I made the final payment for the roof this morning!!! Hooray! It took just about a year to pay off and the only fees were the balance transfer fees-well worth the extra $200ish for the flexibility to pay it off over a few months.

I also paid off my laptop yesterday! No interests/fees were charged for that one.

Next up to tackle is the renovation charges. They are 0% until May 1st, 2017. I still have $9800 to go. I will pay $850/month on it and put all my credit card cash back rewards to it. I might have to pay a little bit more that $850 for the last payment, but I am hoping that our airbnb money can pay for the shortfall.

I did two mystery shops last night and was reimbursed for a bottle of wine, cheese, a slice of cheesecake and a package of chocolate. This is in addition to the $20 (total) fee it will pay me. Of course, I won't see this money until the end of June but it was nice to be "paid" to buy something we were already planning on treating ourselves to.

We went out to dinner last night even though I didn't really want to. I didn't fight it though because the partner's kid is stuck at his mom's house for several days while she is out of town at a wedding. Apparently the animals can be alone for 8 hours while everyone is at school or work but can't be left alone over night for him to spend his regular night with us. Also-he is 15 and this is the second time she has left him 5+ days alone. It's not my place to comment but this seems borderline neglectful. Anyway, partner wanted to make sure he got a good meal (kid doesn't know how to cook and they leave him cereal? and other things like that that aren't really meals. Plus mom's fiance is a vegetarian which in their house means no one can eat meat in the house) AND wanted to spend time with him and how could I argue against that. Plus, I miss him when we don't get to see him regularly. So he tagged along for the mystery shopping and got some cheesecake out of it

I am hoping that will be the last big splurge of the month but kid's birthday is coming up and that will mean another treat out. Kid wants acting lessons and I found one for teens that take place the nights we have him during the month of June. Unfortunately kid's mom has arranged for him to be out of town one week so he can't do it. So that's a bummer. His mom and her family buy him every piece of crap imaginable so I have given up on "thing" gifts because he already has them. We try to do experiences but it is hard to plan because we have to take into consideration her plans AND kid has a social life now, too. Oh blended families.

But other than the birthday I think we can do okay. Once I am finished at my part time job (15 more days!) I am going to start heavily listing my shit on ebay and take some mystery shops in the towns next to mine since I'll have a little more time. Partner and I are really gunning for financial independence and I told him it would come a lot quicker if we stopped eating out and drinking. I am hoping to temper those vices a little but I know we won't give them up completely.

Mystery shopping has helped a little bit with the eating out and we have found a new favorite wine for $3.99 a bottle which tastes fine and is a price I can definitely live with (Beringer, if anyone is interested, at Kroger). I sometimes like a glass of Baileys for dessert but I buy O'Donnels at 9.99 versus Baileys at 21.99. If we're going to do it any way at least let's not pay full price for it!