. Exactly how much, we don't know. And from prior experience it will be a couple of months after the move before things settle down and we can get an accurate picture of our spending habits.

To give you some more background the student loan will be at 6.8%, my car loan is at 5.99% and DH's car loan is at 3.59%. We currently have a decent amount of money in cash (earning 5.0%) between our EF and down payment funds. In theory we could pay for a year of school flat out--but then we'd be broke.

With so much up in the air this is what I'm thinking:
*Take all of the student loans they'll give me for Fall term.
*Pay off the interest each month.
*After paying tuition any extra money will be put in our savings account (5%).
*Try to have us only live off of DH's paycheck and not touch the loan money.
*Adjust and see if less money can be taken out for Spring term.

From there things get a little more murky.
*Should we continue to put our monthly "profit" towards our cars and retirement?
*Should that money instead be diverted towards the student loan?
*Should I even hold onto that extra loan money or should we use our EF/Down payment money to cover any potential gap?

Any insight or opinions would be greatly appreciated. I'm a little surprised I'm having a hard time with this. I think it's because the completely fiscally responsible thing (avoid all debt like the plague and pay it off ASAP) is in conflict with the plans we had (pay off the cars early, save for retirement, and take out loans for school expenses).

Ok, I'll start with the good news. I had orientation for pharmacy school yesterday. It was nice to meet some more of the people in my class and get to know the campus a little better. On Tuesday I have to go to Gainesville where all of the pharmacy students are meeting and we'll learn even more about the program. It was a long and stressful road to get here, but now that it's finally starting I'm excited and looking forward to it. The lectures are all taped in Gainesville and then put online for the satellite campuses. While I still have class requirements on my campus, a great deal of my time is flexible.

Now for the bad news, while we were on our lunch break DH called with his new orders. We were hoping to have him stay in Florida (so we could live together), but it turns out he'll be moving to Maine this November. The worst part of that is that we'll have to live apart for about 18 months, six of which he'll be deployed. The silver lining is that he'll only have to be in Maine for 18 months and not the entire 36 months of his tour since the squadron will be moving to Florida after deployment.

As far as our relationship goes, we're getting pretty good about living apart from one another...this will be our third time. It's never easy, but at least this time we'll be on the same coast and not across the country or across the world for most of it. Also, I'm planning on moving up to Maine during the summer so that's 3 more months we'll get to spend together. Since my classes are flexible, there will be some times where I won't have to be on campus for about a week...guess where I'll be!!

Financially, this makes things very difficult. First of all it means that by the end of the year we will have to be supporting two households! Two rents, two electricity bills, two food bills, two of everything! We were "making" (after expenses) about 1000 a month that was being used to pay off our cars and save. However a second rent will quickly eat through that. So I think it means that we won't be saving as much as we have been and I'll have to take out more student loans that I was expecting. Not fun.

We'll get through it, we have quite a bit in savings and with the deployment, we'll probably only have a year of dual households. In the meantime, we either need to find DH a roommate with a fully stocked kitchen and a TV, or we need to go shopping for a TV, microwave and dishes!

Since we got married and have joint accounts I've had my old US Bank accounts that have just been sitting there empty. I knew that in August the monthly fee would be charged to my credit card so I wanted to close it before that charge was posted. Well I procrastinated and checked it last week and the fee was sitting there. So I called them up and asked to close the account. They didn't do anything drastic, just said, "We'll reverse the fee and close the account for you."

So then I called the main bank to close my checking and savings accounts. Again, no problems there. I told them that we live in a part of the country where there aren't any branches and they said OK and shut the accounts.

I thought for sure I'd have to jump through a bunch of hoops and talk to several different people to get the accounts closed. Thankfully that wasn't the case.

Now some people may cringe that we have joint accounts and I shut my personal account. First both DH and I are responsible with our money. Second, DH is in the Navy. Therefore there will be months on end where he will be away and won't be able to deal with our finances. So from the beginning I have been the one to manage our household financially. Having a joint account is the best and easiest way for us to do this. Besides, I like dealing with money better than he does. When he's out of the Navy and we both are working we may set up another system, but right now this is working really well for us.

