Ebay...

So, I have a few things that I thought I would try to sell on eBay. I've done Craigslist before, but now I'm a little leery of doing that, so eBay is where I'm going to list a few things. Does anyone have any helpful advice for a newbie like me? As you all know, I'm trying to pay off my debt and clean things up. I have several things around my house that I just don't use and really don't have a need for. One being my Roku box...I thought it was going to be a great idea as I don't watch much TV to start with and there are really only a few things I like to watch. Turns out, the shows I wanted to see wouldn't be available through Roku for quite some time. I went back to basic cable and got a screamin' deal, so I'm happy. I'm also selling a few brand new, still in the box items that I received a few years back as wedding gifts and I know I will never use. It looks like it's easy enough to list things, but I'm sure there's a lot more to it than I realize. Any suggestions?

I did a few surveys at Vindale.com the other day and made good progress toward earning another $50 payout. Yay! Also, there was about $32 in other surveys that I did over the weekend that I should be receiving payment on soon.

Not too much else to report from here, just checking in.

Current debt: $243,413.12 (let's hope my eBay auctions help lower this number and soon!)

Plugging along...

Seems like I'm just kind of going through the motions lately and I hate that feeling. I usually feel like this in the wintertime though and it makes me think that someday when I retire, I'm going to want to move somewhere a little sunnier for my winters. And when I start to feel like that, it makes me think about saving for retirement and getting my debts paid off, so that I can retire. I'll be 40 at the end of the month and of course that's got me thinking about retirement too. I'm lucky in the fact that I will receive a pension for sure when I retire, and I have been participating in the retirement fund at work up to 100% of the match, don't want to give away free money, and my accounts are all up at the moment. :) But thinking about all of this stuff has really got me wondering what I need to do to get down and dirty serious about being able to retire when I'm 60. That's what I'd really like to do, so I guess it's time to make an appt. with my financial planner and look at our road map and see where we've been, where we are at and where we are going. Stay tuned y'all, hopefully I'll have some inspiring words of wisdom from him soon to pass along.

Current debt: $243,449.79

My goodness the money flows easily...

Ugh! It was an expensive weekend and I didn't even really do anything all that fun! Friday after work I had a chiropractor appt. and then I had to go buy the BF's birthday present. Got home just in time to wrap it and sit down long enough to say, ahhh, before he walked in the door and we were off again, out the door to dinner. So, $150 later for his gift and dinner, we made it home and called it a night early, he had to be at work early the next morning. Saturday I rose soon after he headed out the door for work and got ready for the day, and off to the grocery store I went. I grabbed my cart and opened my purse to find that I'd forgotten my list and all my coupons at home! Dang I hate that! So, back home I went (what a waste of time and gas!) to grab my stuff and head back to the store. Groceries rang up to $90.99, then I scan my loyalty card and all my coupons come off, bringing the total down to $38.17. Not bad! And that included a bottle of wine and a 6-pack of beer!! After putting all the groceries away and doing my weekly cleaning, I am off again, this time to the eye Dr for my annual exam. Ugh! I have a condition with my eyes where my pupil's don't react to light and remain dilated at all times, well, you can imagine what it cost to correct this problem and my new specs set me back $418 after my insurance kicked in their portion. Totally sucky!!! The rest of the day thankfully was free of spending and I had a nice quiet afternoon and evening at home alone, the BF ended up having to work a 12 hour day. Sunday morning, the phone rang at 4:52 as the BF was on call and had to go in to work. He arrived home at 9:00 with a piping hot latte for me to enjoy while reading the paper, that was very sweet of him. (he had forgotten that I was out for coffee with my BFF), but that's OK, I enjoyed a short latte with her and it was fun to catch up. The rest of Sunday passed by nicely with a relaxing day of hanging out at home with the BF and watching the game. Was it just me or where there not really that many great commercials this year? Anyway, here it is Monday again and I'm back at work and really must run now, lots to do...

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and are starting to see the first signs of spring like I am, some of my tulips have started sprouting! Yay!

