TGIF

I'm so glad it's payday and Friday - double bonus! I paid my bills online this morning. They are doing some IT maintenance where I work and had to boot me off remote access, so I'm taking a little break from work for 10-15 minutes.  I started at 6:30 this morning so I could be off by 2:30 in order for DD and I to go get our haircut. I usually get it trimmed every 2 months (DD about every 3-4 months).  The lady we go to has a little shop in her house and only charges $12 per cut, including a wash and blow dry.  Thank goodness a few years ago DH and DS started using home clippers to cut their own hair. That saves $ too.  I'm able to put $400 in savings this month to start getting that built back up.

I took our big dog to get his nails trimmed last night at PetSmart for $11, so one other "maintenance" expense out of the way for another couple of months. I tried to trim myself when he was a puppy but I'm awful at it and drew blood, poor thing. Other maintenance coming out of this paycheck is for lawn and garden. We need to apply some weed and feed and also spray some blackberry bush killer.
I also have in the budget for DS's upcoming 21st birthday. We are taking him out to dinner to the Mexican restaurant we all like, which will cost about $60 (for 5 of us - DS and his girlfriend always share a meal), making him 21 cupcakes, and giving him 21 $5 bills as a gift.

Tonight's dinner is going to be an enchilada bake recipe I found in a magazine a couple of months ago. Easy to make and everyone really likes it. This will probably be the 4th time I've made it now.  I've got the dinner menu planned out for the week and we will go grocery shopping after we get our hair cut. The rest of the week's menu will be a  cheesy/bacon/hashbrown casserole, beef tips and noodles, ravioli's, soup and sandwiches and trying a recipe DD found on Pinterest for a casserole that sounds good.  The past week was nice at work as we had lunch provided 2 of the days.  Love those days! I get real tired of my brownbag lunch every day, that's for sure.

I emailed DH's doctor last night about how the last 3 weeks have been going (DH has been keeping a journal on how he's been feeling, per dr's request) since we upped the Lyrica and discontinued the other pain med he'd been taking for about the past 10 months. Not going well at all. He's probably felt the worst he ever has, so obviously the Lyrica is not helping at all and the med he had been taking was at least helping some. We feel like we are back to square one with trying to manage his pain and find something that will help give him some quality of life back.  I also found out we didn't qualify for the free Lyrica through the manufacturer. I read the income criteria wrong. If he stays on this (though I really see no reason to) it will cost $155/month with the savings card I discovered last month.  I'm sure his doctor will discontinue it at our next appointment. The cost of it would certainly be worth it if it helped even a little, but can't see spending that kind of money each month for absolutely no help.  I am thankful that the income criteria for the Crestor medication manufacturer was more generous and that is saving $82 a month now.

Weekend plans are to just stay home and work on things around here.  The puppy is, of course, taking a lot of our time for training, but he's coming along. He's figured out "sit" real fast (for a treat) and has actually gone to the door to go out a couple of times, but we still have a long way to go :)