Well DH found an apt and is going to start moving in on Sunday. Deposit was $700 and rent is $700 per month (prorated for this month since he isnt' moving till 5/11/14). I am doing my best to hold it together and think that this isn't the end. He continues to say he is coming back (and now he thinks it's funny when he does an Arnold Schwarznager impression "I'll be Bach!"). He seems much more optomistic then he did before...less of "I don't know if I am coming back, that is what I am going there to figure out" and more of "I am coming back, that is the plan." I of course am trying to not get my hopes up or read into it too much as I am SICK of being let down and feeling sick to my stomach all the time. At this point I am actually looking forward to him being gone just to get some real rest. Sunday is going to be terrible for sure, also it's Mother's Day, which is always a depressing day for me since I haven't been able to have children with DH. It's always been a very hard day for me for the past 6 years and this one will be particularly painful.

Still working on wrapping my head around that this is a step that needs to be done for us to move forward positively. Going to start making lists of things I want to do around the house/yard, for myself, with family/friends to help me feel better. I love making lists and crossing things off....silly thing to make me feel better, but I wil take any little ounce of comfort right now.

Thanks for reading, commenting and thinking of me. I hope I am not too wallowing and scare anyone away.....lol....banker gurl will be back someday...with or without banker boy. I do know that.

Thought things were going better, seemed to be going in the right direction. WRONG. Have found out about a lot more "mistakes" DH made. Friends and family have been coming to me now that they are aware there are problems and telling me about incidences. Apparently everyone just thought their run-in with DH was an isolated incident, so they chose to not tell me (not wanting to rock the boat) and so I didn't know. Up to 6 separate people now that some kind of inappropriate texts/comments/interactions happened with. I assume there is more that I don't and may never know about. Everything that has been reported to me has occurred when he was extremely drunk.
He has apologized, but I don't feel it is very sincere because I had to find out about it from other people even after I had asked him several times if there was anything else I should know. Right now I am finding out about a new one or more details almost everyday. SUCKS.
I talked to DHs BF for almost 2 hrs the other night. He is, like me, extremely shocked and saddened to find out about all this about DH. He had no idea either. Before when everything first started coming out back in Nov, BF was extremely supportive of both of us working on things and staying together. Now after all of this is coming out, he basically told me I would be stupid to stay with him. He said it would be extremely naïve of me to think he could/would change his behavior since he won't stop drinking.
I still want to work on my marriage (I am open to comments and suggestions, but please don't blast me for wanting to stay married, I took vows and I'm not perfect, but I did mean them). DH is going to move out. We are trying to find him an apartment. Initially he was talking about buying his own house, he doesn't want to waste money on rent, and said then if things work out and we get back together then we can use that house as a rental. But now has said he will get an apartment while we see what we are going to do, that way if we decide to stay together we won't have two mortgages to pay on, plus it would probably take him awhile to find a house he wanted to buy.
I am feeling extremely sad, lost and confused. I am sad that he is leaving, disappointed, angry. I also feel some small sense of relief that I won't be made to feel like such a POS all the time, and won't have to sit and constantly be feeling his own feelings of disappointment and loss. We haven't nailed down all the details yet. But we will continue to share the cost of the house and the apartment.
Not much else to say I guess...I don't want to quit. But my family and friends are all making me feel foolish to stay now. I want to feel happy again. I want to feel wanted and needed and loved. I still feel that with DH, but so much trust is lost and he tells me he loves and still wants to be married (he said if he didn't he would just go buy a house and move out and be done with it) but it's so hard to know what to believe anymore after I didn't know the truth for so long. I am not willing to let go of 12 years together, but I am also not willing to live in this limbo or be unhappy my whole life.
DH is looking for apartments today. We will go from here and see what happens.....

We are getting back
$2308.00 Federal
$260.00 State
=$2568 Total

$568 will go to savings

$2000 we are going to take on a trip to Deadwood for Valentines Day. Not sure what the plan will be for what we bring home...savings or mortgage. Leaning towards savings right now.

Got my taxes filed yesterday! We are getting $2308 for Federal Return and $260 for State Return. Not for sure on what we are going to do with them yet. I am trying to make DH provide some input on this as I do all the money stuff and I want his thoughts as of course it's his $$$ too. Will probably decide by next week what the plan will be.

I always find it useful to see what we have for gift cards after Christmas. Helps to plan for using them and not losing/forgetting about them.

