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.

Hi, everyone. I know this is my second blog for today, but my computer has had some problems and so I am behind on my blog entries. I made some chili today and will be eating it for lunch two days this week. That is a savings of at least $5 each day. I usually just buy a bottled water and a couple of packages of crackers at my college's cafeteria, which amounts to around $.75 total. I feel better about making my own lunch, knowing that I am feeding my body good food. It feels very nourishing to eat food that I cooked myself.


On a Positive Thinking note, my husband and I have set a goal to move to a different home by the end of June next year. We are thinking of the universe as our Sears and Roebuck, opening it up, deciding what we want, and placing our orders. If you don't know what I mean by Positive Thinking, see my last blog dated earlier today. We did not specify whether it has to be a rental or one we buy, so it can be either and will be within a 15 minute drive of my work. We are setting aside money to be able to do it, but we are letting the universe decide whether it is a rental or something we buy. I feel very good about being another day closer to moving to a different home.

Hi, everyone.
Well, I got fed up with Capital One's 18.5% interest on my credit card and also a $19 fee every year. I applied for a different one with Bank of America American Express that has 0% for 12 months on balance transfers. After 12 months, the rate goes to 7.9%. I haven't gotten the card in the mail, yet, but I feel really good about this. I also did a balance transfer from my old card. With the interest rate being much lower, I can pay this off in no time!

Hi, everyone. Well, the most frugal thing I did today was save $15.69 on my grocery purchases today. I used 3 coupons, two of which were doubled. A lot of meat was on sale, which is good because I buy a lot of meat. I also took my own bags, which gave me an extra $.20. The best purchase of all was Cottonelle bath tissue triple roll package. It was advertised on sale at $5.99. Original price was $7.99. I had a coupon from couponmom.com for $1.00, so it was $4.99. Wow!

I work in a library and am on the Friends of the Library board. We had a book sale today to raise money for the organization and we made $222.80. I donated about 9 books to clear to rid my house of stuff I wasn't using and bought 4 others for $.60.

The bad thing is that I incorrectly estimated the time it would take me to get my shopping done, so when I got back from shopping, I had to take a shower and get dressed. I didn't have time to eat lunch at home, so I ate at the mall where we had the book sale. I ate cheap and good for $6.02.

Well, today during a lull at work, I signed up for the equal payment plan for my gas company. My monthly payment will be $95.40, which is more than the $18.46 I paid this past month. But, I won't be paying $200 per month this winter.

This past Saturday, I deposited an extra $20 I had from an out of town trip back into my checking. When the deposit cleared, I went online and made an online payment to the credit card. $20 more paid on the debt! Woo-hoo!

I get paid again on October 6th and already have mapped out exactly how I am going to spend my money. I found a budget spreadsheet on the internet, which I modified by adding a column to show how much I allotted for food, for example. I added another column to show what I actually spent for each pay period. I have created an allotment for savings for long term savings and short term emergency savings.

The most frugal thing I did today was to enroll in the average payment plan for my electric company. My husband kept saying they wouldn't let us do it because we hadn't lived here long enough. Well, I did it online and in about 10 minutes. So, no more surprise $219 electric bills. When I was done, the program told me the average payment I would be making would be $99. Talk about savings!! Wow!

Next on my agenda tomorrow night - call the credit card company.