I hate winter. All I've been doing the last couple days is curling up on the couch under a blanket. I'll be going back to school next week. At least Stormo (In reference to Choco, I often add an 'o' to the catten names; Gremo, Jibbo, Stormo) has warmed up enough to cuddle on my lap. It's been a long adjustment for her. The first week or two she spent mostly under the bed or couch, hiding from the other cats. She'd hiss when any came into her line of sight.

For the last week or so, she's been spending more time out in the open. Grem and Choco have learned to keep their distance, so Stormy has pretty much stopped hissing at them (unless they startle her from around a corner or something). Jib has been naughty and chased Stormy a number of times, so she still hisses at him a lot. It seems to be becoming less frequent, fortunately. Stormy has always been affectionate to me and Ryan when there are no other cats around, and now that she's acclimating to the cats, she's being more affectionate all day. In fact, she's on my lap purring right now!

I took her to the vet for a once-over, and it turns out she really needs her teeth cleaned. So the vet will be doing that under anesthesia later this month. But other than that (and vomiting hairballs...sigh...and we were so lucky before that we didn't have any vomit-prone cattens), she's happy and healthy. I will get around to taking more pictures at some point, but as I said, I'm stuck on the couch with a Stormo on my lap.

So, what else? In December we made a couple big purchases. New couches (the ends recline, making it even harder to convince myself to get up):

The sage green doesn't exactly go with our all-blue living room, but they don't clash horribly, the price was right, and they're super-comfy.

The other big purchase was something I had a decent amount of resistance to, but Ryan really wanted. And after him caving and letting me get Stormy, I had to power to deny him what he wanted: a 47" LCD (i.e. EXPENSIVE) TV. Oy. At least I scrounged up a 10% off coupon. Since the TV is high def, our regular Comcast signal looked really grainy, meaning we'd have to upgrade (i.e. waste lots of $$$ on a recurring monthly basis). At that point I was quite agitated, but Ryan found a Direct TV package with a low promo rate for a year followed by a rate that was only $2 more a month than Comcast. So we now have Direct TV, and on average we will be saving compared to Comcast until a break-even point of three years from now. So not bad.

I eventually did take a picture of the Black Friday CVS haul. It feels awesome to have a year's supply of contact solution for profit :)

So my big kick this year is to stick to a budget of only $2009 for all human food, household, and personal care products. That's $2009 net, so I can add back any rebates or flea market earnings. Broken down, that's $2.75 per person per day. I am already ahead of the game, but it will get interesting when I go up to Maine. It will also mean very little going out to eat; maybe I will get back into a little mystery shopping if we're desperate. We already haven't gone out to eat much anyway, what with my awesome shopping and cooking skills and all :P And I won't need to buy any contact solution during 2009 :)

Now don't worry, of course we don't NEED to do this, it's just one of my compulsions and a fun little challenge. Back before I started couponing we spent about $375 per month on the same stuff, and I already bought store brands and paid attention to prices somewhat. So saving $2500 in a year on top of that would be great. It would probably just go to extra mortgage payments, though, since I'm all about building long-term wealth.

Assuming I get the two rebates I've applied for this year so far, I am actually turning an $11 profit on our budget-encompassed expenditures so far, within which I have procured 8 shampoos/conditioners that I can sell at the flea market, which would make my profit more like $23. Maybe $2009 is too easy :) Eh, we can always eat out more if there's room left.

Speaking of wealth, I did some preliminary calculations and estimate that Ryan and I filing jointly will get a $5500 tax refund! Almost makes paying $875/month in mortgage interest worthwhile! But not worthwhile enough that we won't apply the refund to our mortgage principal.

Aww, Stormy is asleep now. Cute!