Today I am "going to the birds." Meaning, I'm making some tasty treats to help our feathered friends get through this harsh weather.

It's a fun way to occupy some kids. Go out and collect some pinecones (or use what you have on hand), then use a butter knife to slather peanut butter in between all the crevices. Then roll the pinecones in a tray of loose bird seed.

Attach a string to the stem of the pinecone and hang outside. The birds will love them!

I decided today it was time to cancel another credit card. Actually, I wound up cancelling two. I have a bit of a hard time canceling cards just a few months after opening them solely for the purpose of earning rewards bonuses after you hit certain spend targets. So I hang onto them for a bit longer.

I'm sure they could care less (unless all of America began treating their accounts in this way). But anyway, I do feel a little sheepish having to talk to an acct rep who will inquire as to why I want to close the acct. I usually tell them, truthfully, that I have more cards than I need and don't really use this particular one all that much. Which is true, as far as it goes.

Plus, after cancelling my Barclaycard today, I count 10 cards still remaining in my wallet! That means that any rewards points I earn will be diluted among 10 different cards and I could more quickly earn meaningful points if I was using fewer cards.

It's interesting to me that, despite being an intelligent dollars and sense person, that I get inordinately attached to certain cards, simply because of the pretty picture on certain cards that I was able to choose. This is the case for my two Capital One cards (a starfish on the beach on one and a closeup of a peacock feather on the other) as well as my World Wildlife Fund with its tiger design. I also like that a tiny portion of each dollar I spend goes to support that organization. I'm surprised that more credit card companies haven't caught on to this psychological angle or done study groups to reveal this.

I would like to cancel one of my 2 BankAmericards, but I see I have about $5 worth of points earned; every time I cancel a card, I lose those points entirely. OK, so I just cancelled a second card today, my Chase Freedom card.

I know my credit score will take a hit with these 2 cancellations, but it's temporary and since I have no need for further credit or loans anyway, I'm fine with that.

That leaves me with 8 cards. Still too many. Two of these cards have very minimal rewards programs, but I will keep them forever since they are much older than the slew of new cards I've acquired in the past 2 years. To make sure they don't get closed on me, I try to make one small purchase on each every month or so, though it's hard to keep track. I've had my USAA Visa and Amex cash card for many years.

The next card to go will probably be my Bankamericard cash rewards card, which is actually a pretty good little card. But I may wait til I can cash out those rewards.

I should be able to redeem my $150 from my new Discover It card next week. I may like low after that for a while; I'll map out when I'll be getting some big bills. (October I pay both car and homeowners insurance so that's a no-brainer for opening a new rewards card prior to that.)

After doing this for 2+ years, a $100 reward doesn't seem like all that much (!) and I'd like to hold out for larger rewards, although I'm just one person, a frugal one at that, so I'm not usually a big spender.

This morning I belatedly cleared my driveway of snow. My arms are exhausted. I can't believe I still do this at my age, but that's another story.

Now I have a long, 3-day weekend ahead of me and as usual, not sure what to do with it.

I have sort of been in the mood to go to Ikea, which I usually do maybe 3 times a year. They're in a city about an hour's drive, though, so that's part of the problem. It would be much easier to go there right after work, cutting the drive in half, but then, who feels like doing that after a long workday, in the dark? I never do.

Do I NEED anything there? No, not really. They had a great deal on duvets, though, one for $10, although I never cared for their strange prints and patterns. Must be something about the Scandinavian sense of design; just doesn't appeal. I do love to wander through there, even just poking around at the ground level floor through the small stuff.

I am excited to see my cancelled check for the CSA cleared, proof that I'm accepted into this season's harvest share. I won't start pickup up of my weekly produce each Sunday til June 29, but it goes til Nov 16. I know how to cook most of what they're growing, but I'm less familiar with using Swiss chard, fresh beets, bok choi and eggplant. I will learn! If anyone has some fantastic recipes using any of the above, let me know.

I'm so happy that February is halfway over. Underneath the foot of snow on the ground are an slowly spreading mound of snowdrops waiting to bloom. Always the first sign of spring, long before the daffodils or other bulbs.

We're going to get another 3 inches or so of fresh snow this afternoon. Enough is enough.

It started snowing early Thursday morning and finally ended mid-morning today. It was, as they said, a 24-hour event. I worked from home both days; it was quite busy, and since I was working, I didn't have much chance to shovel out my driveway.

I shoveled for an hour last night after my work day ended, in the middle of the storm, getting about 3/4 cleared but leaving the hardest part still to do: the part down by the road where the snow plow packs in the snow. Seeing as how we got about 11 inches, there's a waist-high pile at the bottom of the drive. And then of course it snowed on top of the part I shoveled.

I was also able to complete a 1,000-word article for Connecticut Builder Magazine that I'm ghost-writing. It's DONE. Thank God. It's always a lot of work (I've written at least 8 of these articles before, usually every quarter) and he kept sending me more articles, like around 20, to read and absorb and somehow weave into the story, which is about the outlook for the state's housing market. It's always very data-heavy and involves interpreting a lot of numbers. Anyway, it's done.

Next up was a little two-page sample edit I did for a possible new freelance client, a motivational speaker in Las Vegas who was referred to me by a local author (aka The Author) whose books I've edited.

I finished the sample edit and emailed that just a little while ago. If she likes it I'll quote her a price for her entire book/manuscript.

I have also heard from The Author that she is just about ready to send me her third book, another novel and the sequel to books #1 and #2, for editing.

When it rains, it pours.

Last weekend, I did my taxes and between state and federal should get back a refund of $1100.

I was excited to learn recently that in April I will be eligible to enroll in the health plan of the recruitment agency that hired me for my bank contract job. I was vaguely aware that they had some sort of health plan but hadn't really focused on it since 1. you're not eligible to enroll until you've worked on the job for 6 months and 2) I was doing so much research on the plans available through the Affordable Care Act. They say in the handbook that they pay 50% of the monthly premiums, which sounds pretty good. Usually health plans offered by employment agencies are sub-par.

I had thought I was all set with the new plan I enrolled in via the Affordable Care Act, however, if the agency's plan proves to be cheaper, which I think it must be if they pay 50% of the premium (compared to the $404/mth I'm paying now thru Affordable Care Act), then I will switch plans and then I don't have to worry about whether my income in 2014 will eventually exceed the income cut-off point for the subsidy if the job gets extended past July. If it did, then I'd lose the subsidy (and possibly have to pay back the subsidy I got up to that point).

It would be really nice not to have to worry about the subsidy at all, actually. The ACA plans certainly offer better choices than what was available before to a self-employed or independent contractor employee. If the bank job does eventually end, I will then have a choice between continuing on that plan through COBRA for a while or switching back to a different plan under the Affordable Care Act.

My health insurance has never been so topsy-turvy!

So anyway, after doing an amazing amount of work these last 2 days, all I have to worry about tomorrow is shoveling out my driveway. And buying groceries.

I see that wethesavers.com finally finished my winning post. I wasn't bothered too much by the delay since they already paid me my $100. If you've been reading my posts here, you're familiar with the story, I'm sure, but if you're curious to read it, you can head on over there.

On my lunch break at work Friday, I went to the federal courthouse across the street; there's an IRS office in there so I wanted to get as many tax forms as I could, plus the booklet. My friend warned me security would have you lift up your pants legs, but instead of doing that, I had to remove my belt.

This morning I went to see Gravity with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. I was using a $25 gift card I got from the agency that hired me, a Xmas present, but because it was an Imax movie, I had to pay $12.75!

It was a good movie. Sandra has to be about my age but she has the perfect body. (I'm assuming that's really her body in the movie.) The 3D was really something with all the pieces of space debris flying right at you.

After that I decided to head down to Whole Foods; it was a zoo but I did spend $27 and I hit the salad bar again....so many goodies. I loved the roasted brussels sprouts. I probably won't make a habit of going there, except for the salad bar, as it's so overpriced.

I love the bright green seaweed salad I get at the Japanese restaurant, but why is it unappetizing dark green at Whole Foods? Do they cook it? Is the bright green dyed?

Another contractor at work, a friend I walk with, learned that her job, which she thought was going to end this month, has been extended yet again, til end of May. So she has a reprieve during which she's going to save, save, save. She said they are only renewing contracts 3 months at a time now, due to the continued restructuring of the company this year.

Of course, I'd like my own contract extended past July, but if it is, I'll lose my $350 a month healthcare subsidy and will likely have to pay it back. Of course, I'll maker more at the job than I'll save with the healthcare subsidy, but that subsidy is worth about $4,000 for the whole year, not chump change.

