Making some progress

I think every month I write how I am going to keep up with this blog and look when my last post was! I need this blog and I need to keep up with it. I find that when I write my thoughts here, I don’t drive everyone (especially my husband) insane with my financial ramblings! It seems there is never enough time in the day for me lately. I have really been motivated to get extra money in that I am just doing anything to get it accomplished.

In 2006 I joined all these work at home mom forums to try and make more money from home. I did make a few bucks here and there but never enough to actually stay home. I stopped doing most of the little things because I thought that payoff wasn’t worth the time. Well, seeing how bad I need money, my attitude has changed. Anything helps! I started doing mystery shopping again and surveys and all kinds of little things. I have about $400 in my Ebay account and little bits of cash scattered out in my survey accounts. Some of the survey sites you can’t cash out until you hit certain amounts so I should be getting there soon. I am calculating the figures tonight but I should have about $200 in my survey accounts for June. I probably could have had a lot more but these things are time consuming and are hit and miss a lot of times. OK, I know $200 doesn’t sound like a lot but it is getting me closer to paying off that lawyer. We just paid him another $200 and we now owe $1000. If I could do at least 5 mystery shopping jobs a week too, I could easily get that 1k up without touching our little saving we have. I am not gonna lie, I am tired. I work all day and do all this crap at night. I am sometimes up till 1-2 am and then up early to start the day again. It is summertime. I want to hang out with the kids and relax. It is summer and they love summer! They are also itching to get out of the house. This will be the second summer we have been broke. Last year at this time, the house was for sale and we were all on the edge. For a family that lives in Florida and are theme park junkies-this second summer of not doing anything just stinks. Luckily we live in South Florida where there are lots to see even on a quick drive to the Keys or The Everglades. The problem now is the gas prices. We took a drive last Sunday because doing anything else like going to the movies is just too expensive. It was a nice one but you know kids-it was boooring. I think mom and dad liked it a lot more…lol. Oh well, everyone got some sunshine and looked at some alligators.

Back to my finances, after writing all this, I realize I need to really write all this down. I am doing it all from memory. Maybe seeing it on paper will help more. That is what I am gonna do right now. On another note, I have started to be really cheap. Actually, I think the word is “frugal”. I have been religiously cutting coupons and using them. I also found 2 cool coupon sites on MSN and joined them. Just last night for example-I got 2 things of aluminum and foil, 3 jars of Ragu (the kids love that stuff) and (2) 45 count Dixie Plates for under $10. Of course I was up at the counter with my little coupons and it probably annoyed the heck out of the people behind me but I saved money and I was happy. Did I mention that all this was from Walgreens? I never buy that stuff there but I found all the deals online on one of these sites. Milk is $3.29 there too. Not too shabby. I think I have a little hobby now with this stuff. I love to save money.

These are definitely big changes for me financially. I am saving money, cutting coupons and cutting anywhere we can. I guess I can say being in debt did teach me something!