August 2018 Expenses

It is well past time for the monthly checkin. Anyway better later than never. The fires in Montana poured cold water on our vacation plans. So more time spent at home as August whizzed by. Now to the details.

House : This category came in at $612. A jump of about $295 over the previous month. Yes, Mrs.RF did pose the same question HRC raised to DNC – What happened?. Well, the router got fried. We had an ASUS router before. With the stock firmware, we had frequent connection drops. After some googling, we found and switched to running Padawan software on it. It worked remarkably well after the switch – another sign of victory of pure engineering over suppressed engineering plus shoddy management and fantasy driven marketing.  All was well till it stopped working. No more blue glow of power LED . The broken brick was replaced by an expensive Netgear router and it functions like the first innings of the previous Asus. It gets hot frequently and drops connection. The cycle repeats again.

Food and groceries : This ran up to $634 down $157 from last month. The major grocery spend in top three order were WFM, SFM and COST. Restaurant tabs added up to 272$. We did not have a big family dinner like last time, it just came down a notch to a big family lunch. And this early fall season was the one where Mrs. RF got hooked to SBUX. Even though she likes the smell of coffee but not its taste, what caught her in SBUX this time was something she stylishly calls Sipp-abb-ley . SBUX calls it sippable and advertises as a colorful and attractive Dragonfruit refresher. Mr.RF found it to be a mix of mango juice, coconut milk and a pink colored powder which is supposed to be some dragon fruit extract. Anyway, it tastes good ( as anything with sugar usually does ).

Utilities : The share of contributions to the different government regulated industries came to $155.34. The difference from last month was $260. mainly due to this being the off month for SJW and a switch in cellphone plan.

Automobile : We spent $477 in the autos category. Gas usage was similar to last month. The big jump was due to annual registration for DMV.

Clothing and Shoes : This category spend was $-173. Yes, thats right. Mrs.RF did not like the sizes and fit of apparel purchased last month and back it went , mostly to brick and mortar stores.

Healthcare : This one topped at $1011. Apart from usual chiro visit, the big ticket was a set of massagers that seem to keep migraine away.

Personal care : Most of this was for Mrs.RF and the first full price haircuts for both of us – We had spent all our gift card specials.

Kitchen and cleaning : The supplies ran to $57. Some cleaning solutions with natural ingredients.

CC fees : $89 . A new tier of a credit card that costs 40$ more than its previous version. Hope we can get some free nights off it.

Misc : $2077 . The big ticket here was a new laptop bought for Mrs RF , who did not like it any more. Now it is custody of a grateful Mr.RF. His previous laptop is as Mr Woodward said – Unhinged. The lid cannot be shut safely anymore without incurring more irreparable damage.

Vacation – $-577. More refunds from cancelled Montana trip.