I wanted to share with my savingadvice friends my excitement. Today is a good day for our family. My son graduated from high school with honors. After graduation we took him to eat at his favorite restaurant and later on he'll attend Project Graduation. Project Graduation is pretty cool because his school will transport all graduates to a undisclosed location for an funfilled night of go-carts, swimming, music, video games, minituare golfing,lots of food,etc) and nobody else other than the graduates is allowed on the premises. We paid $25 (each year) for four years to cover this event and we are so happy we were able to do this.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of my summer vacation. I received my last paycheck today until September 15th. I'd been saving since March to make up for the summer months. My husband and I will be staying home for the summer (I'm a school teacher and my husband a school bus driver).

We have a total of $7,200.00 saved to cover our expenses for these two months. We shouldn't have to take any of this money to cover our mortgage payments because the net income from our rental property should cover the mortgage on our primary residence. We do have at least three bills this summer that are pretty sizable and will be paid from this summer fund. We decided that if there is any money left by September 1st it will be used to fund the Roth IRA. I will keep you posted on how we're doing with this fund on a weekly basis (this will also help keep me in check).

HEY JOE IS THAT YOU ON CNNMONEY.COM (THEY CUT OUT THEIR CREDIT CARDS)?

Today I signed my work contract for the 2008-2009 school year. The difference between this year's pay and next year's is $3,670. Not too shabby. I plan to either save the salary difference or apply towards the Roth IRA for me and my hubby.

I just got my heating oil statement. Good news is that I will get a $600.00 refund and the bad news is that my budget increased from $271.00 to $349.00. A co-worker and I plan to car pool next school year, so I'll be saving some money on that part.

I remain grateful that my husband and I have jobs, health insurance, we are relatively healthy and my kids are healthy. What else can I ask for?

Peace!

OK... as many of you know, my son (17 years old) has proven, up to this point, to be a financially responsible young man. Since we bought his new Honda Fit he has given me close to the entire payment for his car ($190-$210/$287). He paid for his graduation's cap and gown, remaining balance on his yearbook (I paid half $50), and he also took care of his Senior Prom tuxedo ($129.00). Now... my youngest (14 years old) surprised me yesterday. He came back from his two day trip to Boston with his 8th grade class last night. This trip was completely covered by fundraising, including meals and accommodations (I bought plenty of snacks and drinks for the bus drive there and back). I gave him $40 to buy a souvenier, but I told him that if he did not spend any of the money he gets to keep it. Guess what? He did not spend a dime and he gets to keep the $$. He told me he didn't feel like spending money on junk. I think I earned bragging rights. What do you think?

It's not even summer, but I'm already dreading what's to come for the winter. Heating oil is at $4.69 a gallon. Could you imagine what the price is going to be like for the winter? I have a 1,000 gallon tank and I need about 1500 gallons of oil to get us through the winter. I'll try no to think about it too much and think of the lazy days of summer (lazy for me). I can't help but to be discouraged about the economy. I think about all of the single moms and the families trying to make it on minimum wage or people really strapped with debt.

On another note, I decided to jot down all of our expenditures for the month of June and see where our money is going. No savings for the May 30 paychecks, this is the first in a long time I was not able to put money away. Hopefully I can catch up next pay period. I've been very aggressive with savings and not being able to save drives me insane. Wish me luck this month, too many things going on.

My son's two day trip to Boston with his 8th grade class would've had cost us $60.00 (pretty cheap I thought) I received an automated call from the principal stating that after a careful audit of finances for the 8th grade class, the money was to be returned back to parents on Friday. I decided to put that money in my son's savings account. Needless to say, I was really happy about this.

May was a very expensive month for us and June will be not be any better (high school graduation, Father's Day, Graduation parties for my son, my niece and one of my students and two birthday parties).