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This 'n That

August 4th, 2008 at 05:30 am

Well, I've made a few more sales on half.com, and my profit stands at right around $40 now. I haven't received any of that money yet, but half of it should hit my account tomorrow or Tuesday. I decided to close my SmartyPig account (already!) so it's gone from my sidebar. I had $75.11 in that, and I needed money to buy my son some things to get him ready to go off to college in a couple of weeks ... so I decided it would be better to close that account than to defrost a credit card! Smile I am really feeling the pinch of that reduction in child support a couple of months ago. I just really hate to go get another job on top of my full-time job, because that will leave my 13-year-old daughter home alone an awful lot. But I may have no choice. I keep thinking I'll see how long I can hold out, and if I can just make it to next year things will look up. I'll get a salary increase in February, and hopefully something from the IRS. (Not sure about the IRS refund; I have gotten large amounts in past years due to earning such a low amount throughout the year; however, with this job I'm working now I have no basis for comparison.) But even if I can "hang on" ... that's still another 6+ months away, which is a long time.

In the meantime, I am paying the minimums on my credit cards again, but at least I am able to do that ... I refuse to make any more late payments or, worse yet, no payments at all! The progress has been slow, but at least I have made progress. Since the beginning of the year, I have whittled just over $1,300 off my debt, and I'm almost under $12,000 total now. At the same time, I have incurred NO NEW DEBT, woo-hoo!! I know as long as I keep doing what I'm doing, things will get easier with time. And I am still saving a little money and contributing 6% to my 401K. I have to keep positively reinforcing myself here! Smile

I got some good deals yesterday at JCPenney. I had to get some sheets and shorts for my son, like I said earlier. There was an ad in the newspaper on Thursday about a sale JCPenney was having, and they had their extra long twin size sheets on sale for $14.99/set. I thought that was a pretty good price, so I hauled my son out there on Saturday morning w/me to see if they also had any shorts he might like. I wanted to get what we needed before 1:00 to get the early bird discount (an extra 10% off), which we did. As it turned out, all their young men's shorts were on sale for $9.99/pair! The athletic shorts (basketball-type) weren't included, but those were 30% off. So we walked out of there with 2 sets of sheets and 6 pairs of shorts (4 regular, 2 athletic) for $112 total, which I didn't think was too bad. The last time I bought shorts for him, I can tell you I paid more than $10/pair!!

Oh, and I have to get in here that I had 10 no-spenders in July, woo-hoo!

I saw a great concert last night - FREE!!

July 15th, 2008 at 04:00 am



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!) Smile 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!! Big Grin

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!! Smile

Did some decluttering today, finally!

July 7th, 2008 at 05:22 am

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!! Smile

A no-spender to start the month

July 2nd, 2008 at 02:09 am

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

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 .......

I hate credit cards!!

June 15th, 2008 at 06:13 am

Okay, we probably all hate credit cards. But I had finally reached a point of acceptance and I have been taking action by paying down my old debt while not incurring any new debt. I have even made some progress ... so I'd started to feel encouraged, and maybe even begun to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Then I got a couple of my CC bills this month and noticed the balances had gone UP instead of DOWN ... and I knew I had not charged anything (my cards are still in a block of ice in my freezer)!

Upon closer examination of the bill from the first card, I saw that it has an annual fee of $39 which was charged to me this month ... which I am sure I knew before I got the card (obviously about a year ago) but have forgotten. In fact, I am sure I not only knew about the annual fee but I didn't care about it at the time; however, I sure care a LOT now!! Ugh. To make matters worse, when I originally got this card it had a 0% APR, which went up to 14.9% in February. That same month I was also late paying my bill ... so in March the APR went up to 29.49%!!! Dang!!

As if all that weren't bad enough, the closer look at the second card (to see why my monthly minimum payment went up) revealed that this company also raised my APR this month, from 15.99% to 24.99%. I emailed to inquire about that and got the standard reply about how they can raise the APR if I pay late and/or go over my limit ... but I've not gone over my limit at all this year (quite the opposite, in fact) and I have only had one late payment, also back in February (Christmas killed me). So why is my APR just being raised NOW for a late payment back in February?!! ARGH!!

It's just SO frustrating to finally be making noticeable progress, then have a couple whammies like that come from out of the blue. And of course these things have to happen the same month my child support is reduced!! It's discouraging.

But I do have a couple of positive things to report! So far this month I have four no-spend days, which is awesome for me! I also opened up an account with Smarty Pig, and I'm doing once-a-month auto transfers of $25 into that!! So I need to concentrate on my positive actions and not the negative circumstances that have developed this month. I know if I can persevere through this rough patch and continue to pay my minimums plus whatever small amounts I can manage to scrape up, soon I will have another card paid and I'll be able to apply that amount to another card, and my snowball will gain some momentum!!

