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Plugging Away

noreply@blogger.com (moneytummy) — Thu, 15 May 2008 02:49:00 +0000

Things are going well so far. I've been entering everything I spend into my excel sheet.

I took out my second set of "envelope money" with this paycheck :) Insurance, haircut...expenses like that. I'm putting those away in envelopes each month. No, it doesn't accumulate interest that way, but I also won't be tempted to withdraw the money or transfer it online. Sure, I could grab the envelope and spend the cash, but for some reason I'm less likely to do that. Go figure.

I've passed the $20 mark on Cashcrate! I'm excited about that. Also, I got one referral each on ebates.com and revolution money exchange.

I really like ebates.com so far. The money only comes every 3 months, but they have a ton of stores to get cash back from, and it's for stuff I already buy (and it's budgeted for!). I'm at $18.00 so far on ebates for my signups and one purchase.

Can't wait to make my total snowflakes list for May! In case you were wondering, my $20 snowflake from April went to my Bank of America credit card (total payment=$455) :) I'll update those totals on the side soon.

Waiting for my next paycheck

noreply@blogger.com (moneytummy) — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:33:00 +0000

This week's paycheck is when I'll really see how well my budget is going to work. And how many snowflakes I'll have to contribute. I'm excited, not good with waiting.

I'm also going to get back into the Walgreens deals that I've done for the past 2 years. I've been slacking on cutting my coupons. But even without newspaper coupons they have great deals, as evidenced by the post over at Thrifty Mama and I Want a Home Now. That Crest deal sounds awesome!

My $7000 check to Bank of America finally cashed so I can update my totals on the side.

Oh, and cashcrate is up to $11.25! So I'll have something from them to put toward debt probably by the middle of June when the check comes. :-D

Starting May off right....

noreply@blogger.com (moneytummy) — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:51:00 +0000

With hopefully some extra money making opportunities.

I made about $170 on Dealbarbiepays.com last October when I was job hunting, so I think I'm going to start that up again! I made $136 then another $40 or so because they were running a contest at the time. In fact they're running several for the month of May. So if you're interested check out my link :)

Also found Cashcrate through another blog two days ago. And it's as EASY as they said it would be. Very straight forward site with a lot of free signups and surveys. And the best part is they have two daily surveys you can take every 24 hours that are worth $0.80 each. So even if I only do the surveys each day, I should make $48.00. Pretty good deal!
So far, I've done a few of the offers and I have $5.10 earned and another $5.20 pending. Yay!

The first survey was pretty interesting, it actually had me watch an episode on ABC.com.

So, hey if you're interested, click my link below!

That's about all the money stuff I have for now.

Prepping for more Snowflakes

noreply@blogger.com (moneytummy) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:31:00 +0000

I had some time on my hands so I decided to create my budget in excel. Before I was doing it very simply, and just saving in a word document. So now I have a very simple budget but it's an excel document :) I did create it so it would automatically show me any snowflakes I have based on the payments I make throughout the month. So, I hope that keeps me motivated!

I'm anxiously awaiting my next paycheck, because that's when everything will really be put to the test. This month, I had the rest of the loan money to send out, a little leftover from my ITRFs, and payments on credit cards based on higher interest rates than they will be next month. So, it hasn't been a true reflection of what my income will be going forward.

So, I'm spending a lot of time preparing!

Question: I don't consider myself too clueless on a computer, but where do people get the graphs they use to put in their blog sidebars, to show how much they've paid on theirs debts...like the ones here? http://butwhydoesnt.blogspot.com/

Thanks for any help :-D

It's spring, but I think I detect the 1st snowflake...

noreply@blogger.com (moneytummy) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 04:00:00 +0000

Here goes nothing...and everything!

I took my bag of change into the bank yesterday. They have the change counting machines and there isn't a fee if you have an account. So I walked out with $19.63!
I rounded up and just transferred $20 into my savings account.

I don't want to transfer it directly to my credit card yet, because I have a payment due in about a week and I'm afraid they'll think that's my payment or something. Yes I'm paranoid! So I'm going to call them and see what their policy is about taking payments throughout the month. But for now the $20 is tucked away in my savings waiting to be applied.

I'm going to add a Snowflake list to my blog each month so I can keep track ;)

Oh and thank you for the warm welcome from the people who stopped by, I appreciate it!

Off it goes!

noreply@blogger.com (moneytummy) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:23:00 +0000

I'm sending a check for $7000 to my Bank of America account.

Now that probably sounds a lot better than it is, since it's borrowed money (from the personal loan).

But I have my reasons, mainly the outrageous interest rate on that card.

So, I'll update my statistics to the left when I see it posted to my account!

I'm looking forward to being done with that credit card sometime real soon.

They raised my interest rate last fall because of a random credit screening that determined I was overextended. So, of course the intelligent thing to do when someone is overextended is almost double their interest rate so they can't even afford the minimum payment! Since I was looking for a job at that time, it definitely didn't help my state of mind :)

Took me a long time on the phone to finally get them to decrease the interest rate back to what it was. It's not great now, but at least it's not 31.99%. Ridiculous I tell ya.

First Post

noreply@blogger.com (moneytummy) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:01:00 +0000

Well, I've decided to get serious about paying down the ugly number over on the side there. I thought a blog would help me keep track. I like being able to punch in lower numbers as a I go along. And if I get a pretty webpage out of it, even better.

A little catching up here... I have a personal loan from a family member that I will start paying back in one year. I hope to make enough of a dent in my debt, so when I have to start making payments it won't be as much of a strain as it is now. I also used $1800 of my tax refund to make two payments on my credit cards. ($900 each). I figure that's a good start, I hope to keep the momentum going! I've also deferred my student loan for one year. (Believe it or not, it used to be twice as much as that!) This is definitely going to be a full speed ahead year as far as reducing my debt goes!