Lately it seems I've run across so many crazy drivers on the roads. Or is it I'm getting more impatient as I continue to commute? Some lunatic insisted on passing me on the right before 2 lanes turned into one, and he nearly lost control on the snowy road after muscling in front of me. After just a few miles, he turned in at Starbucks. Was it worth it to cause an accident just for a cup of freakin' coffee you a******?

I got some really nice compliments from someone I've been working with a lot lately, and so i couldn't resist passing his email on to my boss for brownie points. She then complimented me as well and said the job, and more specifically me, is working out very well, and she plans to tell her new boss. So all's well on the job front.

Meanwhile the gal who sits in front of me, the one who finally got her Jamaican husband a visa so he could live here with her in the states, learned she is now pregnant. Her job ends in March. Her husband can't exactly support her as he doesn't know how to read or write and has only lived in this country since the day before Christmas. Her parents, who I am pretty sure bought her the condo she lives in, will now have 3 people to bale out, financially speaking.

She used to take time off before she got her husband here, claiming she was totally stressed by the whole process. Now no doubt she'll use her pregnancy as an excuse to stay home more. The day she told me the big news, she claimed she had a migraine and went home. I've never met anyone who takes such advantage, and gets away with it.

Ugh, More snow. CB took the words right out of my mouth. I started doing the driveway, but it was just that. A start. I will have to go out in a little while again to do some more. I am not even sure I can finish it before tomorrow. There's a waist-high wall of snow packed in at the bottom by the snow plow.

I headed out yesterday to meet another bank employee at a commute parking lot. To my surprise, she was alone. The other 3 people who were supposed to go bailed out due to the weather. The roads were perfectly clear at that point, but one person's driveway was still snowed in,another was getting over a sinus infection and the other, well, she always bails out at the first opportunity.

So I got to meet some people I've only known through email and phone, which was fun. I am envious of these offices, which are in a big shopping center with upscale shops, a movie theater, restaurants and a WHOLE FOODS. So for lunch I checked out Whole Foods for the first time. There is one sort of near me, but I never made it there. I got a great healthy lunch for $7, which I thought reasonable. I will definitely visit their salad bar again.

We left work there early to meet at a nearby restaurant to say good by to the head guy who was laid off. I thought it odd that everyone was talking shop, while he must have felt weird about it since he was leaving. I didn't really get to talk to him, but I was introduced. I did talk to a few other people in my larger group who were super nice.

We finally headed for home around 6:45 pm and I got home at about 9:30 pm. Tiring day.

Got to work at home today, of course, since the snow began falling a few hours after I arrived home and has yet to stop, really.

Well, stupid me, I relied on a weather forecast that, as recently as last night, was calling for just an inch of the white stuff today. So I didn't bring my laptop home Friday, which turned out to be a mistake, since it's snowing steadily all day today and they're expecting up to 6 or 7 inches.

So...I drove into work this morning, stayed for a 9 am conference call, and then left promptly (with my laptop this time) after that. The drive was pretty messy and slow both ways, and I passed 3 accidents on the way home.

I HAD to go in for the laptop, not only because I can't easily work from home without it, but also because tomorrow, 6 of us are driving up to Boston together about 3 hours) for a going away dinner with the head of the dept., who got laid off. So we will work up there, on our laptops, for most of the day and then we get to drive again at the end of the night after the dinner. It's supposed to start snowing again tomorrow night around midnight; i should be home by 10pm, but i do hope that forecast is not off by even a few hours.

It will make for a long day, either way. None of us wants to go, but what can you do. Seems like a lot to to disrupt the work schedules of 6 people (4 of them contractors)for what will probably be a 2-hour dinner.

I am seriously considering signing up for a "half share" of the local organic farmer's CSA produce this growing season. I mean, I just committed to 100% vegetarian eating a few weeks ago and what could be better: I've got an ORGANIC farmer right here IN TOWN. (The farm is very close to the school where the tragic shooting took place.)

What do you think of the prices?

Full Shares: pick up every Wednesday from June 25th till November 12th - $565.00

Half Shares: pick up every Sunday from June 29th till November 16th - $420.00

Here is a list of crops he's growing this season:

*Cherry Tomatoes *Heirloom Tomatoes
*Beefsteak Tomatoes *Watermelon
*Beans *Kale
*Swiss Chard *Lettuce
*Summer and winter squash *Scallions
*Leeks *Beets
*Radishes *Celery
*Bok choi *Peppers
*Eggplant *Basil
*Green and Napa Cabbage *Cucumbers
*Garlic *Potatoes
*Sweet potatoes

From his email: We hope to include our fresh eggs at least twice a month in the shares provided the hens are laying well. We will also include our non organic sweet corn and fruit (mainly apples and possibly peaches and nectarines depending on there availability.) You can opt out of the non organic produce by letting us know when you send in your check.

The half share would work well because the pick-up date is Sunday so I could do that whether or not I was working. I'm just wondering how his prices compare overall if I chose to buy organic in the supermarket. I'm sure his produce is superior in quality and freshness.

I have purchased eggs (very excellent) and some limited produce from him in the past. No complaints at all but I suspect his prices may be on the high side. He needs to make a living.

It's just that $420 sounds like a lot for just veggies, but it is for the entire season and it IS organic and about as local as I could get except if I grew my own. I will likely have a garden this year, but it is on the small side and I can't grow tomatoes, peppers, squashes or cucumbers this year because of the insect infestations. They talk about the need to rotate crops, which I can't do, but I can just try to content myself with growing something else so that whatever population of insect pests has developed because of my annual tomatoes, they should pretty much disappear when I don't grow tomatoes this year. At least that's my hope. I may try some dwarf cherry tomatoes in pots, if I can find them.

I'm not really sure how much produce I'll get each week from the CSA; it SHOULD be plenty given that I'm a family of one.

I need to decide very soon because he has limited shares available and he completely sold out my March last year.

Just got back from a nice lunch with another "bachelor." We actually enjoyed some pretty good conversation. It helps that we share some of the same political views; he comes from a very political family in Westchester County with an uncle who was mayor in Yonkers and also served as the state's lieutenant governor. He's also very active, outdoorsy and seems to have lots of different networks of friends (this could be a problem with me as I'm much more of a one on one kinda of person and prefer to do things with my sign other rather groups all the time. He just retired less than a year ago, so I'm quite jealous. He's off on a ski trip tomorrow up to Vermont but we agreed to get together again, possibly for a walk, weather permitting. He drives a Prius. The thing I like most about him is that he's pretty intelligent. He also likes reading and arthouse movies, just like me. Now if I could only persuade him into getting a KAYAK, we'd really be all set.

Today is one of those rare work at home days, this time necessitated by a middle-of-the-day visit with my neurologist, who I see once a year unless I'm having MS problems.

I'm not having any issues, so I just asked him to write a year-long prescription that could be divided into three quarterly refills so I don't have to deal with the monthly refills, which, believe it or not, is a pain. Although my new ACA health plan has the patient paying 30% coinsurance, not a flat fee, the pharma company that makes my meds is picking up most of the bill so I only have to pay $35 a month.

Truth be told, I really don't like working on the company-issued laptop. It may be perfectly fine for someone who's mostly checking email, but as a writer, I find the tiny screen much too small; I often like to have 2 word docs open side by side, and that's just not possible when you're squinting at a tiny screen.

Of course, I would never complain about this because this is what enables me to work at home on occasion.

Restructuring at my company has already begun. A few weeks ago, the head of our dept. was fielding questions from employees about layoffs and other possibilities. Little did any of us know that he would be the first to be let go. They made the announcement this week, and there are a lot of people now reporting to different managers. So far, it's nothing that affects me personally.

The vegetarianism is still going well. I do have some random pieces of fish in the freezer which I will use up eventually, but otherwise, it's a wholly plant-based diet. I'm doing it whole hog; that is, no meat, poultry, fish, dairy or eggs. Also trying to minimize sugar. I remember diving in like this many years ago when I quit smoking at the age of 21. A bad habit my very best friend introduced to me when I was 16. Fortunately, I didn't stick with it long, but I felt then as I do now that after thinking about it a long time, I needed to just do it, and not halfway.

I was happy to see so many other people here are on the same path.

I sent out a press release today that I did last weekend (freelance) and then billed them for that and the bio I wrote for her. The other realtor's supposed to call me in a little while to discuss revisions to her bio.

