Well, my picture above doesn't have anything to do with my blog, but I love it. It is not a picture of one of my furballs, though.

Well, here I am again. Another payday. More debt paid off and more money saved. Investments for retirement have gone up. Progress is being made, a little more slowly than I would like.

My other bit of success is that my hubby and I found another house to rent that is much nicer than where we are living and only a 5 minute walk away from work. Yes, I did say (or rather write) walk to work! It is very close and solves multiple problems, such as:

1) less money spent on gas

2) easier to get to work on extreme cold weather days when I can't get my car or truck to thaw out

3) I also think I will be less tempted to spend money on snacks and other things at convenience stores. The route I will have to walk to get to work does not go near a convenience store, so I will have to "rough it" with pre-packed snacks from home and whatever I can get from a vending machine.

Also, I will be getting a 3.5% raise in my salary beginning in July. I will not be spending my new-found loot on televisions and Coca-Cola. I will be paying twice as much as I am currently paying on hospital bill #2. I will also put twice as much into my savings as I am currently.

Wow. I feel very accomplished.

Well, last Friday was another payday. I have more debt paid off, more savings accumulated, and more retirement money invested.

We bought a lottery ticket about 2 weeks ago. My dh finally got around to checking it and it is a $3 winner. He gave it to me to do something with it. I cashed it in and promptly deposited it for sending to the cc. I guess $3 is not much, but it is something.

Another payday and I am more prosperous!

In an email newsletter I get, the author mentioned this news article from yahoo about the 3x5 savings account.

http://biz.yahoo.com/wallstreet/080601/sb121226759448935495_...

The gist is, in order to more effectively be aware of your money and eventually save money, to keep track of your income and expenditures for awhile on a 3x5 card. I think I will do this this month. Would anyone like to start a 3x5 Savings Challenge with me?

I got paid on Friday and paid off more debt. More money has been added to savings and retirement. Yippee! Slowly but surely as the tortoise said...

Hi, everyone. I have updated some of my numbers. I update the cc balance to reflect what it actually is right now. It has been yo-yoing up and down. I think that is soon to change. One of the reasons that I was charging so much to the card is that when the hubby and I would go on a road trip, we would have to rent a car, because we were not confident about taking our cars on long trips. Anyway, read my previous blog about getting rid of a 1968 Mustang for more info. We now have a road-worthy vehicle when can get us where we need to go. The hubby is not going to like me paying so much on the cc, but I want it paid off NOW! I am tired of feeling like I have no money and can't buy things I want and need because of it. Savings account #1 is at a local bank and the other one is an online account. I just opened it.

Hi, everyone. I realized something very important yesterday. When I met my husband in 1999, I had over $3000 in the bank in an ordinary savings account that was not earning a lot of interest, but I had it nonetheless. I was actually SAVING it, not spending it. For some reason, every time I seem to accumulate any money whatsoever in the savings account he knows about, it goes POOF! He has no access to the account, so I am not alleging stealing or anything. It's just that he has not capacity for hanging onto money. And he has a similar effect on others. Like yesterday, I had just gotten paid. He asked me "how much it would hurt" to buy a new dvd player. Not a lot, but it's just I would rather be out of debt before buying a bunch of junk. I am not convinced we are ready to buy a house or anything else like it. He is just a really crappy manager of money and has no clue of the state of our finances. When I have let him in on the process and where and how much I spend, he suddenly sees I have $500 or something in savings. Then, POOF! again. Just now, I opened an online savings account. Does anyone else have this problem? How do you deal with it? If this does not work for accumulating a short term (emergency) savings, I don't know what else to do.

Howdy, all. I have had a good couple of days. I got paid on Friday and immediately took the $14.00 leftover from my last paycheck and zipped it off the cc quickly before it could be spent on something else.

I also transferred $20 into my savings at the atm before it could be spent elsewhere.

I also just made another $75.00 payment on Hospital Debt #2, bringing it down to $2602.60.

A couple of months ago, I went to Walgreens and filled out a survey later. They recently sent me a $5.00 gift card for participating. Wa-hoo!

I needed some aloe vera juice yesterday from Walgrees. It costs around $10.00, but I used my gift card which brought my purchase down to $5.72 with tax.

Well, I am off the grocery store this morning to search for frugal, yet health meals. I am going to try to eat beef-free for a week or so, as I am having a lot of health problems and think they may be related to eating beef.

The picture of the cat doesn't have anything to do with my post, but it is a picture of my other cat, Morgaine. Merlin is the one at the left side of my page.