I'm stressed. There are so many things up in the air and I'm getting my monthly desire to do something drastic with our finances. Orientation for pharmacy school is on Friday...and next Tuesday. We won't find out this week if we will even be stationed here or have to move. I'm hoping and praying that will we stay in Florida, and I'm working with that assumption, but it's possible that I'll have to withdraw from pharmacy school and move to Washington or Hawaii.

Assuming we stay here I'll be taking out $16,000 in loans this year. Since we don't know how much money I will actually need for school and how much DH's salary can cover, I'm taking all they'll give me. I'm assuming that subsequent years I'll be able to take out less. I haven't gotten word about scholarships yet, and I'm hoping I get some, but I don't want to count on those either. Looking over the loan stuff I've pretty much decided that I'm going to pay the interest on the unsubsidized loans while I'm still in school. We should be able to handle it, and it will decrease the amount I'll have to pay back.

We have been saving for a down payment on a house and for retirement and our EF is fully funded. So I feel like we have a lot of cash available to us right now. Since things are so up in the air, I like knowing that. However, about once a month I get the urge to drain our down payment account and use it to pay off the cars. It would completely pay off my car (5.99%) and pay of about half of DH's car (3.59%). I calculated that if I paid off my car it would save about $300 in interest payments. $300 isn't anything to shake a stick at, but I'm not sure it is enough to motivate me to do something that drastic either. Especially since at the end of the year that 7-10,000 could be used to pay off student loans, put towards retirement, or keep for its intended purpose of a down payment.

We have a plan to pay off the cars, and our goal is to have them paid off by December 2008. Until we know more about school and possibly a house (although that is pretty unlikely) I think I'll just continue the way things have been going.

Well yesterday I did my normal CVS run. I saved $38.70. I am planning on giving some of the stuff away for Christmas stocking stuffers (toothpaste) and I'm making pamper gift baskets for my two teenage girl cousins. I'm just about done purchasing for all of that, so I maybe slowing down at CVS and Walgreen's for a while which honestly makes me sad!

At Walgreen's I bought some Bic pens that were on sale for only .39 and some nail polish (for the cousins' baskets) that was .99. Saving 10.20.

Yesterday I also went to the Thrift store across the street and bought a pair of black pants and 5 tops (3 casual, 2 more dressy) for 14.61! Besides the fact that 1 or 2 of the shirts alone may have cost more than that most everything I got was on sale so I saved $10.30 off of the marked price.

Other than that DH was gone all weekend so I mostly hung out around the house. Only spent the $20 mentioned here.

New additions: $ 59.20
Previous total: $870.56
Total, since 4/15: $ 929.76

Since August 1st:

Savings from:
CVS: 13.50
Publix: 2.75
Base: 4.44
Publix: 15.00

Earnings from surveys: $28

New additions: $ 63.69
Previous total: $806.87
Total, since 4/15: $ 870.56

Publix: saved 9.33
CVS: saved 17.99
Food Lion: saved 7.76
Rowe's saved: 5


New additions: $ 40.08
Previous total: $766.79
Total, since 4/15: $ 806.87

This turned out to be a big spending month. We bought a new dining room set, a laptop, and spent about 100-150 more than budgeted for entertainment (Harry Potter book and movie, rollerblades, etc).

It's time for my monthly checking account drain. This month it isn't very impressive, only about $150. This is due to the fact that we had been saving money in the savings account and now instead of swapping the money I'm just moving the excess to checking. So we still have about 1K to add to our savings accounts.

I'll be updating the sidebar soon, but our downpayment fund increased from 24% of our goal to 25% and with some shifting of funds we now have almost 1300 for our 2008 roths. We also paid $100 over the minimum on my car which will have it paid off a month earlier and save almost 80 in interest.

Not too shabby. Next month our goal is to not be crazy with our spending again and try to put as much as possible toward our cars!

Went to Walgreens and using coupons saved 10.55. At CVS I saved 18.70.