It's been too cold to walk outside during my lunch hour at work these past few weeks, but on most days I'll walk the interior stairs, with or without my walking buddy. I usually walk up and down 12 flights, twice. My legs are like jello afterwards, but it certainly gets the heart pumping, which is good, because I usually don't even break a sweat when we walk outside.

By some miracle of concentration, I managed to complete three separate freelance jobs on Saturday. That included interviewing 2 different realtors and then writing 2 bios and a press release.

I hadn't wanted the work to take up my whole weekend. So with that out of the way, today I went to Macy's to use a $10 gift card I got as a credit card reward. I picked out a sleeveless shell, the kind of thing you wear under a blazer or other blouse, and saw it had been marked down to $22. I was even happier when I checked out and the real price was now $9, so I didn't have to spend any money.

Also went to Trader Joe's and filled up the gas tank, then back home to do some cooking: used up the rest of the kale to make some more kale salad (with fresh squeezed orange juice, organic orange zest, scallions and dried cranberries), a basmati rice pudding with cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, raisins and cloves with pomegranate seeds as a garnish (wasn't crazy with the way it turned out), some homemade baked beans with mustard, onions and mushrooms and a black bean/rice/corn salad which is also just "ok."

You win some, you lose some. I've been able to build up a solid lineup of 4 or so soups that I hit out of the ballpark, including my homemade pea soup with parsnips (a longtime favorite), a great vegetable soup, a tomato soup with sun-dried tomatoes and unsweetened cocoa powder and an excellent mushroom barley soup. I'd like to get a few more great soups so I can rotate them all winter long with no problem. I try many new recipes practically every weekend.

I'm being very good about sticking to my new vegan routine. I do have things in the house that should not be on my new diet, like some fish, but I'm not throwing anything away. It costs too much.

Interestingly, I spend just as much money grocery shopping for just veggies, fruits and nuts as I ever did when shopping for meat and fish. One reasons is that I often buy organic produce.

I have eaten very little red meat for years now, but what gave me motivation to go all the way vegan was after getting 4 or 5 books I'd asked for, for Christmas, all on healthy eating and nutrition. Their essential message was very similar (ie, eating a plant-based diet and all the bad stuff not just about red meat, but about poultry, dairy, eggs and MILK in particular)and hearing it from so many angles, it's hard to refute that. Not that I ever did, it was just laziness and human frailties. But now that I am in my 50s, I'm conscious of the fact that this is the time when many people start coming down with serious conditions or illnesses.

I already have one pretty serious illness....MS....but I do believe that my generally healthier diet these many years has helped me avoid the more serious relapses that many MS people have. The last time I had a relapse was in 2006, so I'm doing pretty darn well. I do have Dr. Swank's famous book on diet for MS people on my book shelf, and I do want to read it again.

I must say that eating nearly completely vegan for the past 2 weeks, I feel I have a lot of energy.

If I eat out or am at someone's house where something not on my diet is served, I'm not going to make a big deal out of it and refuse to eat. But when I'm home in my own kitchen, cooking for myself, I will stick to fruits, veggies, grains, nuts and seeds. And I think very small amounts of certain cheeses, like Parmesan and goat cheese, will be acceptable.

I keep making modifications to my diet as I go. For instance, I discovered how delicious roasted sunflower seeds were, and I bought bags of them before reading that the high heat used in the commercial roasting process changes the composition of the oil and makes unhealthy free radicals. Or something to that effect. So I am transitioning over to raw sunflower seeds now. I returned a few bags I hadn't yet opened, but to be honest, it's hard for me to throw away the remaining, opened bag of roasted seeds and I'm hoping that just a little bit more won't kill me.

Honestly, the hardest change that I have yet to make is to give up pasta entirely. It's really not good for you. And I don't like whole wheat pasta at all. Pasta is my go-to food whenever I need comforting and I can eat a pile of it in one sitting.

I've been pretty successful following Dr. Fuhrman's abbreviated prescription for healthy eating:
Every day, he says, you should eat:

1. at least a half cup of some kind of beans
2. one large bowl of salad greens
3. one ounce of nuts
4. at least 3 pieces of fruit

If you only concentrated on these 4 things, you'd go a long way toward really improving your health, not only becus of what you're eating, but becus the items above are also taking the place of at least some things you won't eat if your stomach is full from beans, fruit and nuts.

Closing on a happy note, I'm thinking back to a meeting at work last Friday where my boss was telling about how right before Christmas around midnight, she had to work on a message for the bank's website about the Target credit card fiasco. She said if I'd been writing it, it would have taken me 20 minutes but it took her an hour and a half. I said oh, you should have called, but it was on a weekend, at midnight, so actually, I'm glad she didn't. But she said again that she was so happy that I was there now (so she doesn't have to write anything because it doesn't come easy to her).

This was a great documentary on free Hulu.

It's about how 10 modern-day Newfoundlanders try to live the lives of their ancestors in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. Back in the 30s, there many bustling little communities along the coastline as they made a living off the sea, fishing for cod until the fishing industry collapsed and everyone left for an easier way of life.

It was very interesting, just 4 episodes. There was the 14-year-old girl who was always somewhat petulant and not really embracing a phone-free life. I personally was amazed by the vitality and energy of a 75-year-old grandmother who held her own with the others doing a lot of hard labor for 62 days.

The snow started around 11 and by 11:45 a.m i was on my way home from work.

It's expected to snow all night and end around 7 a.m. About 10 inches expected. I will work from home tomorrow on my laptop.

I don't want to shovel during the workday, but I will try to get some done early a.m. and then again at lunchtime. I'll have to finish it tomorrow night in the dark, but I can turn the garage lights on at least.

I met my spend requirement ($750) for my Discover card, so am just waiting for them to issue the $150 credit.

I caved and purchased 100 gallons of heating oil at $3.799, the highest I've ever paid for heating oil in 18 years. I went with a company that has a 100-gallon requirement rather than 150; I'm betting the extra .05 a gallon I'm paying will be worth it because I'll be able to buy the next 50 gallons at a significantly lower price sometime in March.

Yesterday I made a cauliflower leek soup. It was a little watery. I have a much better recipe that uses cheddar cheese, but I'm really trying to go vegetarian, and that includes no dairy.

Today I did much better by adapting a plain tomato soup I found at food.com. Ordinarily plain tomato soup would bore me, but I've been trying to use up the many bags of frozen crushed tomatoes from my garden.

By adding a teaspoon of unsweetened baking cocoa, some freshly ground allspice, a bay leaf and basil (the recipe already called for thyme) I really ratcheted up the complexity of the soup quite a bit. It has quite a bit of flavor and is simply delicious. To ensure protein, I also added a half cup of sprouted mung beans and lentils and about a half cup of red kidney beans. I'll bring it to work tomorrow with some croutons.

I also made another batch of granola. I use old-fashioned oats, flaxseed that I grind myself in my little Braun coffee grinder, honey, oil, Cinnamon, allspice, toasted walnuts and either raisins or chopped dried apricot. I used to also add unsweetened coconut flakes and wheat germ, but I prefer it without those two ingredients.

I have some leftover kale I should really use up in a salad as well. (I'm thinking marinated in orange juice with dried cranberries, raw onion, dried currants and toasted walnuts).

I really do love cooking healthy and trying new recipes, especially vegetarian.

As for the electric snow thrower, I noticed the last time I used it on some ice-crusted snow that I was smelling a plastic burning smell, so I stopped using it. Then I decided to try it again, thinking maybe I was imagining the smell, but within a few minutes, I smelled it again.

So today I brought it to my local Toro dealer. I was hoping it wouldn't cost too much, but he'd told me it would be $75/ hr and they'd let me know if it was a simple belt change or something worse.

They have a 5-week backlog of repairs to do!

Maybe 10 minutes after I dropped it off, they called me at home and told me they checked out everything on the thrower and they can't find anything wrong with it!

So I drove down there to pick it up, wondering how much they might charge me. Thankfully, he said there'd be no charge, but I'm still a little worried about using the snow thrower.

I have a very long driveway and use it with a 75-foot-long outdoor extension cord, so today I examined the entire length, looking for something amiss, but didn't see anything.

I guess if I use it again and it begins to smell again, I might consider getting a new cord, just to be sure. The dealership guy said it's possible it could overheat after long use, and I'm wondering whether this very small thrower, which I got about 5 years ago for $279, wasn't really intended for such a big driveway as mine.

I've been tracking the cost of heating oil for years. Not just in the winter, but also in the summer months, too. I like to have an accurate picture in my head of where prices are going. Over time, I learned there were really just two area oil delivery outfits that consistently had the best prices, so those are the two I alternate between when ordering a delivery.

