We had the kid's birthday celebration and he seemed very happy with it. He had dinner with his mom and her fiance and his stepmom and her boyfriend the day before and did not have a good time. Mom and stepmom used the dinner as time to catch up and ignored kid (at least that's how he tells it) and mom's fiance was a big grump (shocking). He said all he wanted for his birthday was to have a good time, so I hope we gave one to him.

(I know I complain about kid's mom a lot and I feel bad. It's just that I can't say how I really feel about her when the kid's around and it's not really my place to complain when he's not. She is a great mom and has raised a wonderful young man but sometimes she is just so frustrating!)

It's been a pretty spending week. I bought a new cell phone. I was looking around because I knew I was going to need one soon, but didn't want to spend more than $200. I was looking at iPhones because that's what I currently have and I just couldn't bring myself to paying what they were asking-even used! It looked like I was going to settle for a 4th generation used, but then I got an email from Consumer Cellular (my cell phone company) that new iPhone 5Ss were selling for $160 (16 gb) and that I could pay $25/month for 5 months (no interest, auto deducted) with $35 paid right away. I jumped on it and I am so excited. I really love this phone. This is the first brand new phone I've had since I was 16 (not just a new to me phone).

I told partner how I am trying to get my spending to under $2000/month (not including retirement, or renovation payments) and he scoffed like it shouldn't be hard and asked what I am spending now. When I told him he looked at me sheepishly and said "I'm really not pulling my weight around here..." Which...financially he isn't, but he cooks dinner most nights, does almost all the deep cleaning of the house and takes care of any house problems we have. I told him if he wants to help he is more than welcome to buy groceries. Hopefully he can start helping out more, but I have long ago come to terms with what we each take care of.

So far I have 22 mystery shops on the books for May. Several of them are internet queries though and don't take much (they also don't pay much). I have gotten obsessive about it and I am going to try to tone it down a tad for June-there are other things I want to work on as well. But, yesterday partner and I went wine tasting for a mystery shop so that was awesome and I will not turn down something like that in future. I have been able to use dinners to cut down on grocery shopping, and there are a couple of grocery shops in neighboring towns but I need to find other shops to do while there because I don't think it is worth the drive or the time.

Currents wants/needs:
*new pair of flats and new pair of walking shoes
*new coffee maker-ours shorted and the grinder randomly comes on but won't make coffee anymore. In the short term we bought k-cups because we have a kureig but I want to research coffee makers and maybe get one this weekend (would love to stretch it to next weekend)
*pencil skirt

Not too terrible of a want list