I guess you all have probably heard about the impending "economic stimulus package." Well, I know that The Shrub is hoping that we all go out and spend it all on high-priced stereos and bottles of Coca-Cola. I don't know about you all, but I have a fairly specific plan on what to do with the combination of my tax return and tax rebate. Based on what my hubby has told me, we can expect at least $800 for a tax return, so here is my plan.

Assuming my tax return arrives around May, I will still owe about $135 on one doctor bill. First, I will call the doctor's office up and confirm that amount and send them a check right away.

Secondly, I want to pay off a large hunk of credit card debt, about $600.

Assuming we actually get an $800 tax return, that will leave about $65.00.

When the tax rebate check arrives ($1200 for me and the hubby and no kids), we need to replace our tv. I also consider this to be kind of a treat for paying off debt last year. It was old when we bought it at a thrift store more than 6 years ago and could not afford to buy anything else. The color is way off on the monitor and the whole thing needs to be replaced. My hubby wants an lcd tv. I saw a 26" lcd tv on bestbuy.com for $600.00. That sounds like a pretty good deal, because we don't need a real big one. In fact, I could easily go a lot smaller and have no problems at all. Anyone have any recommendations or advice on ones to not buy?

Anything that is leftover, which should be around $600 (and I plan to closely monitor this) will be sent at lightening speed to the credit card company.

1. Avoid unncessary temptation to spend money. If you know you are having a "lean" month due to exceptionally high utility bills or other reasons, avoid unnecessary temptation. Avoid shopping malls, catalog, internet or email ads, movie theatres, and the candy aisle at the grocery store, etc. Oh, and don't take other people with you to the grocery store. They will only add stuff to the cart you don't need.

2. Once a week, get some "mad money" from the atm or your bank. This money could be for the occasional snack, coffee, etc. I do this and it helps to avoid those mystery debits that I forget to write down in my check register. Best of all, when it's all gone, it's gone until I go to the atm again on Saturday.

3. Improve your health. I have decided to gradually give up drinking colas both for my health and my pocketbook. This amounts to probably around $2.00 or so a day, but added up over a whole year, it amounts to a lot of money I could use to pay off debt or save for the future. So far, I am down to drinking about 12 oz. of soda a day. I bought myself a mug today so that I can drink tea or water at work. Besides the dollar or two this costs us daily, I figure there are other hidden costs too, like being sick more.

4. If you know you want to do something that will cost money that you cannot come up with right away, first figure out what you want to do and when you want to do it. Find out how much you think it will cost and then create a plan for doing it. I did this last year when I wanted to go to a conference for work. Instead of adding to credit card debt, I set aside money for the trip for months and also cashed in survey points for check and gift cards for food. I also do this with property taxes. I have a Christmas Club account to which I add a certain amount every month. When the taxes come due, I just transfer the money and write the check. No sweat.

5. Mrrebate.com is my friend. Anytime I want to order something online, I check this website to see if the company is listed there or if there is another company there that has the product I need. Signing into mrrebate.com and then clicking on the company website frequently nets me a rebate or coupon code I did not know about. Once your rebates build up to a certain amount (I think it's $25.00), you can request a check.

6. If mrrebate.com (above) does not work, I go to Google and type in the name of the product and coupon code. If a coupon code is available, usually I will get a few websites that tell me what it is. This has saved me hundreds of dollars at least.

7. I do lots of surveys, which net me $5.00 to $10.00 here and there. When I get a survey check in the mail or by Paypal, I look around and see if there any bills that need to be paid and pay them with it. If not, it goes right to the credit card. When it gets paid off, it will go to savings.

Oh, and I really love this quote by Michael J. Fox.

Well, it's almost the end of the year and it seems to be a good time to take a broad perspective look at things.

1. My b-day is tomorrow. Yes, that number on the left side of the screen will change to 37 tomorrow. I will be an old woman. ;P

2. My credit card debt has not decreased a lot, but it has gone down to $1658. I don't know what my balance was last year, though. I did get the APR on my card lowered by 3%, so this should help a lot. See my blog from yesterday about that.

3. My medical debt has gone down quite a bit to a total of $4041.18.

4. My retirement has increased to $9376.80. I am really impressed. I haven't really been checking on it or doing a lot with it and I have only been contributing since July 2006.

Cool. I am happy with what I have done with my finances this year.

My goals for the coming year include:

1. Find a way to increase the amount in my short term savings (i.e., emergency savings). I don't really like to call it emergency savings, because that puts it out there that there might be an emergency.

For some reason, I can't seem to accumulate the recommended $1000 that Dave Ramsey talks about. Something always seem to come up that snatches that money away. The most I seem to be able to get to is around $300.