This week, their prices were $3.71 and $3.79 a gallon. In the 18 years I've owned my house, heating oil prices have never been that high. It's a record!

Online energy trend outlook reports from the federal government confirmed my fears that we are seeing record high prices on heating oil here in the Northeast. In most other parts of the country, oil is not used nearly as extensively as it is here.

Unfortunately, many heating oil companies have minimum purchase requirements of, for instance, 150 gallons. So that makes it difficult to try to time your purchases, or buy a smaller amount when prices are higher in the hopes that by the time you need more oil, later in the season, prices will have dropped.

In fact, it really irks me that they do that. When I questioned that practice with the gal yesterday, she said without the minimum purchase requirement, they wouldn't make as much profit. But then she quickly corrected herself, saying well, their truck only gets 6 miles to the gallon. But you already organize your deliveries so that all deliveries to a given town are done the same day, right? I said. Yeah, but in a more spread-out town like yours, the houses aren't close together, she said.

And so it went. As much as companies preach how "customer-friendly" they are in their marketing, they are all looking out for their own bottom line first.

Since I have just a 200-gallon oil tank, a 150-gallon fill-up essentially fills up the whole tank. In the past I toyed with the idea of buying a second oil tank to put in the garage (there's room) so I could better time my purchases, but I never got around to it and now that I hope to move at some point, I won't bother with that particular expense.

I usually fill up just twice a year. The first fill-up is always in the summer, when oil prices (and demand) are lowest. But then I have no choice but to fill up again in the dead of winter, when prices are highest, usually around January.

I've got a quarter of a tank left now and decided to wait one more week rather than have to buy at $3.71. Psychologically, it's hard for me to buy when I know prices are highest. I may not have a choice next week, but at least now there's a chance they'll dip a few cents.

It was a fairly uneventful week at work, and I got in my 40 hours. Work continues to be rather slow paced and at times, the day is very long for that reason. But my boss seems happy with my work.

Ballard Deign again has a sale on some ceramic garden seats I've always liked.



I think they're regularly priced at about $130. Now they're $99 with free shipping. So tempting, but honestly, I don't need them, I just admire their looks, and again my savings plan is important to keep in place as I could be unemployed again in July.

I love Ballard Design in general, so I allow emails from them. When I got an email mentioning the sale, I found myself scanning the sale items and found these garden seats, but I eventually left the site. At that time, the garden seats were on sale for $99, but no free shipping.

The next day, I get another sale email, and this time, it's $99 and free shipping. They must track your visits. So perhaps it's worth it to remember not to make a purchase the first time you visit the site after getting an email, because you may be able to do better just by waiting for the follow-up sales pitch.

I now officially have two nieces and a nephew. Technically, they are "half-nieces and a "half-nephew," as they are the kids of my half-brothers, from my dad's second marriage. My brother Bob married a Chinese woman and their kids have a very interesting, almost soulful look to them because of their eyes.

I don't have kids of my own. My plan has always been to leave my money to environmental charities, something that's very important to me. But there's the question of my tangible belongings and personal possessions. I would hate to see it all pawed over in an estate sale, going to strangers. So I think I may leave just my personal possessions to my nieces and nephews, although I have never seen them in person.

Before they were born, I only saw my brothers once in a blue moon. They grew up separately from me and my sister and pretty much lead separate lives in NJ, while my sister and I are here in CT. It would have been very nice to have closer relationships, but the realities of time and distance intervened.

I had once shared with my dad my plans to leave my money to charity, and I remember him saying, "Keep it in the family." But there's a part of me that resists doing that, especially since my brothers, while friendly, have never made any effort to establish closer ties, initiate a get-together or heck, even remembered my birthday with a card. Now that they are married, I notice I get Christmas cards regularly and this week I also got some baby pictures.

Spoke to my friend R. last night. He has a habit of often reminding me of all the good things I've accomplished and making me feel good about that. The fact that my house is paid off, my brand new car is paid off and I'm making good money (now).

Unfortunately, after having been helping his niece get through a divorce and search for a new house for her and her kids, the niece finally rebelled against my friend's domineering ways and told him that while she appreciated his help, she wanted to make her own decisions from here on, as it was her life they were talking about. My friend R. is extremely controlling about everything he does. That's a big reason why he and I broke up 30 years ago when we were dating. It's why his wife left him. And now his niece.

I mean, his intentions are good but he goes way overboard, crossing boundaries he shouldn't cross. Although he is using much of his own money to buy his niece a new house, he was also pressuring his sister (the niece's mother) to pitch in $50,000 and also the same with his other niece, as she and her husband are both accountants and make very good money.

That backfired as well, since the other niece has own kids' college to think about and the mother has her own retirement to think of. It's fine that my friend R., with no kids of his own, wanted to contribute his own money, but it was wrong of him to tell others in his family what to do.

Oh well. People are all so different.

And then there's the woman I work with, who finally got a visa for the man she met in Jamaica and married 2 years ago. (She's white, he's black.) Now she's got him home and he's living in her nice condo (which her parents paid for) while she goes to work (sometimes). She's a contract worker too, and her job will end in March.

She's spent many thousands of dollars on this guy, traveling to see him 14 times during the past 2 years. Since I started working there in October, she spent most of every day, when she decided to come in to work, on visajourney.com, poring over it to learn all the ins and outs of how to get a visa and answer the questions right in the interview.

She's talked to creditors she owes money to at work. She had former alcohol problems. She smokes. Her life is a mess, but she has this strangely endearing quality about her, really a naivete, that makes you want to help her. Her parents still pay her bills.

She's only supposed to be working at home one day a week, but she takes extreme advantage of our good-natured boss, who travels every other week, so she has often worked from home 3 or 4 days a week when our manager is not in.

Her husband doesn't know how to read or write (!!), so her parents are helping him get classes, so there's at least some hope he can get a job.

OK, so for whatever reason, you didn't go to school as a child. But the guy's in his early 40s now; why didn't he ever take the initiative to learn how to read and write as an adult? This guy sounds like such a loser to me and he's had the world handed to him on a plate because my co-worker is exceptionally needy and insecure and just wants someone to love her and make a baby with her.

This guy literally has a new lease on life. Flying to America was the first time he'd ever been on a plane before. And now, she tells me, he is telling her to get rid of her cat. Because Jamaicans don't keep animals as pets and he doesn't get it.

I am so, so wanting to tell her to stand up for herself and her own needs and happiness, not just his. I mean, this guy owes her a lot. He should be trying just as hard to please her as she is to please him. She's a very needy person. She calls him several times a day to see what he's doing. This poor cat is FIV positive, so it's doubtful it would get adopted very soon; everyone wants a healthy pet.

I want to tell her, look! He's in America now, so he should adapt to the American way of life, not the other way around. I hate seeing such an imbalanced relationship; to me, it seems doomed to failure. So far, I've managed to keep my mouth shut.

Ironically, the condo she lives in is one I LOOKED at in an open house when it was for sale last summer. This town is over an hour away from where I live, but I just happened to discover this lovely condo complex of detached condos in a nice, woodsy setting, just minutes from a gorgeous state park on Long Island Sound. And now I sit right next to the woman who lives there now. Talk about small world.

I like to minimize the number of things I "have" to do on Sundays, preferring instead to spend the day close to home, either cooking, reading or spending time online.

Today, I'm cooking up a storm. I've been inspired by reading Super Immunity by Joel Fuhrman. I tried one of his recipes, an eggplant hummus with a lot of healthy stuff in it. It was on the bland side and I wound up with a good 4 cups worth, far more than I needed, but I will bring it to work with some raw broccoli and carrots.

I also whipped up another batch of my own granola.

Next, I made a delicious mushroom soup. It's not quite like a cream of mushroom soup, but it has onions, garlic, leeks, carrots, celery, barley and both button and portobello mushrooms for more complexity of taste. It was very good. Though the recipe didn't call for it, I used my immersion blender to make it more cream-like. Very good...also will use for workday lunches.

Tonight, I want to try one more new recipe, a "crustini" on crusty bread made up of cannellini beans, flat leaf Italian parsley, red onion and sun-dried tomatoes. How yummy is that??

Still inspired by Dr. Fuhrman, I returned a bottle of multi-vitamins to BJs because it had several ingredients he says aren't good: Vit A and beta carotene, iron, folic acid and copper. (I am thankful they have such a liberal return policy, as I didn't have a receipt and had opened the bottle.) Plus I bought a bottle of zinc, which he said, along with B12, is important for vegans to supplement with.

