The weekend on a budget

I like to go to garage sales, it is a hobby of mine, but this time I went with just $30 in my pocket and I promised not to go over. I just bought what I thought I could use, I got some clothes for my children, I bought a monkey from Aladdin, still in the box, I bought a few toys for my daycare and I got my mom some movies and books for her daycare and I got her a weed eater and I spent $32 I went two dollars over but that is not bad at all. I am proud of myself. everything was on a budget. we took the kids to the local theme park and got the special season pass for everybody. I already had mine and everyone else had theirs so I just bought my kids theirs. So now even when we are broke we will still have something to do. I bring my own food and drinks for everyone in a back pack, and with the kids being on a special diet we would have to anyway, but it saves us a ton of money. I bring bottles of tea and Capri suns and two kinds of chips and the older kids bring their own in their bag, the park charges $2 for a small bag of chips, I can get a great big bag for $3 at the store. I am still broke and money is still tight, but I am going to make it through to the end. I have my eye on the big house in the country. today I am going to try not to spend any money at all. I will report tonight.

making a new start

I haven't posted for awhile because I have been busy and I kinda fell off the wagon in saving and getting out of debt. If anything I am in even more debt now than I was. my student loans are going to default in about 3 months and I do not have any more options to pay them back. I do not bring in enough income to take care of my children and help with the utilities and rent here. I have four loans out now that I am paying back, one was for my sons birthday so that I could give him one, the other three are for various things like food, clothes etc. I am trying not to buy anyhting that I do not need, I did buy my son a power wheel because the one I got at a garage sale did not work and I knew that he would not understand why he got one and can't ride it, my daughter's works that I got at the same sale. I am also still buying most everything used when I do buy something. i got my son a dog in january, he is part boxer and part lab so he cost about $100 a month to feed and my daughter has a cheweenie (part daushund part chihauhau) she cost about $10 every three months to feed and we still have the cat but he doesn't cost much to keep. another new expense is that because my son is adhd and autistic, and my daughter is adhd I have put them both on the gfcf diet, it cost a fortune to feed them and I am still coming up with ways to feed them for less they are both doing better and are coming off their medicine, so it is worth the expense I am also no longer going to give myself a year to do it all. I am going to give myself till the end of my sons fifth grade year, he will be going into third this year so I have three years to get it done. I am going to quit eating out, quit buying junk for me and make more stuff from scratch. I am only going to buy school pictures in the spring and I am not doing book clubs this year, I am going to pay off my loans and get slowly weened away from borrowing money, I am going to then start paying my credit cards and get them to be at a zero balance then I am not going to use them. I am going to start saving first by saving my change then go up from there. I will report here every night and share my expenses, my purchases for that day and why I made them and what I should have done differently. This blog will be my accountability person. I am starting on 6/20/2009 and I shall conclude this blog on 6/20/2012
by then I should be debt free and own my own house in the country and also own my own daycare center where I will be a partner with my mom.

i am not able to get to the computer as much as I used to because I no longer have the Internet, but I will try to at least post once a week. About two weeks ago I thought about getting a job, so I went to Wal-Mart to apply when I found the cutest little yellow Labrador, so of course I take him home. Kayla named him biscuit. Anyhow that kinda threw off me getting a job. Our counselor thinks it is better if I stay home anyhow.
So we started talking, and came up with the idea of me starting a thrift store of my own, I am going to use the money made at the store to provide school supplies for the foster kids in Canadian county. since I have three foster kids at home it is something I know is needed. I started an organization last week. I am founder and my mom is co-founder. we are currently raising money to be able to pay for the store. I am still going to get out of debt. My goal is that by the time my son is 10, he's 7 1/2 now, that I will be out of debt, have our business going strong and that our organization will be well known in my county and that foster parents will not have to worry about school supplies every time a child is placed with them. I am going to keep posting weekly about the progress of the store, the organization and my debt balance.

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.