2. Continue to pay off the medical debt. In July, I should get a raise, after which I will double the amount I am paying on one of the medical bills.

3. Continue paying off the credit card debt. I am making one big payment for the paycheck of the month, then a smaller one for the second. In between, I am also sending small payments when I get a survey check or something.

I got a check from a survey company in the mail. I took it right to the bank and put it in my money market account. It's only $5.00, but it's $5.00 more than what I had before.

Yippee!!

Howdy, friends and neighbors.

I just got back from the grocery store and I have to tell you about some really weird stuff about my shopping trip. I wasn't really looking for any special bargains. I did take a long some coupons that I got from Kashi, but I just put it out the universe that whatever I needed would be provided to me. For once, I didn't really concern myself so much with the cost, but whether I got everything I needed. I didn't bring a calculator and didn't stand around debating the per unit cost of anything. Everything I needed was on sale. I just got what I needed and would up spending under my allotted amount for the week.

I had a coupon for $1.00 of 2 packages of Farmland sausage. Farmland sausage was on sale Buy One Get One Free, so I got 2 packages of sausage for $1.29 total, when they normally are $2.29 each. I also had a $.40 cents off coupon for 2 cans of Manwich. Manwich, which is usually $1.31, was on sale for $1.00 per can, so I basically got 1 can free. I had 2 $1.00 coupons for Hungry Man or Swanson dinners. Swanson dinners were on Closeout for $1.79 each, so I got two dinners for $0.79 each.

The other weird stuff is that I am one week from payday and I have approximately $300 in my checking account. I just got a hospital bill in the mail. I think I will go ahead and make a payment. This is so weird, but I am not knocking it.

Ever since I started with the Secret Challenge, money seems to be multiplying in my checking account. I am not doing any really extraordinary, just thinking about it differently. I don't allow myself to worry about credit card debt. I just pay it like I would any other bill and get on with life. I am not allowing myself to worry about money anymore, like whether we will get a house or not. Does everyone need a house? Not really. I am just turning all of those stuff over to the larger powers in the universe and allowing them to decide how it is all going to come out.

At my work the other day, I saw an email where a group is collecting canned goods for the poor. I have decided to share in my bounty and buy some extra canned goods and take them to the group.

Up until recently, I had been keeping all of my appointments, reminders, etc. on a palm pilot. Well, one day I went to check for the time and day of something and it seems all my data on the palm is toast. I have no idea how it happened, but it did. I had not backed it up to my computer in months, as I never could get it to back up correctly. Anyway, I have chosen this opportunity to simplify my life. The frequent beeping of my pilot to remind me of something or another was always a little annoying.

As I am trying to be frugal, I did not go out a buy a new calendar or planner. I have located a number of free sources where you download what you need, print it, and put it into an existing or new notebook or something of the sort. I had one of those professional portfolio things that I used when I went to interview for my current job. It has a 3-ring binder inside, so that is what I am using. I was so grateful to have found these wonderful options, that I knew I had to share it will all of you.

DIY Planner
http://www.diyplanner.com/

Calendars - Print Free
http://www.printfree.com/Calendar_files/2008calendars/Calend...

Oh, and on other stuff, my debt amount is down to $6,938.83, becuase I paid some on all of my debts yesterday. I also rolled $5.50 to deposit to Short Term Savings today. This feels great and I feel really properous. I have enough money for everything I need right now and I feel terrific.

Happy February, Everybody!

Hey, I was just doing the laundry and found $1.30 in change in pockets of clothes. This brings my Challenge total for the month to $18.30.

This is fun!

Howdy, folks. Well, the sad story is that I had to use my $38.20 in Challenge Money for a trip to a nearby city to take my husband to a doctor. However, I did find $17.00 cash after searching through my purse, pockets, etc. which I am going to deposit to checking on Monday and swiftly send it to the credit card before it can be spent. This brings my January challenge amount back down to $17.00 and my credit card balance to $1961.83. I also made payments on our medical bills, bringing our total debt to $7080.20. Yeah!! I don't think I can go to the bank until Monday, though, because there is a winter storm warning in effect and our car is not starting reliably. The storm is supposed to pass around Monday, I heard. The roads are also icy and makes even walking somewhat treacherous.

I also reinstituted a rule I had been using for awhile. At the end of a pay period (day of payday), whatever money is leftover in my checking from last payday I will divide up equally among my Dream and Short Term Savings accounts. For awhile, I had not had any leftovers or at least not much and so had not done this. I had $62.76 leftover in my account Friday before payday, so I divided it and put it into the two accounts. I like this game.

