I’m very sorry to be happy dancing again…

(well, actually I’m not sorry or sad. Then I wouldn’t exactly be doing a happy dance.) but two more happy things have happened!

Happy Thing #1 is that our electric bill is actually $48 below our budget. That NEVER happens in August. But we’ve had an unusually mild August and so we’ve hardly had to run our AC. Then too, even when we have had it turned on, it’s not been running much at all. I got the online statement today and our bill this month was $152, a happy $48 less than our budgeted $200. When our bill is less than $200, we’ve been putting the extra money into an savings account that is earmarked for electric bills. We started that this spring, and once we add in the $48, we’ll have $163 in that account. Plus, we’ll likely be under budget for September and October(and maybe even November), which means that we’ll have a nice little cushion in there for our winter heating bills.

As an aside, some of you have likely fainted at the thought that $152 is a good electric bill, probably because you live in an area with cheaper electric rates. Five to seven years ago, I’d have thought $152 was dreadful too. Recently, though, our electric company raised rates by something like 70%, and so since then my definition of a good bill has changed dramatically.

Ok, on to Happy Thing Number 2. I was due to get a $100 cashback bonus on my Discover card once I spent $500 on it, and I was dearly hoping that it would show up in time for vacation. Well, I finally got up to $500($501, to be exact!), and yesterday, my $100 was in my bonus account. Woot!! So, I got a $45 Outback gift card, a $45 Red Lobster gift card, and I got $20 transferred to my bank account. That adds up to $110, because Discover gives a $5 bonus when redeem your bonus money for those gift cards.

Anyways, this means that we have some spending money for eating out purposes when we’re on vacation, and that is just lovely.

Ok! I think I’m probably done with the happy dance posts for this week…after all, how many more good things could possibly happen to me in one week??