Well, I made it to payday. My challenge was to make it without using the debit card or credit card. The credit card stayed safe and snug, but my husband was sick and I had to take him to the doctor, so I did use the debit card. I think I did use it for a couple of other small things, too, but I used cash for everything else. Woo-Hoo!

I am going to take my pocket change to Coinstar tomorrow. It should be around $3.00 or so. I will add it to my car account. I will also add another $20 to the same account and $20 to the house account.

Now that my regular savings is up over $1000, I decided to divert the normal $40 I have been putting in there every payday to paying down the credit card. I fought very hard to get it up over $1000 and plan on maintaining that.

My retirement is also up. Woo-hoo!
My husband will go to make our mortgage payment on Tuesday. Yea!

Here is what I would like my retirement to be like.

Well, I did finally get a paypal payment from cash4books.net for a book I sold them. I put it into the Spare Change/Conference Challenge. I am seeking other sources of possible books. It's kind of hard right now, though, to do anything with this. Last week, my hubby went to a nearby town to take our car tax and registration payment to be applied. Normally, I mail it, because we never normally go there and it would have been late if we had not have taken it there. Anyway, on the way back, the car died on the highgway, but he was able to get it off the road and call AAA for a tow. Anyway, I took off work a little early on Friday anyway. Because of having no car, I knew I would need to get groceries on Friday, because the city bus does not run on weekends. I live in a small town and it is a miracle we even have a bus. So, because of my car dying and needing an $800 repair, my hopes of shopping yard sales for books to sell are shot out of the water. Apparently, I am not the only one with car and other mechanical problems, though. I was talking with a couple of friends today who were telling me of similar problems. Must be something in the air. Anyway, I told the hubby that until we get hospital bills #1 and #2 paid off, we are going to occasionally have little problems like this because we don't have a lot of wiggle room. He said that it sounds like we need to pay them off with the tax return, but I told him by the time the tax return gets here, #2 will probably be paid off. #1 will have a couple of hundred left on it. I think with whatever is left, we should put 1/2 into the regular savings and 1/2 into the house savings. After living in our house for a year, we can also get level payment plan on the gas and electric, so then gas and electric won't be such a problem.

I get paid tomorrow. I have made a payment on Hospital Bill #1, bringing the balance down to $297.58. I also paid the water bill. I am also supposed to get an extra payment on my paycheck. It's not overtime, but part of a pay raise from a union contract that was not finalized until after the beginning of the July 2010 beginning of the fiscal year. My savings will be $151.15. We also got a check in the mail from a utility company for $104.00. We also got a bill from another utility company that says "no payment due."

Woo-hoo! I'm on cloud nine!

Well, I sold one book already, on Monday I think. I mailed it off (shipping is free). I am supposed to get payment within 3 days. I am already looking at frequently a local ongoing book sale, buying books that cash4books will buy, and selling them. I looked some up to see what types will sell well. It's a little bit of everything. I am putting the loot into my Spare Change/Conference Challenge.

Oh, and I got good news on the Conference Challenge. I have applied for additional funding at work to attend the conference based on doing a presentation there. If the funding is approved, they can pay for my conference registration as a loan out of the reimbursement I would be expected to get.

More new on the gluten free front also. I finally found a bread I can eat that does not have any wheat, barley, rye, oats, or dairy in it. It is definitely different than regular bread, but it is quite tasty.

Hi, everyone. Cash4books.net is my effort to boost the household income by selling books that we no longer need. I am going to the put the proceeds in my Professional memberships/conferences account. In some ways, it is better than ebay, because you don't have to wait for the bidding war. You know immediately if they will buy the book and they pay for the shipping of the books to them. I have already sold one book and will put it in the mail tomorrow.

I need to raise about $1300 by next spring to attend a conference in June.

I don't really want to, but I am changing the direction of the Spare Change Challenge funds to my conference. To try to do both the debt payoff and the conference account makes it very difficult to accomplish anything.

Well, today I received another bill for Hospital Bill #2. I have already written the check and it is in the mail ready to send out. This brings the balance to $502.60.

