Friday, August 25, 2006

Small Victory

I sent $13.68 from Half.com sales to Best Buy today! I'm very proud of myself - I tell myself that it doesn't make sense to send tiny little payments off to the cc's, that I should wait until there's a big ole payment to send off.

But...I sent it! Funny part - this "little" payment is bigger than the minimum due ($10). We are down to $148 left, which needs to be paid off by the end of Nov (actually, Dec 14th) so the $100+ in interest isn't added on.

No problem. I have this. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~Listed a bunch of stuff on ebay
~Worked on the bridesmaid's dress I'm making for a customer
~Took pics and wrote descriptions for a lot more stuff to list on ebay. I should be able to get them on tonight or tomorrow, depending on how far we get on the painting in the bathroom.


I am going to:
~look at these Blog for Money things I've found. More later.
~go to the library tonight, I have stuff due.
~make up some Swiffer duster refills that can go in the washer - love those!

Thursday, August 24, 2006

New Debt Tally...

Okay - I did it. I added up all our unsecured debt. My tummy hurts. :(

$13,258.39 at this exact moment in time.

Ouch.

Well - I'm angry about it, we pay over $200 a month just in interest for the "pleasure" of having these stupid cards. I'm getting stuff on ebay and cranking up the business. That's a start.

I'm also on a grocery exile for awhile - how long can we go with only getting basics? (milk, bread, etc) We're on a whopping 5 days. Plus 4 days without eating out. :)

Thursday, August 17, 2006

And then...

Of course, after I spend the EF on stupid things, we have car problems.

We've had a slow leak in the water/water pump/radiator for awhile...yep, it's bigger. Ickier.

So the car sits until we can find $200. Good things: we have another vehicle, we have no where we NEED to go, it could be worse.

But man, this sucks.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Rummage Finds...

I love rummage sales. They're more fun when dh comes along, but he was taking the old bathroom walls (and the other stuff we pulled out) to the dump. Yay - less in our garage = good thing.

Rummage finds today:
~Craft book for things made from material scraps, $.25
~Craft book Part II for things made from material scraps! $.25
~Oil painting book for dh $.25
~20 normal sized jewel cases (dh hates the slimline ones) - $2.00
~2 cans wood stain (amazingly, dh and I were just talking YESTERDAY about how we needed to get stain for the new woodwork in the bathroom - $.20!
~One yard fleece, one corner cut out, + about 1/8 of a yard of fleece, different color - $.50
~Portfolio of Japanese art for work - $.50

I'm missing something in here, but I can't think of it off the top of my head. My best rummage find lately came last Saturday when we just stopped for the fun of it, I found a hardcover copy of "The Outlandish Companion" for $.25...it will sell on ebay for over $10 - it's a pretty popular series. Yay!

We bought a 1/2 gig travel drive for ebay purposes, to have it all in one place and allow dh to get used to using ebay (his excuse is that I don't have things together so he can just cut and paste). :) It was $12 on sale at Office Max - a great deal.

Oh, and Office Max has the free teacher stuff this week - a tote, travel coffee mug, whiteboard marker, marker holder + ads. Not bad - it's free for teachers. :)

Saturday, August 12, 2006

BECC's

(Big Evil Credit Cards)

Yes, I know they aren't really evil. Yes, I know I/we got ourselves into this problem, and that it isn't really their fault. That doesn't mean I like them.

They've raised our minimums. Now, I know that it's been all over the internet for over a year now, that this would happen. But I didn't hear anything from them, so I figured I was safe.

NOT!

We now have to come up with $70 more per month to send off to them. No clue where that will come from.

But...good news. I have a job making a bridesmaid's dress, so that will be at least $100 that can be sent to Best Buy to get the fridge amount down. We owe a little under $200 to them, but have to get it paid off by Nov in order to avoid all the deferred interest being added on - and that's over $100 right now.

I've been making some "swiffer duster" refills that can be thrown in the washer, and I may put some on my business site. They're incredibly easy to make, and I could sell them for a pretty reasonable price. I hate buying things just to throw them out - I like the swiffer duster, but man, do I hate buying those (expensive!) refills. I really love that this can go in the washer. I'm going to try my hand at making a swiffer mop head, too - avoid having to throw those away.

Isn't it weird? The reason why Swiffer is so popular...is because you can throw it away and not worry about it. But it seems like such a waste!

I plan on getting a lot posted on ebay before I return to school in Sept - and all of that goes towards getting BB paid off and then hitting HSBC hard.

Keep thinking...what would life be like with no payments...? :)

Cleaning up

Okay - I've been looking for PERSONAL finance blogs...I've cleaned up house a little bit.

If anyone is reading this and knows any PERSONAL finance blogs (not just copies of articles and facts that can be found anywhere on the internet), please let me know! :)

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

You know...

I like to read pf blogs because I like to know that others are there, have been through the same things, etc. But there's a new trend - to show off what we've already seen 10 billion times in other places, but not to talk about every day things.

Even the Carnivals that are up (at least this week) include mostly things that you can find in any pf book, magazine, tape, or TV special. Everyone spouts out the things they've learned from Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey, or the latest article on msn, but no one talks about the personal things. The personal things are the things that make blogs interesting. If you don't want to share personal stuff, that's fine, of course. But I'd rather read about how someone is paying off $10,000 worth of debt than that oil prices are going to go up again because of the pipeline shutting down in Alaska. I can get that off of CNN...I don't need it on a blog.

Okay - I guess I'm grumpy. But there are a few people that I've liked to read in the past, and all they've become is a conglomeration of news stories that I can find anywhere. I guess I need to find some PERSONAL finance blogs. I'll have to go hunting sometime.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

On track

Amazingly, we have not gone over budget for the bathroom remodel. My sister and her SO have done the majority of the work, and we were hoping we'd be able to pay him something, but that doesn't look like it will happen. We didn't tell him we were going to pay him, he was just doing it because he loves my sister and enjoys fixing things, but we felt better knowing we'd be able to give him a little money.

I was really being pushed on the money part, and I realized that I really resented it. We knew we wouldn't get the summer school check (which was paying for the remodel) until July 27, but we were pushed to buy things with our paycheck so they could get started earlier. I knew in my heart that it was a mistake, but I went along with it anyway. I guess it just shows that you should listen to that little voice inside your head.

I wanted to get that summer school check and cash it, then pay cash for everything we needed so we'd keep track better of what we spent. Instead, half came from payday, about another 1/3 was paid for by my sister on her zero interest cc (we'd pay her back) and the rest came out of the summer school check once it came. They started two weeks earlier than we had originally planned, and then couldn't come last week because of other commitments. So, hopefully this weekend it will be almost complete.

But...we overspent. We're still okay, we'll make it through the month, we paid my sister back, but...we spent more than we should have. We ate out a lot while it was hot and they were working on the room. We bought a couple things that we didn't plan for. It all adds up, doesn't it?

We do have about $60 worth of stuff to return, so that will help. But...no extra to the cc's this month. We have about $200 (a little less) to pay off on Best Buy before they WHAP! us with extra fees for the fridge (it was 18 months no interest, and our 18 months is up in November). And the cc's are just...well, they suck.

Do you realize that if we didn't have cc's to pay, we'd have $500 extra every month? EVERY MONTH. And that's just paying a little over minimums, too. If we didn't have cc's or student loans, we'd have $750 extra a month. And if we didn't have any payments - no cc's, no student loans, no mortgage - we'd have $1600 EVERY SINGLE MONTH that we could use to build up an emergency fund, save up for stuff, build wealth...


At least I can dream with Dave Ramsey. What would life be like with no payments?

Beautiful.