Today's the last day I'll get to enjoy my free month of Netflix. Being a reality TV junkie, I sort of got hooked on Dr. 90210, a show featuring several plastic surgeons and the work they do. Surprising that the vast majority of patients want breast implants. The face lifts, etc are much fewer and far between.

Talked to 2 friends and my mother, but didn't leave the house today except to pick up a few groceries. And there I ran into my old boss from 6 years ago when I worked right here in town. His kids are all in college now, when they were just in middle school at the time I worked for him. He's one of the nicest people I've ever met, just a kind, gentle and humorous person who was very easy to work for.

I had a light, early dinner last night with Bachelor #4. He was nice enough. My problem is that I seem to have difficulty feeling any strong attraction to men I meet in this way. I don't feel a chemistry, although he was clearly intelligent and, as I said, nice enough that I could see. I suppose I could go out with him again and see if "something develops," but then again, I wouldn't be too upset if I never saw him again. I'm wondering if I have lost my capacity for romantic love.

After saying goodbye to him, I did some grocery shopping at Trader Joe's, which was right down the road, and then, since the all-day rain had kept me from leaving the house earlier, I also stopped to get gas, shop at BJ's and shop at Shop Rite. So I got many of my chores done and got home around 9 pm.

Tomorrow night there's a lecture on certain aspects of our town's history by a local, well-known historian. I've always wanted to attend these monthly meetings, but when I'm working, it's just so hard for me to venture out, especially in winter, after putting in a day of work. I really have little excuse, as the meeting is less than a mile from my house. But I have a feeling I won't go even though I'd like to.

From American Banker....

The Los Angeles Times recently reported that at Wells Fargo, where employees are pushed to sell eight products and services to each customer household, staff have opened hundreds of unneeded and unrequested accounts for customers, ordered credit cards without customers' permission and forged client signatures on paperwork.

"One former branch manager who worked in the Pacific Northwest described her dismay at discovering that employees had talked a homeless woman into opening six checking and savings accounts with fees totaling $39 a month," the paper reported. After the article was published, 70 more former and current Wells Fargo employees and customers came forward with similar stories of sales of unwanted and unneeded products at the bank.

The rest of the story is here:
http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/179_5/the-downside-of-the-data-driven-decision-1064719-1.html?zkPrintable=1&nopagination=1

I reported my financial intentions here for the New Year, so figured I might as well report that I followed through: I did contribute $6500 to a traditional IRA, my 2014 contribution. (It was a simple transfer of taxable savings to the IRA.) I also contributed $800 to retirement savings in my new Barclay's Dream account. This came from checking, and left me with just about $1500 to pay ongoing bills, but I think I can make it til a few more pay days bulk up my checking again.

I made the contribution to my traditional IRA on the advice of my healthcare "navigator" because doing so would reduce my 2014 modified adjusted gross income enough to hopefully ensure my income remains low enough so I can indeed qualify for the healthcare subsidy. When I calculated my projected income for 2014, I was right on the subsidy cut-off border (around $46k) and could easily go above or below that by a few thousand. Making that IRA contribution, something I'd be doing anyway (although normally to a Roth) also helps ensure my income falls below $46K.

So thinking along the same vein, I've been waffling about whether I should take on any freelance writing this year. I never make that much, especially working f/t. Typically, it comes to about $5,000 gross and the net is probably around $4,000, so if doing that freelance work jeopardizes my healthcare subsidy ($300 someething a month), I don't think it's worth it.

On the other hand, if my current contract job does indeed end in July as it's supposed to, with no extensions, then I will very much be wanting to do that freelance work. So I don't want to turn away my 2 chief clients now, or make them feel I'm unreliable, if I may need that work later.

It's a little bit of a dilemma. I may do up to $600 worth of work for both clients (they won't issue a 1099 if it's under $600) and after that tell them things are getting very busy with my f/t job and I need to take a break from the freelance, but then remind them the contract job ends in July and I'm available after that.

In July, if I find out the contract job will continue, then even an extra 2 months' income will cause my annual income to increase enough so that I'd lose the subsidy anyway, so then I might as well do the freelance work too. (One thing I'm unsure of is, if the contract job is extended and I report my now higher expected annual income on my state's healthcare website, I know I'll lose the subsidy but would I then also be required to PAY BACK the subsidy I'd gotten thus far? It would seem unfair to require that since it's not like I'm intentionally under-reporting my income, and I had no way of knowing beforehand whether my contract would be extended or not.)

If I find out in July that the contract job will indeed end, then I'll definitely be wanting to do the freelance work for the rest of the year (although you can bet I'll be carefully tracking all income YTD, just to be sure. So either way, I think I'd be able to do the freelance, but only after July.

The reason why I don't think I should do the freelance work from now until July is because I could be cutting it very close, and not doing any freelance until I have a better handle on my contract job status would seem to give me some assurance I wouldn't risk exceeding $46K.

Can't remember the exact monthly amount of the subsidy, but I think it's around $350 a month. That's $4200 a year, which is around what my freelance work usually grosses. So it would hardly seem worth it to do the freelance at all. Since I only have time to do the freelance work on weekends, it would certainly free up a lot of personal time I've sacrificed for a little extra money.

As an added step, knowing I would be using taxable mutual funds to fund my 2014 traditional IRA contribution, I made sure I sold those mutual funds in December (last month), so any cap gains from the sale (which are viewed as income) would be reported on this year's tax return, not next year's.

Sound confusing? It is! All because the uncertain status of my contract job makes planning everything else very difficult.

Feedback welcome!

OK, I'm officially home bound today after the overnight storm, which dropped about 5 inches of snow. It's bitter cold outside, 2 degrees. I kept the house at a balmy 64 overnight.

Because I need to be "at my desk," working at home, I can't go out and shovel til around 5:30 pm. I may just leave it til tomorrow, when it will reach a high of 26.

I have a conference call at 1 pm but otherwise am free.

After a long hold and a fair amount of wrangling with 2 reps, I was able to get AT&T to remove a $110 charge for work done by one of their technicians when I complained that I kept losing my Internet connection. I think I had a pretty strong case. I had just switched over to UVerse phone and Internet. I'm already paying for their Internet service with a monthly fee, so why should I pay extra to fix the problem? It had just been installed a month earlier. He said rather than deal with someone else's wiring, his preference would be to run a new line and install a new jack. He didn't tell me it would cost me anything. I didn't tell him to do all that work, that was his decision. All I wanted was for my Internet to work properly.

If you ever want to dispute a fee or charge with AT&T, be aware it's a lot easier to do if the charge is under $100. If it's over $100, they have to pass the call on to someone else and get special permission to waive the fee. It would have been penny wise and pound foolish to lose me as a long-time customer as I know they'll jack up the monthly phone charges in March when the promo is over. If I can't get another promo at that time, I'll be looking into Magic Jack or Ooma. Right now I'm paying $30 for phone (4 hours free monthly talk time) and $15 for Internet. That seems reasonable, and I don't want to pay any more. They send me promos for UVerse TV on a weekly basis,incessantly.

They're predicting blizzard-like conditions with the wind, about 10 inches of snow and very cold weather in the negative numbers, for overnight tonight and through tomorrow.

Let's all say a prayer that Patient Saver won't lose her power, because she has no fireplace to keep the pipes from freezing. Seriously, this and falling trees is what I worry about in a storm.

I went to work today but left early, around 4, to make sure I'd get home safely, There's not much on the ground yet but lots of dire warnings. I have my laptop, so I'll be working from home tomorrow, and thank god the storm is happening on a Friday, because that means I don't have to break my back out there tomorrow night to clear the driveway for work the following day. Now I can take all weekend to do it.

Work has been extremely slow, partly, I'm sure, becus so many people accumulate their PTO and take a long extended holiday at the end of the year. I feel a little better about that, and less nervous about losing the job prematurely, because I recently saw a job posting online for a manager who would manage the process of what I do and manage me.

There is a Bachelor #4 waiting in the wings. We're still in the talking stage but I suspect we will meet soon. He sounds...my god, intelligent. He's exactly my age and he gets brownie points from me because he indicated in his profile he was open to meet women as much as 10 years older than him. 99% of the time, men will be looking to date someone much younger than themselves. I found this to be true when I was in my 20s, 30s, 40s and now in my 50s, I've got grandpas in their 60s who pursue me. I really want someone closer to my own age who would be more likely able to do the things I want to do. He's an attorney, divorced after many years of marriage with 3 kids. More to come.

