Monday, January 30, 2023

Snow, sleet, rain, deaths and sickness and budget AGAIN.

 when temps are at 32 SIGH.. what a day. Hubby is out in it as he is making sure the two widows can get their cars out. He cleared off both of our porches and the deck along with the sidewalk to the barn. Plowed our own lane and cleared mailboxes for both widows , E and us after the township plow went through.

IT was a bad hair day on top of catching pneumonia. SIGH. Urgent care was cheaper than driving to primary and him sending me for x rays.



We had more deaths in the family, heart attack, my cousin's son, cancer, from another cousin and old age with a grand parent on the eldest's other side. My brother let me know his wife lost 2 on her side from old age. Still hard even when their are of "that age". 

The guy around the corner (we can see his cabin across the field from our porch) house burned down. Completely gone, possible damage to foundation. Has been working on this for 3 yrs. and was getting it finished this week to move in Feb. 1st. Outdoor furnace got to hot, and the pipe from it got too hot and was too close to cabin that was dried pine logs. Rumor is his insurance told him the furnace had to be 100 ft from the house. It wasn't even 10 ft. He was working in the upstairs bedroom and smelled smoke. Went out the window over the front porch roof to get out. He was not hurt. Did say that was the fire escape plan so he knows that works well as both bedrooms have way to get off back and front porch roofs. He is planning to raze it and rebuild.

I am in the house dealing with the changes we have decided on... again... some more......





This is the south loft. The two side walls are done except for the 2 attic doors needing built and covers over outlets and the light switch. I want to put an edging between where the ceiling is and the wall starts. We will be looking for that on Tuesday.  The window wall will have the same bottom but some where in the barn is dark paneling cut to fit for the top part of this wall. I took it off when we started on this room 4 yrs ago. YES 4 YRS.AGO.  Put it in the barn in the big bay. I went out to where it should be and Hubby had buried everything I had put there with broken doors, scrap lumber from the basement ramp etc. Frustration as I had that area organized and now it's not. What I get for not walking through the WHOLE barn instead of just the loft and front bay. He was going to pull the "crap" out but couldn't figure out where to store the "crap". So it sits.  Barn decluttering starts when it gets warmer which is NOT THIS WEEK. That is okay since I am just getting over the walking pneumonia.

We changed the budget. Hubby wanted to live off our social security... until he heard the estimate of what we would be paying for health insurance.  THEN he had the panic attack.  I told him it just meant we needed to be more frugal let the social security pay the medical and live off our investments and what ever we can earn. THEN he got his stuff around for taxes and realized (DUH) his business lost money last year (which didn't help the panic attack). I guess telling him I covered bills from the household budget didn't click he was losing money due to diesel fuel costs. About a month's income but I was able to cover it with being frugal. Eighteen more months and the work truck will be paid for in full, that is 6 months ahead of time. If he hadn't had to pay the legal fees he does for hauling out of state he would have broke even. I divided that out by 12 and put it in the freaking  budget... it's actually less ( about half) than if I covered the work truck payment or it's insurance. I feel like I got the lesser of the evils with that low of a payment. The one Amish company he used to haul for and quit as it conflicted with other hauls he had first. They have pretty much closed down from lack of business. A lot of the Amish in that area are moving as they don't like the laws that passed that affects them having outhouses on ground. This county allows it if the outhouse is on a septic tank system, 1 line of running water into house is required also.  The Amish guy we bought our house from had 3 lines ran for his wife. One to the kitchen sink so she could have water there (and it drained to the septic line), one to the stove for the reservoir to be filled without her hauling water and one to the wash room for the stove there and for her to have cold water for the clothes washer. If the family doesn't want to put in a septic line, the "Church" has okayed porta potties. Some have them out in their field or at businesses, close to a drive so they can be dealt with by what ever company owns them. We didn't remove those lines, figured if we even had to use the 650 gallon water tank(above our water pump and pressurized tank) that is connected to those lines, we would be ahead of any issues. 

Propane. We over paid for this year, lucky our provider allows carry overs. IF we can make it 6 more weeks on this tank, we will have enough already paid for to cover the next heating season with adding 1 tank full as long as the price with tax is no more than $3/gallon.SO the budget is getting cut there as I had budgeted 4 tanks. We switched to coal this morning. So far it's burning good and the benefit is I don't have to keep feeding the stove as coal is pretty much 3-4 times a day if it runs right if that much. 

We have enough coal already for next year, but decided to buy another 2 tons this summer when the cost is lower for back up. That is already in savings.

E asked Hubby for help as he had a couple trees down but with the limbs his horses could not pull it. They were cut down by another neighbor wanting them for fire wood and then never came back and got them after 2 yrs. E doesn't like waste especially cutting down trees and letting them rot. Offered to split the wood in half if Hubby would trim the limbs off. Ended up giving all of it to us when Hubby found 3 maples left also there. This wood is cured. Plus E asked Hubby to help him clear the property line and we could have ALL the wood since he had told us he would deal with it when we bought the house.  . Daughter 2 said a cord of wood in her area is $800. Her boys' dad got her a couple cords for $600 total as he is a landscaper. We have a cord still coming from the sawmill... we are 5th down on the list, we were 4 but found E's Dad H was 5th so we had the sawmill flip us with him. We still had 1/2 cord of sawmill wood when E gave us some, we passed it to E and he took it to his Dad. His parents are our age but his Dad is handicapped and his Mom B just had her knee replaced. SO we won't be buying any wood but fuel for the saws cutting the wood. E told us fuel costs for 1 cord is $15. He has the same saws as us. AND we should have 6 cords of wood if we are not burning any coal. That is $90 for "wood heat" for the season. The property line has about 2 dozen trees to deal with 2 of them are half way down due to storm damage.  We shouldn't be buying wood for awhile. BUT Hubby is going to be busy cutting wood. Maybe that will make hauling jobs come in... seems like if he is busy at home, he gets ran over hauling. 

We need 28 garden beds and 6 strawberry beds replaced. Hubby built slab wood beds last year for the potatoes... they didn't hold up as well as he thought they would but I can use them for lettuce, spinach and such this year. We priced what we would like to have Cedar wood beds... that came to about $20,000 with out soil. Not happening. I found metal beds for 1/3rd of the price that is suppose to last 15-20 yrs. and bought 2 just to see if they would work for us before spending all that money. We will be sifting soil and compost to refill to save on that part of the budget. I figured a year to replace all the bed and hopefully the strawberry beds also. 

I brought up the mortgage to get back on track of getting it paid off early. Adjusted propane/ heating budget. Played around with what can go into savings for a down payment of another used truck or SUV.

Checked, double checked, and triple checked that the household budget could cover the business costs without any business income (that has not happened in 3 yrs even during the pandemic) and NOT cause a problem with paying household outflow) Would have to drop extra off mortgage but that was it. 

We didn't go to store .... Hubby grabbed a gallon of milk when running errands and I yanked the last loaf of bread out of the deep freezer. Down to hamburger buns. 

Prayers for all and peace

Blessed be