Honestly, I guess this week the post should be titled “How I’m Spending This Week.” Ugh.

After a long 19 hour drive to Louisiana with my dad, we finally made it to Baton Rouge. We spent the ride buying gas (a lot) and listening to a spy novel on CD which I had picked up at the library before we left. Books on CD definetely make a long drive pass much faster. I packed some snacks and made a couple of sandwiches to eat in the car so I did farily well on saving money on the drive. I only bought 2 meals total over two days since I had brought food with me and the Super 8 that we stopped at in Knoxville had a complimentary continental breakfast. Yay!

Now for the spending part. Well, we all went out to eat a couple of times and that definetely adds up. Especially when you are already strapped for cash. We also swung by Old Navy to get a couple of pairs of khakis which my husband needs for his Athletic Training observations, since he needs to wear a professional uniform for working with the athletes. Luckily, I had planned ahead for this purchase and had two $10 off a $20 purchase coupons from previous Old Navy purchases. We saved some money but unfortunately Old Navy won’t let you use the coupons together so we ended up paying more out of pocket.

And to clinch it all, my husband’s car got a flat tire the night we arrived in Baton Rouge. Thank god it didn’t happen in the middle of Mississippi (nothing against Mississippi though)! So we tooled over (on the spare tire) to the Firestone tires convienently located next to the Old Navy. We ended up getting two tires so they would wear more evenly and because they were buy 1 get the 2nd 1/2 off. So thats a great deal but still an unexpected $200 dollars to shell out. So now we have a maxed out credit card bill, joy. Hopefully it won’t stay that way for long.

With all this upheaval over college costs for my husband, my parents graciously offered for me to move back in with them while I finish grad school over the next 6 months and look for a job in Baton Rouge. I had been wrangling with my rental office about breaking the lease and finally, after a call to the county Office of Landlord-Tenant Relations and a nice letter, they agreed to let us break the lease with only 30 day’s notice and 1 month’s rent in a penalty fee. They previously said I should give 60 days notice and two month’s rent in a penalty, which would mean an exorbinant amount of money to suddenly come up with in March. So this works out much better in the long run. I had to shell out the penalty fee from our savings so now we are wiped out temporarily.

I hate the feeling that we don’t have the security and safety blanket of our credit card or savings accounts. That makes me so nervous yet grateful that we had them in the first place. Over the next two months our financial situation will be in flux as we create a new budget and handle some large out of pocket expenses (like the lease penalty fee) and then try to build back up our savings.

Another big relief is that I am getting a bit of extra cash in to help us out through these lean times. Just today and yesterday I received almost $50 from mystery shops I completed in December and January. Also, by the end of the week I will be receiving $133 from Textbooks.com from selling all our old textbooks. Great! Every little bit helps.

How are you saving today?