I recently went on a trip out of town for work. I received my reimbursement a few days ago and sent $50.00 of it to the credit card. Yippee!

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.

Well, the tax refund thing didn't turn out exactly the way I hoped. Our tv (imagine 27" tube tv that is so heavy it requires at least two people to carry it) was about to croak. It has increasingly had lines on the screen as well as color problems for awhile now. Our tv is virtually our only source of entertainment. We rent dvds from Netflix, but we do not have cable or satellite. We had both done some research online and had a good idea of what we could afford and what we wanted. We went to Best Buy and wound up buying a floor model, which netted us about $150.00 off of the sale price. The original, before-sale price was around about $200 more. After we brought the tv home, I quickly determined we had around $41.00 leftover. I added that $41.00 to $5.00 cash I deposited to the checking account. Before I could spend it on anything, I wrote a check and sent it to my doctor's office to pay off a good hunk of my doctor's bill. Around March 7th or so, I should get a GlobalTestmarket check for $50.00, which I will use to pay off more of that debt.

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.

I recently submitted a tip to Daytipper.com and it was published. Yippee! Whenever you submit a tip to Daytipper and it is publisher, they pay you $3.00. I should get my payment soon.

I also recently cashed in my points at Global Test Market, a survey company. Now, please understand that I do a lot of survey for different companies, which do occasionally pay with a $5.00 check here and there. I am supposed to get $50.00. Wow. I don't think I have ever gotten that much from a survey company before.

Not to worry, my savingadvice buddies. My loot will not be spent on shinies or bottles of Coca Cola. Both will go directly to the checking account and as soon as the deposit clears, they will be sent lightening fast to the credit card company.

Jeffrey emailed me several days ago and told me I had won second place in the "Things I Wish I Had Known" contest. I just wanted to say a big, heartfelt "Thank You" to everyone who voted for me. I was really surprise. You can be sure this money is going straight to the credit card.

Hi. Has anyone out there cashed in points at Global Testmarket. I just cashed mine in and am confused about the amount of check I will get. It's supposed to be 5 cents for point. So, if I'm doing my math right, I multiply .05 by 1000 and get $50.00. Can that be right?

I have never gotten $50.00 from a survey company before. This one is going right to the credit card.