Sold!
So in my quest to eliminate items from my home, and become debt free, I have been selling and donating lots of items.
Recently leaving my house as donated items:
Snapping cloth “paper towels” and pvc pipe “roll”
acrylic diaper cover
wool diaper cover
diaper with missing snap
potpourri gift set thingy
3/4 unused package of disposable pads
3 gerber diaper covers
6 cloth napkins
1 kids jacket
Sold:
3 pairs of wool longies
1 pair of wool shorts
5 pairs of cloth nursing pads
13 packets of dylon dye
2 yards of white microfiber
10 microfiber towels
1 yard of raw silk
Total: 45 more things out!
Murphy came to visit us this month
Well this month we have had a clogged tub, clogged toilet and car trouble…on one hand at least January had 3 paychecks, but on the other hand I REALLY wanted that money to go towards paying off the equity line. Oh Well.
Total spent this month because of Murphy:
$50 on a rod to declog the toilet
$5 to declog the tub (luckily my dad got it unclogged with a plunger and some draino)
$1080 to fix the car (needed new catalytic converter, water pump and timing belt)
Amount we should have been able to put into savings this month – $2100, amount we will put into savings $970. Still a great number, but not quite what I was hoping for.
2009 Swagbucks total – $265!
I started using Swagbucks in March of 2009. Since then, I have earned $265!
If you have never heard of swagbucks, it is a search engine that generates “swagbucks” with random searches. You accumulate your swagbucks until you have saved enough to redeem them for various gift cards and other prizes available on their site. I personally redeem them for amazon.com giftcards and used most of mine to buy Christmas presents this year, which is awesome because without swagbucks, that money would have had to come out of our snowball!
It is super easy…you use it just as you would use google or yahoo to search for things, except when you use swagbucks you occasionally get a pop up that says “you have won X number of swagbucks!”.
We did it!
We made our savings goal of $850 this month! We may actually be able to put an additional $150 in at the end of the month too! Woo-HOO!!
I managed to avoid buying a new computer armoire, new dining room table and new couch slip cover this month, lol.
December savings goal – $850
I am hoping to put $850 into our ING savings account this month. So far we have transferred $500 to that account, so I think it is doable…if we can reign in the “I wants!”
We rearranged our living room/dining room furniture and painted over the weekend….it looks great! BUT…. it has me itching to do “more”…especially since we have family coming over this weekend for Kates second birthday (OMG!), and then again on Christmas eve. We need a smaller table, as our dining room table is 4′ wide by 6′ long and our dining room is only 8′ wide by 8′ long and we moved the computer in there too. So on the lists of “I wants” is a new dining room table (about 1/2 the size as the old one) and a computer armoire to hide the computer when it is not in use. Shopping frugally I can get the armoire I want for about $150 and a table from ikea for about $200…..not bad, but I do not NEED to be spending $350 right now….thats the amount I still need to put into savings for the month! We made do by moving my dads old table from the garage into the kitchen (the rigth size but really scuffed up and has to be covered with a table cloth at all times), and are just going to leave the computer out in the open for a while until we can afford to buy the computer armoire.
Dave Ramsey
Dave has changed my families future. He has given us the tools and motivation to regain control of our finances and our lives. On an annual income of $56K, living just outside of Chicago, we managed to pay off $28,000 in 16 months!
We are COMPLETELY credit card debt free and have no car payment! We still have some student loans ($35K) and our mortgage ($190,k).
We are working on paying off the smaller student loan we have ($7960) and then we will build up a 3 month emergency fun ($9). We are aiming to have the student loans paid off by May 2010. And the emergency fund completely funded by December 2010.
we CAN do it. we WILL do it. we just have to get creative.