To start the New Year off right, I just finished opening up a new online Barclay's Dream money market account. I already have a regular Barclay's money market, which I currently use for three purposes:

1. As a place to transfer money from my checking account when the balance there gets higher than I need (since I earn no interest on checking). Currently a regular Barclay's online money market earns .90%.

2. As my so-called emergency fund. It's basically liquid money. I don't dip into this too frequently, but when I have a big ticket purchase, I transfer money from here back to checking so I don't have to cash out any mutual funds. It's usually something I use for big home improvements, like my new roof.

3. My property taxes are due twice a year, and rather than let the money sit, earning no interest, in my checking account, I transfer $500 a month to my Barclay's account so the money is there when I need to pay the bill in January and July.

Now Barclay's has debuted its new "Dream" money market account (https://www.banking.barclaysus.com/dream-account.html),which gives you the following benefits above and beyond its regular money market:

1. Interest is .95%.
2. BONUS #1: You're supposed to use this account to save money for a specific purpose, whether it's for college, a car, house, retirement or whatever. Every time you make consecutive deposits for 6 months, they give you a 2.5% bonus on the total interest you earned over that time.
3. BONUS #2: Make no withdrawals for 6 consecutive months and earn another 2.5% bonus on the past six months of interest earned.

You can only contribute a maximum of $1,000 a month.

I figure I'm planning on saving anyway, to bulk up my emergency savings, so this will allow me to have a dedicated account for that; the other account will be solely for property taxes, making it easier for me to see where I stand with the segregated funds, plus I'll get a nice little bonus for doing so.

Nothing momentous today, but enjoyable all the same to have all this time off from work.

I went down to Barnes & Noble to use a $20 gift card and, strangely, had the hardest time trying to find something to spend it on. Maybe because I already got 4 books for Christmas? I wound up buying 2 crossword puzzle books. I got in the habit of doing these at night after watching Hulu for a while, and without having cable TV anymore.

I also bought a quilt at Christmas Tree Shop. It's so thin, one could hardly call it a real quilt, but they were just $20 for every size, so I bought a king size for my queen bed. I also bought 4 green bowls because they were half price (.99 ea) and I am so hooked on vivid, saturated green colors.

I meant to next check out an Indian spice shop but there was awful backed up traffic on the other side of the highway so I decided to skip it.

I came home and made a very good chili using unsweetened cocoa in it as well as ground allspice, cumin, oregano, turmeric, chile powder and a few other spices.

Tomorrow is my Asian brush painting class and perhaps a few groceries in town.

I saw an online job posting for a marketing manager. It is clearly my employer (they listed the 2 addresses where the job could be located). It is also clear this new position (a contract job like mine) would supervise me as they reference that in the write-up.

I guess the reason why they are looking to hire this position is not because they think I need better supervision, because as I mentioned, they listed the job location as being either here in CT where I work or in Massachusetts, where one of our other offices is.

I like my current boss and would rather not have to report to someone new, but she clearly is overloaded and has very little time to work with me in any way. But it is curious to me that both my position and now my new prospective manager's position are both contract positions. It doesn't really give me any insight as to what their plans might be next July, when my initial contract is up.

I'm continuing to get a LOT of use out of a free month of Netflix, which expires mid-January. Nearly every night since starting it, I watch Netflix rather than Hulu and avoid all the commercials. A friend had recommended 3 or 4 movies, but none of them were available on Netflix streaming, though.

I am anxious for the New Year so I can make my $6500 IRA contribution. I sold some taxable mutual funds and the money is now sitting in my checking account.

In my last post, I looked at the details of my 2013 expenses, which totaled $37,807.

Now I'll look at my income.

The grand total is much higher than I thought it would be, but after working no less than three contract jobs, one part-time job, doing my freelance work and all the smaller miscellaneous money-makers, it was hard to keep track of.

My total gross income was: $48,761 and my net after taxes, which is what I actually lived on, was about $40,000.

Net wages from the five jobs mentioned above, plus partial unemployment when I worked part-time, came out to about $35,000, while the rest of my income was earned from many and varied sources, including:

Credit card rewards: $1324 (This doesn't include another $94 in earned in credit card gift cards).

Focus groups, product testing: $340

Manufacturers' rebates, promos: $191

Online surveys and forums: $117 (This doesn't include $519 in mostly Amazon gift cards I earned throughout the year.)

Garage sale: $101

We the Savers blog contest: $100 (I got paid for this today, but the blog won't post til next month, I'm told.)

Housecleaning chores done for family and friends: $384

So, all told, looks like I saved about $2,665 for the year. Not bad, considering I worked full-time for only 3.5 months of the year.

So of my net $40,000, about $5,500 of that was non-wage, unconventional income. So when I think about how hard it would have been to live on $34,500 without that extra $5,500, it helps motivate me to keep up all of the little diddly things I did to earn a hundred here or $50 there. At a higher income in the 70s or 80s, that little bit of extra money probably wouldn't matter so much, but at this income level it made a huge difference in livability and comfort.

The credit card rewards, I can clearly see, were the most lucrative among these things and took very little work, other than tracking my spending. Each time I think I've pretty much gotten to the end of bonus reward credit cards I can exploit, I come across a new one.

I spent a total of $37,807. That's just $2,000 more than 2012, which I consider very good.

Let's take a look at my ranked expenditures up close and personal:

2013 Honda Civic: $19,976. This represents 34.5% of my total spending for the year. (I'm not including it in my total spend referenced above because it's such a large, one-time expense and it would really skew things.)

New roof: $5,800, or 15% of total spending for the year.

Health insurance: $5597, or 14.8% of total spending. This is actually 12% lower than what I spent last year, but only because I skipped paying premiums for 2 months (and took a chance) when I switched from my COBRA, which was expiring, to the state plan of last resort.

Property taxes: $5,368, or 14.1% of total annual spending. I have seen for a while now that, excluding big ticket special expenses like certain home improvements, health insurance and property taxes vie for the #1 and 2 expenses each year.

Food: $3,277, or 8.6% of total spending, This is 13% more than 2012. While I don't eat a lot of meat, I do tend to indulge in certain pricey food items and organic foods.

Sewers: $3,033. This includes both the payoff of the loan as well as usage fees. In 2014, with the loan out of the way, this figure should be way, way down on my ranked list of expenses.

Healthcare out of pocket: $1,739, or 4.5%. This was 32% higher than what I spent last year, all due to spending hundreds on diagnostic tests and doc visits to determine the cause of 2 unexplained (and unrelated) symptoms: a cough and headaches. Never did figure out the cause of either one. Doc thought cough was due to post nasal drip but tried 3 different sprays and they did nothing. As for the headaches, they started in June and finally resolved by end of November, on their own. I chalk it up now to stress.

If i combine my out-of-pocket expenses with premiums, that is a whopping $7,336, or 19.4% of my total annual spending. I sure hope that with my new Obamacare plan, my expenses here moderate in 2014.

Household: $1224. Don't like using this category much as it camouflages what exactly I spent on. It's sort of a catch-all for certain items that don't neatly fit into some other category.

Home maintenance: $1,200. .

Heating oil: $986. This was the first of 2 pleasant surprises. I actually spent 19% less than I did last year. Since I took no special additional conservation measures, I can only attribute the lower spending to lower fuel prices.

Gas: $840. This was down 7% from last year, again due to lower energy costs, not any change in driving.

New computer/monitor: $834

Car insurance: $795

Clothing: $733. This is something I kick myself for. I tend to spend on clothing before starting a new job. Really not needed, and I can't justify this level of spending when my income has been so unstable.

New hot water heater: $723

Cats: $667. A 31% increase over last year! This was mostly food and litter, though it also included one trip to vet when Luther jumped out of a second story window. But I've also gotten into the bad habit of regularly buying expensive, $3 a can cat food as a "treat" for the cats a little too often. Half the time they don't like the new foods anyway, so I have decided to stick with the lower priced cat foods, which are still far and away better for cats' health than dry food, according to vets.

IRS: $665. These are quarterly IRS tax payments for my freelance writing.

Electric: $625. Rates will jump 20% in 2014.

Phone/Internet: $625. I'm hoping that with my switch to AT&T UVerse I'll save money and not need to buy additional cell phone minutes anymore since I'll now have 4 hours of free talk time each month.

Homeowners insurance: $584

New furnace humidifier: $520 Worth the expense. No more static electricity when I pet the cats and it's fairly comfortable indoors at 64 degrees, the highest I set it at.