I also have survey money on the way in the amount of $14.00, I believe. When I receive the next bill for Hospital Bill #1, I will mail them a check for the normal payment amount of $20.00 plus whatever the survey money is. The survey money is part of the Spare Change Challenge.

Well, I got paid again yesterday. I made another payment on Hospital Debt #1, bringing the balance to $357.58. I also put more in savings and retirement. I am only going to check my retirement balance quarterly from now on, though.

Hubby and I are still in negotiations to buy a house. It is getting down to the wire and I am excited and scared to death at the same time.

I have been trying to think of another way to make some extra money for paying off debt. My mind keeps coming back to selling my old Lenox and Belleek china. Although I like it, I have had it stuffed away in boxes for over 10 years and have never even displayed it. I talked to someone who is an ebay trading assistant about it. She couldn't stop talking about this fee and that fee, and reminding me that she can't guarantee whatever price it will sell for, etc. It made me think she wasn't interested. I also looked into selling it to one of those companies that buys and sells replacement china pieces, but they wanted me to ship it them at my expense without any guarantee of whether they will buy or the price. However, there is a local flea market type place where I could rent a shelf in a glass locked shelf for $7.50 per month and sell my stuff. The store gets a small amount, 10% I think, from each sale. Have any of you every done anything like that before? Are people buying stuff like antique china during this bad economy?

Well, here are my lunches for the next week:

Oscar Mayer turkey breast slices with bread for sandwiches, slices of tomato, slices of onion, mayo, apple, handful of nuts, 2 tea bags, bottle of filtered water from home

Here is a list of money I have coming in or already have.

$ 6.00 spare change
$ 6.00 check from survey company 1
$ 20.00 regular payment on Hospital Debt #1
$ 28.00 difference in car insurance
$ 5.00 check from survey company 2
$ 10.00 check from survey company 3
$ 10.00 check from survey company 4

$ 85.00

The amount for Survey Company 3 has not happened yet. I have to have $10.00 to be paid and right now, I have $9.00. As soon as I have $10.00, they will pay right away. The car insurance is the difference between what I used to pay for insurance before I sold my truck and now when I am only paying renter's and car insurance. All of the others will be arriving shortly.

Total to Be Paid on Hospital Debt #1 on June 11th is $85.00

Holy Cow! How Did I Do That? How Do I Make it Happen Again?

My hubby told me last night that as a result of our selling our truck, we had to turn in the license plate. We will be getting a partial refund on the license fees for the year. I have no idea how much, but anything is great! I am so grateful for my abundance.

Well, I got paid today. More money went into savings and retirement. My retirement account went down, though. What's up with that? Also, I went to Coinstar and cashed in my spare change. I have $6.00 and some odd cents. I deposited $6.00 to my Spare Change Challenge account. I also cashed in $6.00 in survey points. That should come in about 2 weeks, at which time I will make a payment to Hospital Debt #1. I will work really hard to come up with some more ways to make money in the next 2 weeks. Here is what I am thinking.

$6.00 Spare Change
$6.00 Survey Check
$20.00 regular payment on Hospital Debt #1
$28.00 excess from changing car insurance after selling truck

That makes for a $60.00 payment on Hospital Debt #1. Woo-hoo!

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I just cashed in more survey points, which will give me another $5.00 for my Spare Change Challenge.

Well, after a great deal of frustration, the hubby and I sold our truck. It was a 1990 Chevy Blazer. Last Saturday, when I went shopping at Walgreens, it died when I was getting ready to park in the parking lot. We could not start it. We have known for some time that it had been leaking oil, which probably means it had a crack in the engine block or something like that. It also had multiple other problems, like the horn wouldn't work, the windows sometimes wouldn't go down or up, and it got horrible gas mileage. Fixing the engine alone would have cost over $1000, something we just couldn't do. So, because of the significant problems with it, we felt a used car place probably would not want it and we took it to the salvage yard. We got $80.00 out of it, which we are going to put into doing some maintenance on the car Friday. This also means our car/renter's insurance is going down by about $28.00 per month. Guess where that $28.00 is going? Yes, into paying off Hospital Debt #1!!

