New budget and gift card purchase

Anticipating a raise, I updated my budget to get an estimate of what my extra take home would be. Approx. $445 more a month take home, if I get what I asked for.

Then looking forward to possibly not having my side job in a couple of years, at that point (and at this new salary) I would still have about a $1000 a month extra money, without the side job, so it's doable. We just wouldn't be spending on much extras like we often do. Though our "extra's" in the past 8 months was dh's medical bills, for the most part. I would hope (in a perfect world, LOL) that I would at least get another raise in 2-3 years, thereby between 2 raises over a few years making up about half of what I would lose from my side job. I could also probably find something new to do on the side to replace some of the income, if I looked hard enough. Plus, in 4 years we'll also have car paid off as well, as dh will be able to start collecting his social security at age 62, if we chose. So, while I might have a year or two of not as much disposable income, by the time the car is paid and dh can do SS that pretty much makes up for my side job. Honestly, if it comes to not being able to continue with it, I'm ok with that. Might be kind of nice, by then, to not have that extra work/time/responsibility on my plate. More than likely my mom will be worse off and taking more of my time at that point, too.

As long as inflation doesn't wipe us out first.............

In the meantime I think I will up my 401k with some of the raise (I just upped it $100/mo last month), increase the car payment to pay off sooner and let the rest get absorbed by everything that costs so much more. 

Yesterday afternoon I made the cupcakes to take some to my mom today. Triple chocolate fudge with chocolate frosting. I think I'll also stop and pick her up a little vase of flowers. I know dd is having a nice bouquet sent, but you can never have too many flowers :)

She didn't appear to have a very good night last night. I leave the camera on "armed" mode when I go to bed so I can review in the morning to see if she got up. For the 9 days it's been active, she seems to have slept all night, or maybe gotten up around 6 to adjust her heat and then goes back to bed. Last night she was up at midnight (she went to bed at 8:30ish), then from 4:15 to 4:30, then at 6:15 and then back to bed. Now it's almost 8am. I can't tell for sure but looks like she might still be in bed. I don't plan to go until this afternoon. It kind of appeared she was waking up and not knowing what time it was. She seems to always keep her bedroom door almost shut, just ajar a bit. Each time she was up the camera shows her opening her bedroom door and just standing there for a few seconds looking out into the dark kitchen/living area.

Last night dh mentions when's Mother's day? I said next Sunday, so he says why don't you just bring your mom back here to stay the week? I said were you here Thanksgiving and Christmas??! No. It's too hard for her to understand where she is and too hard for me. I might do one night, but not 7.  I'd be a worried mess during the nights that she might get up and start wondering and fall down our stairs!

I don't even think I'm going to mention to her that I am coming this afternoon. It's easier to just show up. When she (sorta) knows I'm coming it seems to go in and out of her memory, so then she calls "did you say you were coming today?" or "what time did you say you were coming?" I'm not sure she needs that extra "worry". It's not like she's not going to be there, LOL. And even if she isn't in her apartment, I can go find her or have the front desk locate her. And with the camera I can tell if she is in her apartment when I get there or not.

One of the things I am going to try to do, to see if it helps the camera with it's night vision, is put a black pillow case I have underneath the camera - which is up on top of her kitchen cabinet. The top of the cabinet is a white laminate so apparently this could be causing the infrared to shine off the shiny white and cause that halo effect. Worth a try. Now that I've had a little over a week to see how the camera works, I think I'll order that second camera now and if it arrives this week I can add it next Sunday when I go see her for Mothers Day

Ok, I found something I want/need to use my $100 Amazon gift card on. I was looking through my search history and saw a couple of patio chairs I had looked at last summer. The 2 chairs we like to put out on the front door patio are wearing out from use. We made them last another summer last summer, but they are ready to be replaced. I found this set of 2 for $94, that I had liked. We sit out front quite a bit in the evenings during summer.

They are also stack-able, so will be fairly easy to store next winter. I have been trying to think of what to use the gift card for and then when I saw this that I had looked at last summer, I was like oh yeah! Forgot I'm wanting some new chairs. Ordered and done. 

OK - let's see if I remember to stop at Walgreens (like down the street from mom's place) and see about getting a passport photo! I've even written it down on my list of to do's, stuff to remember to do while at mom's, etc.