Hey, I just found a penny in my wallet. I have no idea where it came from, but I'm going to just put it in the piggy and be grateful. This brings my total for January to $38.10.

Yippee!

Hi, everyone. I just got my copy of my AAA magazine, Journeys, for this month. There is an article on saving money that I thought other people might find valuable.

Make Money Matters a New Year's Resolution
http://www.aaajourneys.com/readweb.asp?articleid=145&activeblock=1

See you later everybody.

Hey, I just got the gas bill today and found a surprise. It seems that the deposit that we had to put down to open an account earns interest. The company credited $6.29 worth of interest to our bill, so $6.29 more will be going to the credit card on Friday the 12th. This brings my total for the month to $38.09.

I'm adding another $.03 to the challenge, which brings me to a total of $31.80 for the month of January.

Woo-hoo! This is fun!

I have another $4.05 to add to the Challenge. That makes $31.77 for a monthly total so far.

I like this rollercoaster ride!

Hi, everyone. I decided to check my retirement account online to see how it is doing. I don't check it very often, so I figured New Year's Eve would be the perfect time. I have only been contributing since July and already have $3432.36. Wow. I had no idea it would grow so much in only 6 months. At this rate of growth, I could have close to $10000 by the end of next year. I like this. We can just adjust how it is invested at any time, but we can't choose specific stocks, bonds, etc. I think I will let it ride another year and then open an IRA in 2008. While I love working in my library, I don't want to have to work when I am 70 or be living on food stamps and social security. I want to have fun and travel then.

Howdy, all.

Well, the end result with my $20 Challenge is a surprising $18.50. Not bad, I say, seeing as I started it on Dec. 26th, I think. I had budgeted $100 to the cc, so I sent that plus this $18.50 to the cc. I'm feeling really jazzed.

Add on top of that the fact that the college I work for has health insurance, which we only have to pay for twice a month. Since I got 3 paychecks in the long month of December, I have about $27.00 extra in my account. I am putting that on my $20 Challenge for January. Wow. That's cool. I've already met my $20 Challenge for January. I'm not stopping there, though.

I went grocery shopping this morning and saved $14.55 with store specials, my store card, and using my own bags.

I also made regular deposits to my Dream Account and Short Term Savings Accounts.

My husband will get his first paycheck, probably about $250, from his new job on Tuesday. It is the first step to getting our truck fixed so we can drive it. In the meantime, our car is also not very reliable, as we think it may have something wrong with the transmission. I have been riding my bike to work for the last 2 weeks (yes, it has been very cold, and some days, very warm here in the midwest) which has not only save me a lot of gas money, but has given more strength and stamina. (I have asthma, so this is important.)

Despite the car and truck problems, I feel really fortunate and blessed to be a part of this group that shares ideas about how to save money, the struggles to pay off debt, and create a better life. I want to wish the best for all of you and your families for 2007.

Hello. I am starting a New Year's Resolution.

I am beginning a resolution to save an extra $20 per month and pay it towards my credit card. This extra money will come from pocket change I will toss in my piggy each night when I come home from work, rebates, refunds, and unexpected money. We are also going to cancel my cell phone, since I don't use it very much.

I have been maintaining a payment of $50 per month without fail no matter what the balance is. From now on, I will continue to make that $50 regular payment, but also pay a separate $20 payment.

My current challenge balance with all the pocket change I have is $7.59. I know it's the 25th of December and I may not make $20 by the 31st, I am going to try to accumulate as much as possible. I will report my progress here on the 1st of each month.

Hey, everybody. I just realized when looking at my Financial Freedom Plan spreadsheet today that the debt amount in my info at the right is wrong.

Somehow, I had not included credit card debt in that calculation. Anyway, it's updated now.

I just got paid on Friday. I sent off the final payment for one of my medical bills. Woo-hoo! I'm excited. So far, I have 4 out of 8 debts paid in full. On Monday, I will deposit some spare change in the amount of $5.50 to checking. When it clears, I will send an online payment to the credit card.

I saved $15.92 between coupons and using my store card for grocery shopping yesterday.



I also made regular deposits to my Dream Account and Short Term Savings.



My mother sent me $150 for Christmas. Whereas I really want to send it directly to the credit card, I have to use a small part of it on a trip to a nearby city to take my husband to a doctor. The rest is being allocated for repairs to my truck. It won't pay for the whole thing, but it will pay for part of it.