I got a survey check for $8.50 in the mail the other day. I also just cashed in my Toluna survey points for $20.00. I should get that money in about a month. I will use it to make my next payment on Hospital Bill #1 along with my regular payment. That will make a little over $200.00 paid on debt for the Spare Change Challenge and bring my balance on that debt to $349.08.

Well, I get paid every two weeks instead of twice a month. So, my goal this year has been to use that "extra" payday to make significant payments on debt that I would not otherwise be able to make. So far, as part of my Spare Change Challenge, I took $4.00 from my change jar and combined it with $40.00 that I had leftover from something else we decided not to buy and my regular $20.00 to hospital debt #1. The balance is now $397.58. Woo-hoo! I have already met 2010 Financial goal to bring it to under $400 and the year is not even half over. I also made my regular payment of $75.00 to hospital debt #2, bringing the balance to $802.60.

So far, this year, I have progress of $172.00 on my Spare Change Challenge! I have a survey check of $10.00 coming in a couple of weeks. I will save it for next month's payment on hospital bill #1.

Well, today I got paid again. I have paid the electric bill, trash bill, water/sewer bill, and internet bill. I also made a payment on the credit card. I will have an extra payday this month because I get paid every 2 weeks rather than twice a month. Yippee for me! So I am allocating $100 of that second paycheck for my Conference Challenge to attend a major professional conference in 2011. I will allocate another $50 of it to paying off a hunk of hospital debt #1 in addition to my regular $20 payment. Life is good. As Walter Krontkite used to say, "And that's the news."


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I added $20.00 to my Professional Account to attend a major national conference in June 2011, bringing my balance to $21.00.

Someone on an email listservs referred me to this survey site. I immediately set up an account and already have a balance of $2.00. It only takes $10.00 to cash in and they pay automatically through paypal once the balance reaches $10.00. This money will definitely go to my Spare Change Challenge. If you want to make more money doing surveys, click here.

Hey, I just cashed in some survey points and will get $5.00 in a few days. I will delay making a payment on hospital debt #1 until that deposit arrives.

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Update: I just realized my Spare Change Challenge total was incorrect. The total amount paid off so far is $128.00, not $28.00! I was shorting myself some credit!

Well, I got a $7.00 survey check in the mail. It will be deposited tomorrow. On Friday, I will write a check with my regular $20.00 payment plus the $7.00 Spare Change Challenge money. This will bring the balance of hospital debt #1 to $454.58. Yes! I will meet my original goal of less than $400.00 on this debt before June even!

I just scheduled a credit card payment to go through on Saturday. Tomorrow is my next payday. I will go to the credit union and draw out my Spare Change Challenge funds of $28.00, combine it with $20.00, and send it to pay a big hunk off of Hospital Bill #1. This brings the balance to $481.58. Yea!

Well, I received a $20.00 survey check in the mail a couple of days ago. I took it to the credit union today and deposited it into my Spare Change Challenge account, bringing my balance to $28.00. I also have some actual change, but only a couple of dollars, so I will wait until next Saturday to take it in.

Well, I cashed in the spare change I had collecting in a jar for the past month. I had $8.00 which I deposited in an account. I will be keeping track of the Spare Change Challenge balance separately and when I get about $40.00, I will send it to my hospital bill #1.

Well, I am well on my way to meeting my 2010 goals. My hospital bill #1 is now $529.58. I paid off $120.00 of it with $100.00 from my tax refund plus my regular $20.00 payment. I will be getting some survey money and other found money soon that I will also funnel towards that bill. I get paid tomorrow and my savings will increase by $40.00 to $598.91.

I read Ima Saver's entry about her challenge. I was inspired, but I rarely have $5.00 bills in my wallet, but I do frequently have spare change. My challenge is to save all my spare change and use it pay off Hospital Debt #1. That is my #1 priority this year. I feel fairly confident of being able to do it.