$5.00 McDonalds - DH Christmas Gift
$5.00 Scheels - Christmas Gift
$10.00 Ruby Tuesdays - Gift from work
? Target - I believe this had $20 and was used once
$10.00 Target - Bought for a gift and not used
$20.00 Target - Bought for a gift and not used
$20.00 Target - DH Christmas Gift
$20.00 Scheels - Christmas Gift
$20.00 Pro Image - Christmas Gift
$25.00 Buffalo Wild Wings - DH Christmas Gift
$35.00 Wal-Mart - Gift from work
$100.00 ($50.00x2) CVS - Discover Card Rewards
$150.00($25.00x6) CVS - Citi Thank You Rewards

Well I made it 5 days on my 11 day No Spend Challenge. DH was in MT visiting family for the holidays, he wasn't supposed to come home till 1/1, but he called on 12/27 and asked me to meet him halfway to have a fun, little spontaneous getaway. So I drove to MT on Saturday and we stayed 2 nights and went to dinner, went gambling, hung out at the pool, slept in, watched football etc. It was a very nice, relaxing weekend away. So of course we had costs for gas, hotel, food and gambling. But somethings are more important then money. We are both back home now and getting revved up for a wonderful 2014!

DH is gone for eleven days, he went to visit his family for the holidays (we already did our Christmas with my family). I would have liked to go with him, but he has the time off since he is a teacher and I have to work so was not able to join him.
I went to the grocery store this morning and got some essentials (milk, cottage cheese, yogurt and cereal) and am going to try to spend $0 while he is gone. The only exceptions are if I need to fill gas (I might be able to make it the 11 days) or I have a few friends in town for the holidays that I rarely get to see, so may go to dinner or drinks with them. But other then that there should be no reason to spend any money while DH is gone. Have plenty of food in the house, and since I stockpile most household items I won't need anything that can't wait till he returns. Will be a nice change after all this Christmas spending!

Hey guys and gals. Life has been very busy and overwhelming lately, and I did not do any after Thanksgiving deals or my usual CVS freebies this year. I hope you all had a lovely holiday and got to spend time with those you are thankful for! I have recently had some moments where I really realized what is important in life and have really opened my eyes to the "don't sweat the small stuff".

I have been having trouble getting back in the swing of things with the free stuff and couponing since September. Trying to get motivated to get back into it so we can have more funds to put towards the mortgage!

My lil bro is 22 and at this time in his life hasn't had much need at all for credit. He is done with school (fire fighter) and working full time at a hospital until he can get a job in the fire fighter field. Since he has no debt, he has very minimal bills (rent, food, cell phone etc) and he has no interest in having a credit card, but I did tell him he should get one to build credit so if he needs it for a car or a mortgage in the future he would have some credit built up. He had applied for a few cards, but wasn't approved (because at this time he literally has nothing on his credit report). So I found a card for him that I thought would work and applied for him. He was approved and so he agreed to have the card mailed to me and I will use it occasionally for gas purchases and pay it off each month to help him build up his credit. I told him he could do this himself and just pick one thing a month (gas, groceries, etc) to charge and pay it off each month, but he is not comfortable with the whole concept of the credit card, and would prefer I just do that for him. Which I think is great that he is just up front and says how he feels about it and that he doesn't want to get in any kind of a mess with credit cards. So I will start using the card this week and get a score built up for him.

I know you have felt this way too....everything is needing to be replaced/fixed/paid for...all at once. Booooo! and Hisssss!

Feeling that way to a MEGA degree right now.

*Tires - I need at least 2 new tires on my car. I have 0 tread on the front 2, and I live in ND....and its October...enough said?? (Estimating $400)

*Windshield Wiper - Windshield Wiper on DH's car does not move. And I live in ND...and it's October...lol. We JUST got this fixed a few months ago and it stopped working again. Going to take it back to the same place and ask if they can fix it for free since the original time did not fix it right, but not holding my breathe that they will do it for free. (Estimate $50)

*Hot Tub Cover - Ok of course a hot tub is not a necessity by any stretch of the imagination. But we do have one, so we need to keep up on the maintenance, and the cover is ripped nearly completely in half and of course if it is not covered debris (leaves, bugs, snow) will get in there. So we need to order a new one ASAP. (Estimate $300)

*Home Insurance - I just paid this for the whole year. (Actual $1875)

*Laptop - Again not a necessity per say, but we do not have smart phones or any other access to the internet at home. I have my blog, WIR, and also use it for taxes, spreadsheets, and of course entertainment. Current laptop is about 3-4 years old and is very, very cranky at us. It wants to nap, NOW. (Estimate $1200)