Slow Going

March 31st, 2008 at 05:53 am

I haven't posted much lately, but I am here reading pretty much every day! I am still taking my lunches to work, and still writing down everything I spend money on daily.

Like a lot of others here, I'm looking back at the past month's spending and seeing how I did. I'm happy to report 7 no-spend days in March! I'm encouraged when I look at my savings totals slowly going up, and when I look at the balance in my newly-established Vanguard account after only two pay periods of contributing. But the debt is going down SO slowly! I got popped with some overlimit fees last month that showed up on this month's statements, and that really discouraged me. I've made several very large payments on my cards this year, and it doesn't seem like it when you look at what I still owe ... because the interest just keeps building and it seems like I am taking 10 steps forward and 9 steps backward. It's going to be a long trek at this pace!! But I know slow and steady progress will get me where I want to be.

I know that as I get a couple of the smaller cards paid off and start putting those monthly amounts towards other cards, I will be able to see more of a difference. It's just discouraging right now. At least the weight loss is going well ... only a little over 4 lbs. to go until I reach my goal, woo-hoo!!

My Credit is Frozen!!!

March 6th, 2008 at 03:37 am

Because I put my credit cards in a ziplock bag of water and froze them!! Smile It's something I've been meaning to do for awhile, actually ... finally just DID IT.

Thank you, Ima Saver, for sending me the $25 bonus certificate for opening an account at ING!! I got it last week and opened the account with $500 of my EF; there's another week to go before those funds are available for withdrawal, so I will wait until that time to transfer the remaining $1,000 and close the account at my brick & mortar bank. (I felt nervous opening the account w/the entire amount, just in case I needed to get to the cash.)

Last but not least, I already have two no-spend days this month, woo-hoo!!

Only 2 no-spend days this month??

February 27th, 2008 at 06:03 am

That's not very good, I must definitely do better in March! Of course, this month isn't quite over yet, so I still might manage one more. I rather doubt it, but we'll see.

I spent this evening trying to figure out how much I will need to pay each month, minimum, on each of my credit cards in order to pay off all my CC debt by the end of 2010. Very sobering exercise. It's going to require about $550/month, which I am not at all sure I can do consistently and still stash money away each month for periodic expenses such as car repair, clothing, gifts, etc. Well, at least I have a solid guideline now; if it doesn't work, I will just have to tweak it! And I plan on calling some of the CC companies several months from now and asking them to lower my interest rate; I'm waiting until then because I want to establish a better payment pattern. Hopefully I will be successful, which will definitely help me get this debt paid off sooner! I seriously don't even want to think about how much money I have paid credit card companies in interest and fees over the years. Sickening. Frown

No Bonus for Me!

February 1st, 2008 at 03:15 am

Well, today was the day that everyone got their bonus deposits ... but nothing showed up in my account??? I asked a girl I know who started exactly one week before me if she got anything, and she said she did. Turns out if you started working for the company after Oct. 1, you were not eligible for a bonus. I started on Oct. 8 ... yes, that means my friend started ON Oct. 1, therefore she was eligible! Oh well, that's the way it goes. It was even in my offer letter that I would not be eligible, I had just forgotten that! It would only have been 25% anyway, for the last 3 months of 2007, so next year at this time I will get 100% of the award for 2008. I also found out today that I am eligible for a merit increase, so that's pretty cool! I won't find out until next week or the week after that how much, but it will be effective from tomorrow and will show up on mid-February's paycheck. I'm sure it won't be much, but I will take it whatever it is!!

I looked at my totals for January tonight. I had 7 no-spend days, woo-hoo!! And I was totally shocked to see the amount I spent at the grocery store in one month ... terrible! I just struggle so much with feeding all of us. First of all, I am doing Weight Watchers, and I find it easiest to eat the frozen Smart Ones or Lean Cuisine meals every night, usually with a salad that I make. But boy does that get expensive!! Secondly, I am really NOT a fan of cooking anyway, so I do use a lot of other convenience foods as well. I don't know what I'm going to do about that ... I am going to pay a price either way, with my money or with my time (which I also have very little of).

Hey, how do I get those smiley faces that so many of you use?

No Spend Day!

January 29th, 2008 at 04:19 am

First, thanks for the comments of support, they really help me feel like I CAN do this!!

I had my 5th no-spender of the month today, so that is pretty cool. There were also two days this month where my only expense was the $3 admission to my daughter's basketball game, so those are *almost* no-spenders! Most weeks I also have a day or two where I have to either stop for a gallon of milk or ask my son to bring home something from the store where he works (and I pay him back). I wish I had an extra refrigerator/freezer so I could buy enough to last an entire week without having to make mini-trips, but oh well.

I should be able to eke at least one more no-spender out of this month ... since I really am BROKE right now!!