I got the stuff done I needed to get done and a little more even. At 1:30 I was thinking how great the day was going, so much stuff done. Then, of course, I opened my mouth and my computer decided that that was pretty much all I was going to accomplish for the day. So frustrating. I was there another hour and spent my time fighting with my computer.

I didn't spend any money today. The receptionist asked me to let her know when I was going to the vending machine so I could get her a coke and it felt good to say I wasn't doing that anymore. My goal for August was to not visit the vending machine and so far I've kept to my goal.

I also decided to implement a past goal again. The goal was to have a vegetarian meal once/week. So tonight I cooked (rare) and made black beans and yellow rice. The beans were canned and the rice was from a package, but it was still less than $2 for the meal. It fed the four of us and left some rice for a snack for DS1 tomorrow (he loves yellow rice). I need to figure out some other veggie meals, though, we've done this meal as our main veggie meal and I think DH will get sick of it if we have it every week. When it gets cooler we can have pinto beans and cornbread (I don't put meat in my pinto beans, that's gross) and then I'll mash the pinto beans to have bean burritoes. But it won't really be cool enough to cook beans until November (crockpot beans never turn out right, plus to make the smashed beans, I like to let the liquid cook off so everything is concentrated).

We took a short walk tonight to look at a HUD home in the neighborhood. Its backyard backs up to my kids' bestfriends backyard. They would love that. We'll have to look at the inside though, the rooms look small and I'm not sure there isn't mold growing on a bedroom wall. We do live in South Texas so you expect mold and as long as it isn't the dangerous black mold, it might still be worth it. They want $50k (or that's the opening bid? how do hud homes work?) which is a great price for this neighborhood. A similar house (in better shape, I hope) just sold for over $100k.

We'd have to hire a general contractor to knock out the wall between the kitchen and dining room because the kitchen is too small to be functional. We'd also have to pull up the ugly teal carpet, I'd prefer hardwood floors, but could deal with parquet or fake wood.

So we have to consider how much it would cost to rehab the house and figure out the whole home remodel loan business. Not to mention how to bid on a HUD home. This would be a good investment, though, provided we can get it and remodel it for less than $90k.