Howdy, friends and neighors.
Well, I went out into the big, bad world of shopping during Christmas season today. I have decided to only buy a couple of gifts this year. I bought one "gift" for an employee I supervise (I bought her pezz candy because she loves it) and a gift bag to put it in. I also bought some special pecans for my mother, which I will mail to her. I will also buy my uncle a sweatshirt from the school where I work.

When I used to live in major metro city, shopping, even for groceries, during Christmas was a complete nightmare. People thought nothing of slamming your cart, grabbing something out of your hand, and just being plan obnoxious and rude. Well, I live in a smaller town now, and it's a lot calmer here, but it's still not pleasant. So, I have decided that that's all the Christmas shopping I will do. Christmas doesn't really seem to be about family and togetherness anymore. It seems to be about who can buy whom the best or biggest gift.

Oh, on my trip to the grocery store today, I saved $13.32 between coupons and store specials with my store savings card.

My husband just found out yesterday that he will a local store manager for a tax preparation service office. We discussed what we are going to do with his pay. First, we are going to get the truck running again. (The mechanic has not looked at it yet, but based on our description of what happened, he thinks we need a new transfer box, a part that costs about $500 from a salvage yard.) After that, we want to pay off our credit card debt and set aside money for down payment and closing costs on a house.

Someone asked about what my Dream Savings Account is and what I do with it. Well, I haven't done anything with it yet, because there is not much money in it. But it is for all those things that we dream about: house, different car, vacation, retirement, and whatever else you can think of to dream about. I decided to call my Dream Savings rather than Long Term Savings to make it sound more interesting.

I nicknamed my other account Short Term Savings instead of Emergency Savings because I don't want to be putting idea out there that I will have an "emergency".

Someone asked about the significance of the Wall Street mint silver bar and whether that is something I advise not to buy. On the contrary, I want to buy less of stuff I don't need so I can have a lot more money. I do own some silver coins, but nothing like this Wall street mint silver bar.

I saw that someone else did this for their blog, so I thought it was a great idea.

1. Maintain a positive attitude about finances. However bad it seems now, I will keep my mind focused on it turning out right and being grateful for what I have.

2. Accumulate $300 in my short term and dream savings accounts combined.

3. Pay off credit card in full and then hide both cards (mine and my spouses's) in a place known only to me so it cannot be used except in extreme emergency.

4. After credit card is paid off, divide money previously paid to credit card among medical bills, short term savings, and dream savings accounts.

5. Deposit amounts for all rebates into either short term or dream savings accounts.

6. Take change out of my pockets every night and put it into my piggy. At the end of every week, be sure I have dumped all pocket change and bills into it. Deposit it into short term savings.

7. On payday, evenly divide the "remainder" left in checking from the previous payday and transfer to short term savings and dream savings accounts.

I saw that someone else did this on their blog and thought it sounded like a good idea, so here goes.

Trips to a Professional Salon (beauty school only)

Makeup

Perfume

Laundry Detergent (found alternative)

Limit Lunches Bought Out to 1 per week

Clothing (limit myself to underwear, socks, and thrift store shopping only)

Books (borrow from the library I work at)

Magazines

purses

shoes (have 2 great pairs of shoes)


Other Things I Will Not Do in 2007

Take My Husband with me when I go shopping

I just did this and spent about $20 more than normal. Plus, he hates coupons and store discount cards and would have a fit if he knew I used them.

Here is a picture of my Mustang and my Blazer. On Friday afternoon, my husband and I left town to go north to be at a funeral on Saturday morning. The roads were bad, really bad in some places, but we made it there fine in our 4WD truck. All went fine with the funeral and I got to meet some of his family and friends that I had never met before. We started back home on Saturday at 11:30 and stopped somewhere on the way for lunch. When we were about 1/2 hour from home, we started hearing a high pitched whining noise under the truck. It got louder and louder. Then, my husband said he thought the transmission went out, because suddenly we lost acceleration. He was able to get off at an exit and get into a gas station okay. We called AAA and a tow truck driver came and got us and took us home. (Just as a side note, I have to say AAA is worth every penny it costs and it has saved us a few times.) We are still waiting to be able to call our mechanic. The vehicle is not operational, so he will have to come and get it and fix it.



I transferred money from my checking to my two savings accounts for short term savings and dream savings. As soon as I accumulate some more pocket change, I will take my piggy to the bank for deposit.



My last win is that I have the last bit of a medical bill paid in full! Woo-hoo!

The last thing I have to say is that I was caught in the snowstorm that hit the midwest. My 68 Mustang was completely covered in ice, and because the windows don't fit tightly, there was even frost on the inside of the car. My truck is non-operational at the moment (see above paragraph), and so I was unable to even get out of my driveway this morning to go to work.