I have T-Mobile for my cell phone service. My current plan gave me 600 minutes for $50 a month after taxes. The problem is, I never use my phone! I really only have it for car emergencies and for when I travel (about 2 to 3 times a year). I checked my last statement, I only used 1 minute last month!

So after a bit of research, I decided that T-Mobiles pre-pay plan would work much better for me. But I didn't want to spring for a new phone, I like the one I have, I don't want to re-program and learn a new phone, and I just plain didn't want to spend the money! So, I called T-Mobile and asked if I could switch to the pre-pay plan and keep my phone, or did I have to buy one of the phones that come packaged for the pre-pay. He said I could keep my phone and he could switch me right then, I could even keep my phone number! So, their cheapest card is $15 and is good for 90 days, so at worst, if I don't use the phone, it will cost me $5 a month for something I don't use, which is a $45 a month savings. And for when I do go out of town, or if something changes and I start to use my phone more, I just need to buy more minutes. I also found out that if you buy their $100 card, it's good for a full year and if I buy more minutes before it expires, it extends them for another full year. So, if I buy $100 today, and 11 months from now buy another $15, whatever minutes I have left from the $100 and the new $15 are now good for another year. I may go this route, then I won't have to remember to buy new minutes every three months. Because you know that the time I really need to use my cell is going to be the day AFTER the minutes expire! Murphy's Law at it's finest!

We had a good time in Wisconsin, we didn't win anything at the casino, but we didn't lose all our money, either. We had a nice hotel room and had a great dinner at the steak house there, and we learned to play black jack. In short, we had fun, and that's always a good use of money in my book!

Tim wanted me to turn the furnace on the other day. I told him I'd rather freeze than turn it on in September!

Normally we ease into fall in NE Illinois, but not this year. Everyone is predicting a harsh winter. Lovely.

We have to replace the roof on the back of the house, and I'm not happy about it, it means the home inspector missed it, and now I wonder what else he missed! The front roof is fine, that seemed to have been done properly with good materials. Tim says the back roof was done half-assed and with cheap materials, which is why it needs to be replaced now but the front roof is fine. So that will be around $1000.

I am happy that Tim installed a garbage disposal for me in the kitchen sink! I've been living without one for over a year and I can't tell you how happy I am that I don't have to clean out the drain trap anymore! Yuck, I hated that! We got one of the new super quiet ones from Insinkerator and you can barely hear it, even when it's grinding up stuff. Kind of weird, actually...

Tim and I both have the weekend and part of next week off from work. We were going to go to Vegas but we had to many other expenses so we canceled. But we're going up to one of the indian casino's in Wisconsin near the Dells overnight on Tuesday, so we'll have a little get away and I'll still be able to play the slots. Maybe I'll win enough to pay for the roof....

...at the moment. Same old stuff is going on. I'm super busy at work and Tim is working tons of OT as usual. My parents made it back AZ safe and sound, we'll see them when they come back for Christmas. Tim's working on the fence, hopefully that will be done in another month or so.

Speaking of home improvements, we've made a list of what projects we want to do in what order, if things go close to schedule we'll have it all done in two years or so. There are some big ticket items like new siding, new furnace/AC, new driveway, a kitchen remodel and two bathroom remodels, and a host of middle to small sized projects. It will cost us less than it sounds, because we'll do a lot of the work ourselves. Actually everything except the HVAC stuff and the driveway, really! I'm just glad we have down on paper, it gives us more of a focus, rather than just walking around the house saying "someday we'll get around to fixing that!".