Car repairs: $496, mostly for my 14-year-old Honda. It should be less next year with the new car.

Car tax/registration/license: $366

Gifts: $296

Dining out: $164, all fast food here and there

Borough taxes: $156

Water: $153

Gardening: $138

Dump sticker: $85

Entertainment: $69 (very frugal here)

Haircuts: $51. Managed to spend less this year than last by using Great Clips coupons, even though each year I got 4 haircuts.

Bird suet: $5

Next up: Tomorrow, I'll analyze my income!

My mother doesn't like driving in the dark anymore (it's the blinding headlights of other drivers on secondary roads that is the issue), so I picked up my mother yesterday and then we drove together to my sister's house. We were a small group of five: myself, my mother, my father, sister and her boyfriend. As mentioned earlier, this was the first time I can ever recall sharing a meal with both my parents, together, so it was very nice.

My father, up from New Jersey, was spending the night at my sister's after having spent Christmas eve with my half brother and his family.

They must have felt a little awkward at first, but it's been so many years since their divorce, I don't think it really mattered. My sister made both salmon and prime rib, and wouldn't you know that even among the three of us who are mostly vegan, all of us chose the prime rib!

My chocolate cheesecake and walnut/pecan/hazlenut pies were a huge hit. I left the remains at my sister's but took my mother's mostly untouched pumpkin bread for myself.

CeeJay the gentle Rottweiler was also with us. A very gentle rescue dog who likes to have her belly rubbed.

I got a lot of books I'd asked for this year, 5, to be exact, all related to nutrition and health. I've started reading the first one, Healing Spices. I also got a very cool feeder for Baltimore Orioles. It is a vertical wire hanger with little spears that will hold three orange halves in place. Can't wait to try it, as I have seen Orioles around here in summer, although not regularly. I also got some clothing, gardening gloves and a very nice copper pot, also a pair of two cordless phones. Also my sister made me a batch of tulsa tea (homegrown) which is supposed to be good for stress, which I've been having a lot of lately.

This weekend's plans call for seeing a matinee with a friend on Saturday (I got $25 worth of AMC movie gift cards from my recruiter agency) and possibly driving my mother to Litchfield to collect some old unsold art from a gallery.

For my own entertainment, today I may go to Barnes & Noble to spend another gift card, do some grocery shopping and run a few other errands. I still need to work on charging up my Discover card for rewards.

Once I get my final paycheck tomorrow, I can finalize all my year-end expense and income numbers and post them here.

Merry Christmas, one and all,
Hope you and yours have a ball.

Just don't eat too much turkey,
Or others may think you're a little bit jerky.

Sadly I am not a poet, but the intention is good!

I was officially "done" with Christmas shopping 2 weeks ago, but you know how you feel right before the holiday when you just have an urge to go into a pretty little shop to browse for some small little perfect gift?

That's how I felt today, so while I didn't really have to, I went down to a garden nursery nearby where it's always fun to browse among the pointsettias and evergreen garlands, table centerpieces and trees of every size.

I ended up getting up a little bee house for my father, who's hard to shop for. The bee house hangs outside in the garden, and bees will lay their larvae in the cylindrical tubes, where they will eventually hatch and become the next generation of pollinators. I have one my sister gave me years ago and yes, they do indeed plug up the holes with their eggs.

I also stopped in at the local grocer and picked up coleslaw and a cold beet salad for my lunch on the 2 days I'm working this week: Monday and Tuesday.

I decided on impulse to make some yummy treats for the other people who have decided to work this week. (There won't be many.)

If you like chocolate, you MUST try this easy-as-can-be recipe for chocolate/nut/fruit clusters.

1 cup chocolate chips (I used dark, but you can whatever kind you prefer)

Melt the chips in a glass or microwave-safe bowl in microwave for 1 minute. Stir, then heat for another 45 seconds. Stir and make sure all the chips are melted.

Add to them a half cup of walnuts or pecans, chopped coarsely. (If you toast them beforehand, it really brings out the flavor.)

Also add a half cup of dried cranberries.

Stir well to combine, then drop onto a cookie sheet with a spoon. Refrigerate for 3o minutes until they harden.

That's it. They're delicious.

I debated making a swag for my front door using evergreen branches and some lovely cedar branches with the little blue berries. (I also have those pink beauty berries.)

I may not get to it, out of lack of motivation. Even though it's close to 60 degrees here today. At 3:20 pm, it already seems darkish.



I bought some very inexpensive picture frames to give as gifts to 2 friends at work. They were $2 each but look like they should be around $10 or $15. I also got a bag of assorted, individually wrapped Ghiardelli chocolates. While I'll eat the dark chocolate ones, I don't care for the milk chocolate/caramel ones, so I picked those out and put them in a pretty little drawstring bag for the garage parking lot attendant at work. I was wanting to get her something, but not wanting to spend a lot of money, so this worked out perfectly.

I planted the amaryllis bulb that I got as a gift from my boss. Love to watch how quickly these grow.

That's about it. Tomorrow I'll try to straighten out my overdone SEP IRA contribution and see if T. Rowe can correct it so I don't get in trouble.

I planned to make both a chocolate cheesecake and my famous three nut pie (similar to a pecan pie) for Xmas, but I just realized I only have one crust. I'll stop at Stop & Shop after work tomorrow, but don't know if I can find the crust I like there.

So I managed to get in a 40-hour work week this past week, but by Friday, the place was really quiet as half the people seem to have lots of PTO.

I got a few nice unexpected gifts from people, including an amaryllis bulb from my boss, an ornament filled with loose tea and a $5 Dunkin' Donuts gift card, as well as a bag of holiday chocolates.

At the office party Secret Santa, I got a $20 barnes & noble gift card...perfect.

Today I had a long list of errands to make and did most of them before the craziness of the traffic and other shoppers got to me. I washed off most of the road salt from my car.

I'm working Monday and Tuesday of next week (it will be dead) and then will have off til the following Monday.

There is an interesting workshop in town I'd like to do during the time I'm off from work....it's an introductory workshop on Chinese and Korean style brushwork. Just a $5 fee and you learn to paint four classic plants: bamboo, orchid, cherry blossom and chrysanthemum. Being held at the church on my street....how convenient is that?

I decided to make a chocolate cheese cake and three nut pie for Xmas dinner.

I was feeling kind of dizzy for a while so just lay in bed and read the paper. Got through the one-year anniversary of 12/14 okay. There are so many groups doing healing things in town. The arts workshop mentioned above is just one example.

From American Banker magazine....

Mississippi AG Sues JPMorgan Chase Over Debt Collections

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) pressured customers to repay debts they did not owe, sold collections agencies rights to credit card accounts that had been extinguished in bankruptcy and tolerated frequent errors by its third-party collections attorneys, according to a lawsuit filed by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood on Tuesday.

The state's complaint is, despite significant redactions, the most detailed and potentially damning attack so far on JPMorgan Chase's credit card debt collections operation, which the bank has shut down.

JPMorgan Chase declined to comment on the Mississippi complaint through a spokesman.

The bank ceased filing suits to collect consumer debt in the spring of 2011, following a probe by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency into the legitimacy of its collections lawsuits. That probe ended in September, when the OCC ordered the bank to repay customers and reform its collections department.

JPMorgan Chase disbanded the group tasked with suing to collect delinquent accounts entirely the following month, leaving the future of its debt collection operation unclear. Its decision to shutter the litigation group, an apparent acknowledgement that further collections suits could be fraught with legal and regulatory risk, may also suggest that the company was bracing for a wave of lawsuits from state attorneys general.

The Mississippi attorney general's complaint, filed in the Chancery Court of the First Judicial District of Hinds County, Miss., alleges "egregious" lapses at every stage of JPMorgan Chase's collections process — from violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to Microsoft Excel errors that compromised $600 million dollars in defaulted customer account records.

Bank executives were allegedly aware of many of the problems with the collections unit, where employees referred to one of JPMorgan Chase's outside legal providers as an "outhouse" firm. Nevertheless, the bank continued to churn out faulty lawsuits in the hope of obtaining uncontested judgments, the complaint says. Robo-signing of legal documents, sloppy legal work and reliance on inadequate recordkeeping persisted even after the bank was rebuked for similar errors in handling defaulted mortgages, it claims.

"Chase pursued Mississippi consumers for debt that they had paid or settled, did not owe, or had discharged in bankruptcy. Consumers' paychecks were garnished and their credit damaged, making it harder for them to refinance their homes, take out a car or student loans, or even get jobs," Hood said in a written statement. "We have tried for months to resolve our concerns cooperatively, but have been forced into litigation."