*Class Fee - DH had a class that is required for him to keep his teaching degree. It's already on the Discover Card. (Actual $385)

*Lawn Care - If we pre-pay for our lawn care service for 2014 before 1/1/14 we get a decent discount. (Estimate $350)

And of course CHRISTMAS! (Estimate $800) I did not do very well last year at getting my Christmas shopping done early and that is a big pet peeve of mine to be running around at the last minute and trying to think of gifts. I have a week off in November and my plan is to get all my decorations up, and all of my gifts bought and wrapped that week. That way I can actually enjoy the month of December!

And in case you were keeping track of the fun ahead...that was $5360 smackers! OWWWWIE! Hopefully my estimates are close and we can do this in chunks to not take a whopper of a hit in savings.

So I guess I need to get started on this financial avalanche. Hoping to get the hot tub cover ordered tonight. It's a start!

It is time for our "Free phone upgrade" with Verizon. We have been waiting for a looong time as DH is ridiculously hard on his phones and always ends up having to go back to his old cell phones before the upgrade time comes. His current phone went out of commision way back in December and he has been using his old RAZOR since then..that thing is an antique! We have newer phones then the Razor in a box in case we would need one, and I told him to use one of those, but he prefers his trusty Razor, so I guess that is his choice...silly boy. Anyways, I tried to go online and order our new phones, we don't use Smart phones, we just get what ever we can for Free as we only need the phones for calling and texting. I haven't paid for a cellphone since I got my very first cellphone in 2002 and was hoping to keep it that way. I went through the ordering process and when I got to the end it said my total was $60, $30 per phone, for "Upgrade Fee". It showed the phones were $0 each, but the other fee was there. I thought I was doing something wrong so I contacted their web chat, and found out that unfortunatley they have had a $30 upgrade fee since 2012.....bummer! So much for your "free upgrades"! Oh well, nothing I can do about it. So I ended up ordering the Hotshot and DH is getting the Intensity III. They should arrive tomorrow....we shall see how long his lasts before he busts it!

We leave to Vegas in the morning, so I won't be posting for this week. Fingers crossed we come home richer!

Capital One 360 (formerly ING Direct) is running a special right now where you get $76 for opening a new savings account with them, and if you already have an account you can refer your friends to get the special $76 bonus! I sent out a bunch of feelers to my friends and fam, so hopefully a few will start their savings journey and help me on mine too!

I live in ND and we are currently getting out butts KICKED by a blizzard. We got 13 inches already today and its not slowing down. Sounds like we will get another 7-8 inches before it passes.....20 inches of snow in April. BOOOOO!
I am hoping for a snowday tomorrow because we don't have a snowblower and our driveway is completely drifted over. I have to be at work at 6:55am and I don't even think it will be done snowing by then, much less able to be dug out.
So today of course we are home all day. Which really doesn't bother me. Between my library book, Netflix and the internet I am content all day. Mostly been alternating between bopping around online and working on the extra room. I got quite far in there the last few days and hope to finish today!

Got some yearly vehicle bills in the mail today...so fun to get them both at once....

DH's Vehicle Registration $69.00
AAA Yearly Membership Dues $57.00

The AAA has been so worth it over the years. It includes up to 4 roadside assistance calls per year which include:
-Prepaid Towing
-Battery, lockout and tire service
-Fuel Delivery Service
-Vehicle Locksmith Reimbursement

Plus numerous different discounts at hotels, retailers, etc. Last year DH had a horrible day where he broke his cell phone AND locked his keys in his car....he was very happy to have AAA that day! Usually the only thing we ever have to use it for is locking the keys in the car, but have used it before for a towing as well and obviously using it only once a year is worth the $57, plus the piece of mind it gives to know someone will come get you anywhere, anytime.

I went through every file in my temporary file and cleaned out all of the 2012 paperwork. Moved it all into the permanent file box. Had a huge stack of papers that I was able to get rid of as well. Always makes me happy to make the house a little lighter.

Recently I have been looking over some of the different coverages we have and we do need to look into different home owners coverage. I have heard I can get it much cheaper from other carriers. So that is something I will need to look into soon.

Just realized we are at 400K hits! That's great! Thanks again to everyone for reading and commenting!

Well just shut the door and turned out the porch light. Ran out of candy at 391 trick or treaters! Next year I need to remember to check my blog to see how many kids we get cause every year we get more then the last and run out. NUTS!!

