It’s near the end of the month, which means I have started playing with numbers for the month of November.  October has been a good and bad month for my budget, with the snowball thrown at the truck note so far totalling $1300 credited to the account, with another two payments totalling $635 scheduled to go out on the first and second.  I only told hubby about the $1000 payment…the rest will be a surprise for him.  Well, it will only be a surprise if he checks his account before reading the blog here LOL

The bad part for the budget this past month was hubby’s confession that he doesn’t really like the little paid-for purple truck and wants to keep the 2005 Chevy Colorado (I am biting my fingers to keep from calling it my usual nickname…he says he hates it when I call it the Stupid Truck Note).  So we will not be debt free before the end of the year as I had hoped and planned.

As I went to go indulge in my personal stupid tax, aka buying a pack of cigarettes, I noticed one of the store employees outside changing the price on the sign: Gas just went up a dime a gallon today.  This is a big impact on me as a pizza delivery driver, and I had been very much enjoying the lowered gas prices in comparison to the prices in the spring.  Time to fiddle with that number in the budget for November, because with oil hitting new records almost daily (at least it feels that way) gas prices won’t be coming down for a little while.  Another factor in raising the number budgeted for gas in November is hubby coming home from Korea, and he will be driving the truck while I am out driving the little Escort.

Now, for the sucker punch from last week: Lipscomb University sent a representative from their new School of Pharmacy to talk to us prospective students.  When I asked her about financial aid, she said the school has no plans to offer scholarships, and my only financial aid will be Pell grants and LOANS.  That one floored me…how can they not offer any kind of scholarship?  Especially when the tuition is $27,500 per year?  It sounds like I shouldn’t even bother to apply, and save the application fee.  Some days it seems to me that college financial aid offices are much more interested in pushing student loans on us rather than helping us find ways to finance education without debt!  Does anyone know if these schools get some kind of kickback from all these student loans?