Our schooling is completely different than the US...our kids have 9-10 weeks then 2 weeks off until summer when they have 6 weeks off...and even though our kids don't go to school it has been weird to see them start the kids off at different times...kids in years rec/1..7/8 & 12 all start 2 weeks earlier...than the rest...but my thought is why bother if kids at school are going to get covid they will...they still play sport, work etc so whats the difference if they start school at the same time...I don't understand it...but honestly if I did have kids I would home school them anyways....but am I wrong in thinking this is strange??

Put grocery order in today and pick up toorrow after my hairdresser appt...my daughter will go to the butchers while I'm at my appt and get gas while we are out then we should be good for whie she is away except bread/milk

The govt here as changed their boosters to 3 months now instead of 4 so next sat we have my hubby and mom getting them...hubby was booked in for feb but makes it easier to have while our daughter is still home...so happy about that.

CC is officially paid off again today as I checked the account...weird we never use it for so long then we do...but now it will be for emergencies only...well have to get the dog to the vet so had better get going...it's a hot one here today (the last few days) so hopefully he will be on time 

I was playing games on the computer the other day and I won $5500...yep so I took it out and it was deposited into my account last night....was really amazed things like that don't usually happen to me...so I paid off my CC...this extra money has put us about 3-4 months ahead of where we would be as we put it in the budget to pay off the CC and now we don't need to...so excited...so it means we are debt free again....and now I get to go and play with the budget and put the money into ice and savings...I am one happy chappy this week....and bonus it's pay week but going to do a major shop since our daughter is going away for 4 weeks to the US and then to her sisters for a week to isolate (just in case)....something positive for this month....I'm liking 2022 so much better than last year

Also my mom is coming down to for a few days as her grandson who was living with her is starting school and needs to get uniforms etc...she was suppose to come down this week but he got covid last week so is waiting...she will stay with us so she can go to the hair dressers and then get her booster shot on sat then will go to my sisters...she has teens living with her who go out so I don't want my mom to go back and forth between houses with our health...and she is good with that.

Now I need to go write a list of groceries that we will need for the next 5 weeks...wish me luck

After helping my step son pack up his house and move my body went into melt down...have been so sick...didn't help that we had a few days over 100 degrees...slowly starting to feel better....I am hoping I feel better by saturday as I am suppose to have my booster shot...my daughter had hers last week and had a bit of all over body pain and tiredness this time...so hopefully I won't be any worse...our hospitals are not coping with all the new covid cases...they weren't coping before covid...so don't need to be sick or end up in the ER...we had a child here that poured hot tea over them and they waited 57 mins for an ambulance and another person fell unconscious and they had to wait 4 hrs for an ambulance because they are ramped...same with people having strokes/heart attacks...they are trying to keep them alive in the back of ambulances while they are waiting to be seen....it's horrible. 

Our oldest daughter is going to nebraska for a month beginning feb...it is scary for us for her to be travelling over there amongt all the covid...but she is an adult and it is her choice...when she gets back she will quarantine at her sisters house for a week to make sure she doesn't have covid....if she does get sick her sister is only 2 doors down so she can help her if she needs it...just hope she doesn't get sick over there...that really scares me...I know but she is still my baby and will be so far away....I still worry.

I have a few things budget wise that I am doing but not ready to put up here yet....although this week will probably do a major monthly grocery shop and get meat from the butcher...so we don't have to go out much when our daughter isn't here...I get very unstable on my feet so can't really be left alone due to falls...so will be hard on my hubby if we need to go places....and wearing masks make me really dizzy...but guess we will have to work it out

I am by no means an expert...damn I'm rarely understand your taxes over there and yet the IRS seems more confused than me about what is going on with our taxes after an hour on the phone still no progress only a note put on our account and then transferred me to someone who said they couldn't help me and transferred me back and said I had to wait 30-60 minutes...sorry I'm on my cell phone and just sat there talking to you for an hour I'm not waiting again. So a little back story...we sent our 2019 taxes in and the pandemic hit...so obviously all that went on it never got processed...then we sent in our 2020 taxes in feb 2020...we had called about our 2019 taxes and they said just send them in again as they hadn't seen them..so we sent them in where they had to sign for them...after all we have to send in paper copy and it has all our personal info on it so wanted to make sure they got them...and they did.

So they finally did our 2019 taxes and we got a refund...thought that was the end of that...but found out tonight that they have me as filing as a single not married filing jointly...considering it's my hubby's income...so not sure how we are suppose to fix that now...or maybe we will just wait for them to contact us about it.

So 2020 taxes rolls around and we got $67 refund...which was around $3000 short...so we called them to find out why so low, they said it was because of the stimulus payments etc...which we informed them we never received as we found out that they based it on our 2018 taxes as at the time they hadn't processed our 2019 taxes yet...so they sent my hubby $1800 in stimukus payments (I have an itin so didn't qualify..which is fine by me..we didn't expect anything) but because we didn't get the payment we never had them on our 2020 taxes....after several phone calls we figured out that whoever put our information into the tax system put our address in wrong, they never put the taxes we paid on the computer...so thats why the refund was so low...so I had to send an amended tax return in with the taxes on it...which was apprently filled out wrong but they went line by line with me to fill it out...so again...they messed up....they have now had the amended tax for 23 weeks so they have put a not on it saying it has to be processed ASAP...but no-one could tell me what stimulus credits we have to put on this years taxes whether it is the 1800 plus 1400 or just the 1400...even the lady I spoke said she was really confused...so this weekend we will do our taxes send them off and hope for the best and maybe if we are lucky they will be done by the end of 2022...but they did say if I didn't receive a response in 30 days to contact them...we have never received mail from them in over 2 years....so lets see what happens....I wish we could file them electronically like everyone else...these screw ups are on their end not ours and it is really frustrating....they are frustrated as the info they have is not the same as I have because someone isn't doing their job right...and I am frustrated because they have no idea what they are doing

Sorry for the long rant...but I was hoping this saga would be finished by end of last year and it hasn't been...now we have to try figure out this year...I think I will be putting a letter in the taxes to explain what has been going on....and hope they get the data in right this time...wish us luck...so glad our taxes are so much easier 

I love the beginning of the month I can pay all our bills and then not have to worry about them...then every fortnight we will take out our grocery and gas money...we use to use cash as it was easier to be in control of but with covid so rampant here and doing more ordering online we decided to open up an account just for groceries and gas so we can keep it seperate from everything else....we also only have $300 left to put into the ice account for the month (to reach my monthly goal) , we still need to pay for the truck for my hubby's son to move so won't get as much paid on the CC but that is okay...as long as everything else is paid we will be fine...so far this year things are looking good budget wise