October Blog

I have been very busy, so I haven't been able to keep up. I mlost the internet, then I got it bck again, it is slow but it is free, so i can't complain. I moved to a house and we are splitting rent and utilities 3 ways. eventually I should be able to pay off some bills and get out of debt. I am in school now and I plan on getting a job in january.

Bills that are paid off at this point: a 718.00 JC Penney account is considered paid in full, the catch is that they transferred it to a credit card that now has a balance of 640.00 but they waived the 78.00 it didn't cover. the plan now is to pay off the credit card and then only use it for emergencies.

I am also selling make-up and I am selling on an online auction site again, I am hoping that I am going to make enough eventually to pay off the furniture, since I have to have it.

I will keep posting. My goal is to get at least 20,000 out of debt by next summer, which will leave me with just my student loans to pay back.

on another note, I am just using grants to go to school this time so that my loan debt doesn't go up any more.

Now that I know where my money has gone...

This month I have taken a good hard look at my money and my bills. I realized that I had to much going out that was needless. so, this month I have cut back on small expenses like eating out and drinking soda. And big expenses like rented tv and table. saving a total of about 300 a month. so now that I can save that much, in Aug. I should be able to pay my bills that are long overdue. I will keep posting progress with this debt until all 30,000 is paid off. the other 10,000 is student loans.

the happenings of the day

This weekend I had to go school clothes shopping for both of my kids. To do this and not spend a fortune, my son agreed to use his backpack he had last year, so I just had to buy my daughter one, because this is her first year. I bought most of the supplies on sale and only bought clothes that they needed, I did this a little at a time the past month and got most on sale. I have also decided that this year my son will eat the lunch at school instead of taking his lunch, he gets lunch free through the federal lunch program, saving me about $40 a week. I managed to get clothes and supplies for the kids for around $100. I was really surprised, but pleased. My next mission: try to find a bunk bed for my daughters room, hers is rented and replacing it will save me about $100 a month.

Back in college

Today I got a big help in getting back in college and I reapplied to a university I had dropped out of when I had my youngest child. Now that I know what I am going to do when I grow up I know that getting back in school is my answer to my future being financialy independent. After all no one can live on $900 a month forever.

todays lesson on food

today my 4 year daughter decided to start drinking water instead of milk or juice, I was shocked but delighted. she likes water and it is good for her and it makes the juice and milk last longer. I have also decided to start eating the leftovers before opening any new food. The food last longer and we are not wasting any. My children will eventually get used the idea and not fuss as much.

finding ways to cut back even more

Since I live with my mom and my sister, being on the same page when it comes to energy use is sometimes hard, but we all want to save money. So today I talked to my mom about energy use and the air conditioner and we are going to try turning it off at 1 pm everyday and using fans instead and we are starting to use less lights and I am plugging all t.v's and related item into a power strip and turning the whole thing off, I am also going to try to turn the computer off at 5 pm everyday and see if it lowers the bill any. My goal is to get it at or below $80 a month. so I will keep posting about progress and ideas. I realized that in order to get out of debt I will have to decide where my money goes and try to cut back I have already found $136 in savings just this month by letting the t.v. and the computer desk go back and canceling the warranty, the catch is that I lost about $400 in income when my dad quit helping me, so I am still in the hole $264 a month but I am climbing out of it. once out of the hole I will then be able to find new ways to cut back so I can get out of debt as well, my total monthly income is $900 a month and I have two kids, this will be my story of climbing out of debt and becoming financialy independent without going bankrupt or falling for those gimmicks that promise overnight success. Stay tuned...

getting smarter as I go along

Today I assesed my situation, I lost about $400 worth of income and could not afford diapers for my daughter or medicine for my son so I thought about it, and decided to let the t.v. that I was renting go back. saving me about 100 a month. we already had three t.v.'s at home so letting the fancy one go back was easy, sort of. that is a savings of $1200 over a years time, the exact time I had left on it. I feel very good about myself now. I plan to put any extra money I see from this in savings until I get enough to pay a bill off.

this weeks mkoney not well spent

this week I thought that I was doing a great job at not spending, I passed up coke at Mcdonalds for water and used coupons to purchase the little amount of food I did buy. but then on thursday while my daughter was at gymnastics I went next door to the thrift store and lo and behold I found it a gigantic stuffed dog that I knew she would love, now I am out my last four dollars and I have to find room for a HUGE stuffed dog. she wasn't even with me when I bought it, we didn't need it, she already has a huge pink puppy and a huge bear, but I bought it anyway. I have made a new rule for myself, no more thrift stores of garage sales, I have a weakness for them and I can never pass up a great deal. And sure it was only four dollars, but when she needed diapers to sleep in I had to borrow from my mom.

getting out from mountains of debt

Ihave just recently found out that I have about 40,000 worth of debt, over half of that is student loans. this will be my personal tale of getting out of debt one bill at a time.

plan of action: simple; spend less and pay more bills, the hard part is that my income with two kids puts me below poverty level. The plan is to split rent and utilities three ways with my sister and mom. The hard part is that even with that I come up short every month. This will be very interesting at least, I will be getting out of debt $50 at a time at this rate. I am going to try to do this in a year. I will keep postings about my progress, my expenses and what I still owe.

MONEY IDEAS FOR JUNE 2008

1. Instead of buying the kids a drink at the gas stations, which added up to about 10.50 a week I decided to instead buy the refillable bottles at wal-mart that had the tube inside to freeze to bring juice with us every trip. The kids have their drinks and I can save about $40 a month.