Not much to report...which I guess is a good thing. Today is a NSD for me. Going home after work to cook me brussels sprouts for dinner....which I have been waiting for ALL DAY! My husband hates the way they smell, so he is working a little later tonight. And I am still trying to calm myself and relieve my stress. Tomorrow I am off from work (worked 4 - 10 hour days) so my goal is to clean my house really good. That way on Monday I can start the Real Simple 19 minute cleaning schedule. Basically you do little stuff everyday so its not so hard to do at the end of the week. I think it will help me.

I bought a scratch off ticket. I couldn't help it....it was screaming my name. And I won $50.00. Of course I know that lottery tickets are not a good thing to spend money on, but at least I came out $48.00 a head. Going to keep $8.00 in my wallet and put the rest somewhere so I don't spend it.


I went through my budget and reduced my planned income. My hope is that I can train myself to live off less. It wasn't a lot, but if I act like the money isn't there, then maybe I can build a cushion in my checking account that I can later use for debt repayment? I don't know....that's just what I am thinking for now.

Ok. I feel like I have lost a little bit of financial confidence. I had to take $234 from savings to pay for the hospital and an unexpected pest control visit. When Friday comes around and I pay all of my bills and take out my "jar" money, I will have $40.00 left in my account. So at the end of next week, should I apply what's left to debt or put it back in Savings? $30.00 is automatically going back to Savings already.


We are also doing our taxes for our business. Sure hope we find some expenses! Never thought I would say that!

Well, I thought everything was on the up and up, but I ended up having to go to the emergency room Friday afternoon. I have been having chest pains for about a week, but as Friday afternoon rolled around, I started to get scared. After all the tests and blood work, we found out that my heart and lungs are fine. They are treating me for esophegeal spasms - caused by acid - caused by stress. So not the best Friday night. Cost me $200 - but the piece of mind is worth something.


I have been under a great deal of stress. I am a worrier by nature, but between my full time job, doing the books and back-end work for our business, trying to manage our money, plus everyday stuff with a household and my step daughter - I guess I just reached a point my body couldn't handle. I just want to figure it all out. Actually I want to feel ahead of the game.

Well, its payday. I took the $7.00 I had left from last week and sent it to a credit card. Our mortgage is due, and this month starts the reduced amount. The reduced amount is because of our escrow and insurance and blah blah blah. But we are going to go ahead and pay over. So that is going out. And after paying our utilities with the overages, I managed to put just a little bit into savings. Some is better than none, right? All said and done, I have $31 to last the week.

Well, I spent money yesterday, but it was money that I had set aside. I wanted to try Ebates. They said if I spent $25.00 that I could get a $10 gift card, plus the cash back is double right now. So I went to drugstore.com and bought several things that we needed and spent $25.91 with free shipping. Seems like a pretty good deal. But today I actually broke down and went to the grocery store. I spent $11.98 of my remaining money, but will still end the week with $7.45! Pretty excited about that. My thought is to treat the $7.00 like a "snowflake" and apply it to a credit card. But should I wait until I have more than $7.00? Its not very much.....I know....but if I did that every week, that could add up. It will be 2 more weeks before I make regular payments to my cards again.

I have not slept well in 3 days. I'm tired but I feel like my body is on autopilot. I woke up this morning feeling stressed and anxious...and tired. I ended up just coming in to work early (early by an hour and a half). I tried melatonin, but it didn't seem to help. I think tonight I am not going to take anything.


So on to Rewards. I didn't realize that one of credit cards was set up for this. But the poopy part is that I have 1200 points, but you need 2000 to do anything. I feel like that is money I am just going to miss out on because I don't need to charge anything else to the card (to earn more points). Maybe I can come up with $12 another way.

So after working on our business stuff last night, I looked into Second Spin some more. I had 7 movies, in good condition, that weren't very old and I was offered $4.13. Doesn't seem worth the effort for me. Maybe we can do a garage sale and just include the movies or something. It was worth a try though.


I ate leftovers last night and packed a lunch for me and my husband today. And I plan to make dinner tonight with enough leftover for his lunch tomorrow. Plus I still have $20.00 in my account. My work owed me for gas, so I used that to put gas in my car this morning. So it looks like I am going on NSD #2.

At least I feel like I am figuring it all out. After thinking about our utility issue, we decided to take the amount we are over from the Escrow overage. I hadn't sent it yet, so it will be better for that to be slightly less than take it from savings. The escrow payment I make will still be over what we are estimating we will need.


Everything is paid and I still have almost $20 in my account. And I even have a little cash on hand. I have not started taking a "paycheck" for our business yet. This is a slower time of year so its better for me to just devote my time. But once I start getting that, it will great to start pushing that money out to credit cards and savings.


We have leftovers from dinner last night, so today will be a NSD! And I have stuff to pack for our lunches tomorrow and stuff to cook for dinner. So tomorrow should be a NSD too!!


I've heard a lot of people talking about second spin. I thought about checking it out and seeing if I could possibly earn a little bit off movies that I don't watch. Guess it doesn't hurt to try.


I know this post is all over the place. But I am really feeling the positive energy today.

So....we had a water leak. Last month I noticed that our bill was about $20 more. We walked the house and check everything and couldn't find any leaky faucets or hoses or anything. Well that's because it was a main water line closer to the property line. Luckily my husband was able to fix it and conveniently our neighbor (and husband's best friend) does plumbing on the side, so he gave us the parts. But our water bill for this month is $70.00 MORE!! YUCK. Then I got our electric bill. HOLY SUGAR...it is $320! Last month was $158. What the heck happened? I called the electric company, they said it is our heater. So I guess I am going to have to turn it down a couple of notches. Not the happiest camper today.

Ok... so 2 unrelated topics but both on the brain today.

First, the mortgage. I found out that our mortgage is going DOWN! So my husband and I talked and have decided to continue to pay extra on it...since we are already used to that amount. It will knock off 10 years! Excited about that.


Now, the forums. Wow! If ever there was somewhere where I felt like I didn't belong...it would be there. I didn't read many. I actually just stumbled into the forum area a couple of days ago. But the ones I read, made me feel like an idiot. Like people were looking down on me because I misuse the term Budget or because I don't buy something because I "can't afford it." As I have said before, I am here to learn and grow. Think I will stick to the blogs.

We have sooo much food right now. At least it seems like it. I was going to do a food inventory a while back, but never did. So tonight will be a good night to do it. I am hoping to have 2 weeks worth of meals between my pantry and fridge/freezer. We will see!

So money seems pretty good right now. Everything is paid and I have $6.00 in my wallet. Today will be a NO SPEND DAY for me. WOO HOO.

I see a lot of people starting money challenges...how do you have $12 or $20 to add to challenge money everyday? Or even $1 or $2? By the time I go through and pay everything and put money in savings or whatever I'm going to do, I usually have little left and I only allow myself $10 in cash. I do the "jar" technique....take cash out...but it in jars and try to only spend that on my variable expenses. So instead of leaving the leftover in the jars...should I put it in a challenge fund?


I still have a few things left to pay. I am going to transfer a very little bit to savings. Still haven't moved the thousand...its just sitting in our bank account. But I am also starting a savings for my step daughter's graduation gift and expenses. I'm only putting $20.00 in this week, but she doesn't graduate until May. We want to give her cash, so I have to start saving now. I also got a ticket for a U-turn....I totally didn't see the sign. So I am having to come up with $107 in the next 2 weeks. So no extra money right now. I think I will have 0.97 but we have groceries and gas and everything we could need for the week.