If accurate, the state's allegations threaten to escalate JPMorgan Chase's consumer debt collection woes, which have already resulted in a consent order with the OCC, a civil suit filed by California, and investigations by 14 states including Iowa and Massachusetts. Mississippi Attorney General Hood alleges that Chase sought to collect debts from customers who had already paid them and may have similarly mishandled car and student loans.

JPMorgan Chase's control failures date back as far as 2007 but increased as the debt collection operation struggled to keep up with the wave of credit card defaults during the recent recession, the Mississippi complaint says. The bank's consumer-debt recoveries grew more than tenfold during the previous decade, to $1.2 billion in credit-card recoveries in 2009 from $130 million in 2000, the complaint states.

To meet this frantic pace of recoveries, the bank allegedly set collections quotas for employees and fired those who failed to meet them. It used outmoded recordkeeping systems for customer accounts, and its different systems often suffered from discrepancies in basic customer information, the complaint says. These problems were worse with accounts JPMorgan Chase acquired from other financial institutions, including Washington Mutual, BankOne and the card issuer Providian.

For Chase, the main cost of its problems so far has been the substantial revenue it failed to collect during the OCC's two-year investigation. Attorney General Hood is seeking up to $10,000 from the bank for every violation of the Mississippi's Consumer Protection Act, plus compensation for the state's legal costs of pursuing the case. The complaint lists 18 types of alleged violations. Among them: quoting inaccurate debt figures to customers, failing to investigate credit-bureau disputes and selling compromised accounts to debt buyers who then initiated their own collections efforts.

By seeking to hold JPMorgan Chase responsible for misconduct by law firms and collections agencies it hired, the Mississippi lawsuit could serve as a warning to other banks that outsource collections to outside vendors.

The suit alleges widespread violations by Couch, Conville & Blitt, a New Orleans, La., law firm that the bank used for collections litigation beginning in 2009, and Mann Bracken LLP, a defunct law firm which the bank used for arbitration claims through mid-2009. The complaint also names NCO Financial Systems among the collections agencies whose misconduct JPMorgan Chase failed to check.

"Chase engaged these firms to handle official legal proceedings against its customers and let them engage in widespread deception, with no supervision and no repercussions," the complaint states.

Operating through the outside firms, JPMorgan Chase "filed complaints purely as a strategy to obtain default judgments," submitting claims backed by "no evidence whatsoever" in the hopes that borrowers would not respond and the bank would be awarded default judgments, the complaint claims. When borrowers fought the claims, Chase would typically abandon its efforts, it adds.

Couch, Conville & Blitt "failed to conduct any meaningful review of the alleged debt to verify the customer information" and "did not even review documents before they were filed in court," the Mississippi complaint states. Despite spending little effort on the suits, JPMorgan Chase and the law firm would then seek awards for "exorbitant" attorney's fees that ranged up to one-quarter of the total amounts demanded, it says.

Mann Bracken's recordkeeping problems were so widespread prior to its demise that JPMorgan Chase employees referred to the firm as "Mann Broken," the Mississippi lawsuit says. The law firm's customer-account data did not match Chase's about 15% of the time in 2009, it says.

These recordkeeping problems prompted a group of JPMorgan Chase employees to try to fire Mann Bracken in 2008, but top Chase executives blocked the efforts, the complaint states. The bank kept using Mann Bracken until mid-2009, just prior to its closure amid a Congressional investigation.

JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon acknowledged vender-oversight problems in a letter to employees in September, writing that the management of third-party firms was an area where the company needed to improve.

I just realized that a week or so ago I accidentally contributed more than I should have to my SEP IRA. You can contribute up to 20% of what you earned, and I contributed 25% ($1100 vs. $887). This is for my freelance work, what I've managed to do in 2013 when I'm not working my other job.

Do you think the IRS will catch this on my low income tax return, perhaps by some automated system? I'm wondering if i should go to the trouble of trying to undo it, or having to file some special form possibly to do so.

Ugh.

So, okay, I've always opted to get snail mail credit card statements on all my credit cards even though I also get online notices which I pay online immediately. I liked to get the follow-up statements in the mail in case I lost power for an extended period of time or otherwise could not access my computer.

But with, I don't know, maybe 10 different cards at any given time, it gets complicated to pay online, and then check the paper statement again, just to make doubly sure I already paid it. I seem to be getting notices every other day, so I finally took the plunge and eliminated all of my paper statements. It SHOULD be okay, although I'm always a little paranoid about missing a payment.

I should really whittle down my cards more, but I DO get attached to some of them after a while, especially the "design-your-own" cards. And since I paid off my mortgage last year, my only installment debt, I wonder if having a heaping serving of credit cards, aka revolving debt, might partially compensate for the lack of installment debt.

Here's what I have right now:
USAA visa and Amex green cash card: The USAA card has no rewards program and the amex card has very minimal rewards, but I'm committed to keeping both of these (and charging on them once in a blue moon) because they are my oldest cards and hence benefit my credit score. I think it must be like 20 years or something. So they will stay.

All the other cards I've got were acquired in the past 2 years. These include Chase Freedom, Citi Forward, Discover It, Capital One Cash Rewards (benefits the World Wildlife Fund so I will keep this one), Capital One Platinum, Barclaycard Platinum MC, Capital One Platinum Visa (a different one!), and BankAmericard Cash Rewards. Any strong opinions which I hold and which I should fold?

I always feel kind of sheepish when I call in to cancel becus I'm sure they can see when I got the card and read between the lines....oh, another lady just trying to get the bonus. Hmph!

I'm working at home today due to the snow. Just 2 to 4 inches expected, but hey, they supply everyone with a laptop, including us contractors, so i guess that's what they're there for.

As a writer, I don't like using the laptop much though. It's very convenient in that you can set up whereever you want, but the screen is so tiny it doesn't lend itself to what i often do, placing 2 or more documents side by side and having multiple windows open.

So I have the laptop open but emailed some documents to my personal email so I could do the actual writing on my much larger personal monitor, and then when i was done, I just emailed them back to my work email address. Seemed to work pretty well.

I sent off my $404 payment for a Gold health insurance plan.

Tomorrow is my company Xmas party, at 3 pm. So as not to lose yet more work hours, I am working an extra half hour each of the remaining 4 days this week to account for the 2 hours (3-5 pm) of the party. My boss already told me not to bother coming in to work on the 2 days after Christmas, which was disappointing, cus again, so much time lost to holidays. Christmas week I'll only be able to log 16 hours. Not good for the pocketbook.

I did get a nice little gift from the agency that hired me for the bank job. I got a $25 movie theater gift card, plus $5 for concession snacks. I LOVE the movies but rarely go, but already invited a movie-loving friend to see something right after Xmas, now that I have the time off. (Compare that gift to what I got from an agency around the holidays in 2010...a small (not even full size) box of 4 chocolate truffles.)

I'm still waiting for the We the Savers website to post my blog, and of course, to receive payment for winning their monthly essay contest. Also expecting payment any day now from my #1 freelance client....they owe me about $600.

I've decided (with input from Dido) to sell $6500 worth of taxable mutual funds this month (right after they declare distributions) to fund my 2014 traditional IRA contribution.

By selling those taxable mutual funds this year, that $6500 will be reported as 2013 income on my tax return, and I want to keep my 2014 income as low as possible to ensure I don't exceed about $46,000, the cut-off amount at which you don't qualify for a subsidy if you're getting onto an Obamacare healthplan. It's going to mean a pretty big tax bill for me in 2013, as earlier this year I already cashed out about $26,000 from the same one taxable fund, partially to pay for my new car.

I am feeling pretty broke right now cus I just sent off that $404 for my first month on my new health plan, then my $3,000 of property taxes must be paid in about a week. After that, I can finally start SAVING, not spending. Of course, I'll have to think about refilling the heating oil tank sometime in January. That's usually good for $500+. Sigh.

Working on charging up the Discover card with $750 of purchases, but so far I've done just $15 as I'm done with all my Christmas shopping and don't really need anything just yet. No worries, still 2 more months to go.

The really good news is, the issuer of my new health insurance, which happens to be a new non-profit issuer on the CT healthcare exchange, said they will begin letting you charge your premiums in mid-January!! As long as there's no fee for doing so, that would be awesome for all my credit card charging schemes. Assuming I have some offer I'm working on at the time. Otherwise, it would be just more or less normal points of 3% or whatever.