I listed about a dozen books on half.com earlier this week, and sold two right away! Nothing since then, though. I should make about $13 profit from those two sales.

This afternoon I listed two things on Craigslist. The first was a very large guinea pig cage. We haven't had guinea pigs for quite awhile, and I had listed the cage on Craigslist before, but had no luck. This time, I got a hit 5 minutes after the listing posted. Just before our last guinea pig died, I had stocked up on supplies, so I threw the rest of those in the deal along with the cage. The people that are buying it all are getting a great deal for $30, but I'm getting rid of "clutter"!! They're supposed to be here any minute to pick the stuff up.

I also listed a couple of Raggedy Ann & Andy dolls on Craigslist ... these dolls are 4 feet tall and are called "dancing" dolls because they have wide elastic straps sewn to their hands/feet, and kids can strap 'em on and dance with 'em! (At least, that's what I was told when I originally bought them 18+ years ago as nursery decorating items when I was pregnant with my son.) I listed them for $75 neg. and I doubt I'll get any bites, but who knows? Now I'm looking around the house trying to find something else I think might go quickly on Craigslist!

I updated my sidebar to show the $150 deducted from my Challenge money for the refrigerator I bought last weekend off Craigslist. I think I'll leave my EF untouched in ING.

I have enjoyed George Michael's music for many years, and I got to go see him perform in concert last night in Dallas! My employer has a suite at the American Airlines Center, and if no one has customers they want to take to an event, employees are able to request tickets for their own use. (Doesn't mean they will get them, but they can request them!) So I was able to go and take a friend of mine, and sit in the suite and enjoy a great concert, for free!! It was an awesome concert, and I had SO MUCH FUN!!

As an update to my "refrigerator replacement challenge," my fridge finally kicked the bucket late on Thursday night. Luckily I knew it was coming, so I didn't lose very much ... just condiments, etc., most of which had been in there for way too long anyway! I will replace those items as we need them. I was able to find a used fridge on Craigslist for $150 that is actually bigger than our old fridge, which is nice. No ice maker, which we did have in the old fridge, but that's something I can live with. The important thing is that it works well and I was able to scrape up enough cash to pay for it! I ended up taking the $150 out of my challenge money because I needed it sooner than I was able to get the money transferred from my EF (which is in an ING account). I still need to update my sidebar to reflect that.

And, last but certainly not least, I've already had 6 no-spend days so far this month!!

He KNOWS he was uninvited and is NOT welcome here!!

I posted last week about my refrigerator making a noise and not cooling well, following a power outage we experienced. Well, the noise has gotten worse ... it's just awful! And now we've noticed that the drinks in the fridge are not as cold as they should be, so it's not just the freezer. The strange thing is that the ice maker is still making ice, but it isn't making very much so I guess that just indicates it's taking the cubes a long time to freeze. So I have to buy a refrigerator. I've been looking on Craigslist for a few days, so hopefully I will find something soon. The money will have to come from my emergency fund, unfortunately. I'm trying to find something for $150 or less, so hopefully the fund won't take too hard a hit.

I was told an hour or so ago (by my daughter, via text message) that my ex lost his job today. I don't have any details yet, but she is supposed to call me later. She was riding in the car with him and my son at the time, on their way to drop her off for a visit at her grandparents ... from there, my son and ex are going to a new student conference at Texas A&M, where my son will be attending college. It's disappointing news about my ex's job; he hasn't had it very long, so I can't imagine what happened unless his company is suffering from the effects of the economy like so many others are. Obviously this worries me as far as getting my child support payments on time, since they were coming direct deposit from his company when he got paid every two weeks. He's never not paid me, though, so I need to not worry about it. I just hope he can find something else really soon.

Speaking of jobs, I've been giving a lot of serious thought lately to getting a second job. I think it would be fun to work at Starbuck's ... what do they pay, does anyone know? I'm assuming it's minimum wage. Of course, with them having to close stores now, I probably can't get hired on there. Well, it's a thought. I have nothing to lose by filling out an application!

I decided to start my decluttering process with my closet, so that was my project for today. I recently lost 37 lbs., so most of my clothes do not fit me anymore ... and I don't ever want them to fit me again, so I am giving them all to Goodwill! I now have 6 large trash bags full of clothes and shoes to donate, and my closet looks mahvelous!

I also found some old purses that I'm getting rid of, but first ... I had to go through them and make sure all the bits and pieces were cleaned out. In that process, I came up with $2.39 in change, woo-hoo! I'm going to add that to my challenge money.

Now that I've gotten started on the decluttering/purging, I think I can continue. I'm going to tackle another area next weekend.

One more note: the first three days of July were no-spenders!!

Not only did I have a NSD today, I had a total of 8 of them in June, yay me!!

I updated my savings account totals to reflect interest earned in June, and updated my CC debt amount. The savings accounts are slowly inching their way up, and the CC balances are slowly inching their way down.

It's mid-year review time at work, and I have completed my self-assessment. I'm eager to see if my supervisor concurs with how I rated myself. I asked her today if there's any chance I will get an increase with this review, and she is going to look into it. As a review, I started w/the company last Oct. 8, and Oct. 1 was the cut-off date to be eligible for merit increases at the beginning of this year ... so I did not get one. I will, however, get one at the beginning of 2009, which is when everyone gets increases across the board (unless they had a bad review). I'm not optimistic that I will get an increase now, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask!

I'm nervous that my refrigerator is about to croak! We had a big storm about a week ago, and we lost our power for 3.5 hours. That in itself is highly unusual; in fact, I think it's the first time we've lost power for more than a couple of minutes in the five years we've lived here. Anyway, since that time the freezer has not been as cold. The ice maker is still making ice, but the ice cream and popsicles I have in there are still very soft. The coldness setting was already up to 6, so I put it on 7 (which is the highest setting) and it seemed somewhat better the first day after I did that but now the ice cream is soft again. It's also making a really loud noise when the freezer is running. Thankfully I don't have much in there, so I'm not worried about losing a lot of meat, etc. ... but I really don't want the expense of having to replace the refrigerator. Time will tell .......