Wow 300K hits! Thanks everyone for reading and commenting! I appreciate it!

I don't usually do fun shopping for me, but was out of town for the day so bought myself a few things.

I got a tank top at Walmart for $1.00.

2 belts at Target, $10.00 each.

I got a promotion at work! YEAH! I do not know all the details yet or what my raise will be, will post about that soon!

Went with my bro and sil to the bank today to see about getting them refinanced. They were in a 30 yr loan for 5.3% and also had a small 2nd mortgage (I think like only $5K or $6K) for 6%. They are going to be able to roll them both together now, and go down to a 15 yr for 2.87%! YEAH!! Happy for my bro and very proud of their credit scores that helped them get that great rate. Now when my Godson turns 18 his parents house will already be paid off.

Before we went on our cruise I took a bunch of cards out of my wallet so I wouldn't have to worry about losing them when I was out of the country. Now when I came back I can not find my HSA card anywhere. I've been looking for about a week. I'm sure it's around here somewhere and will turn up sooner then later, but we need to pay DH's bills from his leg injury (bills have finally started coming in) so I had to call and get a replacement one and they charged me $5 for that....booo! My fault and I feel stupid cause I bet it will turn up before that new one even gets here....blah.....

My car had been doing this horrible jerking. It would jerk so hard when I backed up that I would think I hit something! Kept giving me a heartattack...and my check engine light came on. So I took it in today and was worried it was my transmission and that it wouldn't be worth it to fix if it was over $1K in repairs. (I drive a 2002 Malibu...I bought it for $4K in 2008 and it is almost to 150K miles.)
But YEAH for me the repair man called and it was just a wire (something about the intake air temperature sensor) and the repair is only $136! Whoo hoo! I was really worried that my car would be done so I am very excited to keep on rolling with this car!

We are back from our cruise and had a great time! I will try to get a few pics up and get back into the grind soon!

Doing some cleaning today and found several giftcards in my coupon holder that I forgot about..

$5 to local pizza joint
$10 to Subway
$10 to Taco Johns
$20 to Lowes
$50 to Walmart

Also had $50 in there from one of the previous Biggest Loser competitions that I had won.

Luckily none of them had expired, but I will need to make sure I use them before I forget about them again!

We are back from Vegas! We took $2K for gambling....and brought $2K back! Whoo hoo! We had a ton of fun and kept spending on food/souvenirs pretty reined in. So since we brought the $2K back we will put that right back in the Vegas fund for the next time we go.


When we got back from Vegas DH booked a cruise for us for our 5 year anniversary (and my 28th BD) in June. We went on a cruise for our honeymoon and we loved it so much we decided we wanted to go on a cruise for every 5 year anniversary. So we have been saving $100 a month every month since we got married, specifically for the cruise. This time we are going to several islands, Cozumel, Belize, Roatan, and Gran Caymen. We are traveling with Carnival, that is who we cruised with before and they were AMAZING! We have almost $5K saved up, and for the 7 day cruise and the flight there and back it is $3K, so we will have $2K for excursions, shopping and gambling. So excited!

DH and I took a little break and went to a casino out of state to relax.....we earned it with all the hours I've been putting in for OT and for Bingo....and track coaching started this week for DH.

We took $1000 and came home with $1021. It was nice and relaxing and a lot of fun.

Not sure if I ever posted on here, but we have a strategy for when we go to the casino so we make sure that we at least bring some money home. First of all we always take a set amount, and we always bring it with us from home, we never use the ATM or write checks there, so we never get more then we had planned for. Then when we play a game we put in $10 and play it will we get to $20 or higher....or until we lose it. If we get to $20 or higher then we cash out at the next even amount and take that money home. We won't play that specific money again no matter what. Then we go play the next game with a new $10, etc. That way we for sure get to play a lot, and we will have "something" to take home. So using this stratgey we played a ton (think like 17hrs) and even came home a little ahead. We don't expect to come home millionaires, we just like to relax and have a little fun time. Our biggest hit of the weekend was $153, betting .80 on a penny machine.

My blog hit 200,000 hits today! AWESOME! Thanks everyone for reading and commenting!

Well this is by far the longest I have ever waited to finish my taxes. I finally filed them today. $1476 is our federal return and $293 state. Not for sure what I am doing with that yet....but probably just going into the EF since it only has $200 in it right now. Now just to sit around and wait for it.