New additions: $ 29.25
Previous total: $737.54
Total, since 4/15: $ 766.79

Today was the last day of classes so I sold my textbook back and got $32.50 back, about half of what I spent.

Yesterday when we went grocery shopping we saved about $7 from coupons.

New additions: $ 39.50
Previous total: $698.04
Total, since 4/15: $ 737.54

Does anyone else ever feel this way? For most of the past year a significant portion of my time has been spent tracking spending, setting up a budget, determining the best plan to save money and pay off our debts, and learning the best ways to do this. The past couple of months we’ve set up a plan which is really simple to stick to and allows us to allot money towards our goals, specifically paying off our cars, retirement and a down payment. With that plan I feel like the only thing I’m doing is waiting until the end of the month so I can transfer the money to the appropriate spot. I feel like I’ve learned a lot of the basic stuff so now I’m just waiting for enough paydays to pass that we’ve got everything paid off and our savings accounts are grown.

Part of me feels like I must be missing something since it’s all just automatic and I don’t have to actively do anything. I am still tracking our spending, but it isn’t taking as much time, nor providing us with as much information as it once was. We are saving for a down payment and retirement, and are planning to pay off our cars early. Am I missing something? Is there something I should be doing? Or are we just to the point where our finances are taking care of themselves? Sort of an odd thought that everything is figured out we just have to wait it out.

I did shopping today to get all the good deals. I did pretty good today. At Publix I saved 6.38. The items I bought at CVS retailed for over $50 and I only paid 2.92...half of which was tax. Then Walgreens I saved $11.81. This is a total of $66 in savings.

I haven't been getting many surveys from pinecone lately and I'm a little concerned about that. I used to get surveys every week if not more frequently. Maybe I'll ask them about it. Another one of my survey sites seems to be doing pretty well though with about $20/month.

New additions: $ 66.00
Previous total: $632.04
Total, since 4/15: $698.04

This hasn't been a great month as far as spending goes particularly in the entertainment/leisure and household areas of the budget.

First we spent $80 and bought roller blades. We have used them 3-4 times, about once a week, and we plan on also using them in the future, but they were pretty much an impulse buy. They are great exercise though!

The new Harry Potter book was another unexpected expense. Well sort of. We knew we were going to buy the book (DH would have gone crazy otherwise), but we were planning on getting it from Barnes and Noble and using our gift card. We had saved the gift card for this purpose. Well apparently this book was in much higher demand than DH expected and we weren't able to reserve a copy from them. So we had to go to another bookstore and pay for the book out of pocket.

There have been a number of other little things that we've spent money on like another book, a trip to the movies, and a visit to a museum. We're about $100 over budget right now, but we are also currently under budget in other areas.


By far the biggest expense has been our dining set. We have been wanting a new dining room table for a while and come the end of August it would have become a need. His parents and sister are visiting and our current table only seats 4. We've been saving $100 a month for the past couple of months in preparation for the purchase. Well we went looking this weekend and the first ones we were looking at were going to be about $1400 for the table and 6 chairs. We finally went to Ashley Furniture and were able to get a table that we liked better for just over 1000. It's nice that we already have about $300 saved up from it, but the other 700 is going to come out of next months "profit" so that means less money to go toward our cars.

Despite these set backs we should still have a profit this month and next month so that means that extra money will be going into our Roths and down payment funds and toward our cars. It just may not be as much as it could have been.

Went to Publix today and with some of their buy one get one free sales and $2 in coupons the receipt states I spent $21 and saved $22! Not too shabby. Now, I probably wouldn't have spent $43 on all that stuff, but someone would have! That savings will be added to my challenge

New additions: $ 22.00
Previous total: $610.04
Total, since 4/15: $632.04

Went grocery shopping today and saved 8.44 with coupons. Several of the things I bought were on sale so I really saved even more than that, but I don't have a record of how much. This trip shopping was supposed to be a stock up trip, but I once I was there I realized that we didn't need a whole lot. So that helped with the spending.

New additions: $ 8.44
Previous total: $601.60
Total, since 4/15: $610.04