Current debt: $243,045.42

The start of a new month...

and time to put all those poor money decisions of January behind us. OK, well there weren't really all that many bad money decisions, just not a lot of progress on the debt repayment. 2 steps forward 3 steps back is about what it felt like, but I know it really wasn't that bad, more like spinning my wheels and getting no where. Standing still is better than falling behind, right? The credit card has been put away and will not come out again unless there is a REAL emergency and hopefully that won't be coming up anytime soon.

I filed my taxes today and I'll be getting a refund of just over $1,000 which I'll use to pay for my season tickets for football this year and still have some left to put toward debt reduction. Not a lot, but a little bit and that helps. I've also reallocated money from my paycheck to my savings so that come April, I'll have the money needed to make my annual loan payment to my parents. This year is exciting, it marks the halfway payment of the loan! Yay! The BF is also making payments to me monthly to pay off the $1,500 I loaned him, so I'm putting that toward the payment to my parents as well. He's also working as much overtime as he can to get his debts paid down as quick as possible too. I think once his debts are within reason, he will probably be moving out and living on his own. It would be nice for both of us to have some space and since I live in a small 750' square foot condo, it's a little crowded. We brought his 60" TV over which is WAY too big and takes up WAY too much space, but then that might be the girl in me talking, I know how men are about their TVs. :)

Anyway, it looks like it might be a little bit of an expensive weekend with the BF having a birthday and all, but shouldn't be TOO bad. I hope you all had a great January and February is looking brighter and sunnier...

Current debt: $243,245.42

Very little progress lately....

Things are just going along, not a whole lot of progress in any direction good, bad or indifferent. Feels like I'm sort of stuck in the same place just waiting for my next payday so I can pay off some more stuff. We're working really hard on not spending too much money and trying to be as frugal as possible. Eating meals at home and cooking from scratch, taking our lunch, reducing our utilities, etc. The BF's birthday is later this week and I'm waiting until that day to go buy his present, that way I can wait until payday and not have to use the credit card, which I'm doing my absolute best to try avoiding right now. Looks like this is going to be a fairly frugal week, not much going out, all bills are paid up and just kind of going through the motions right now.

I hope everyone has had a wonderful January, can you believe the first month of the year is going be behind us already? My my how time flies...

Current debt: $243,479.01 (YUCK!!)

Very little spent this weekend...

We had another mellow, small spending weekend. BF works on Saturdays, so Friday nights we don't do much but go to the clubhouse at our condo for cocktail hour. Saturday I was down all day with a horrendous headache and didn't go anywhere. Not exactly the nicest way to NOT spend money, but a no spend day it was and I'll take it. Sunday we went to try out a new church and we did stop at Starbucks for a treat, we usually buy a latte once a week, so it's a splurge for us and probably one we could do without, but we really enjoy it and since we don't get too crazy with spending, we feel it's OK. We rarely even go out to eat, so this is our big splurge each week. After church we went to do a little grocery shopping and while we were hungry and probably bought more than we normally would have, we didn't go overboard with junk food and kept it to stuff to make lunches and dinners, so we're set for most of the week now. After that we went home, had lunch and watched a couple of movies that we had borrowed from my parents and had a nice relaxing day. :)

What did you do this weekend? Did spend a little or a lot? Any unnecessary spending?

Current debt: $242,805.55

Day 4 of no spending...

We've been getting hit really hard with snow this week which is not something we are prepared for around here. Thankfully I've been able to get to work everyday, loving my new Volvo, it's been great! Most businesses are closed today, so at work it's been very quiet, not too many phone calls and I'm getting a lot done, yay! The BF and I have been making a conscious effort to not spend money needlessly and we've been doing a really good job of eating from our existing stock of food and getting a little creative when don't have everything we want for a full meal. I love that we are having so many days without spending and really enjoying it. The other night we even turned off the TV (saving money on electricity) and had a great time playing Yahtzee! I've been 3 full weeks now without any Excedrin and I'm feeling great. I think I'm past the withdrawal headaches that I was having and am feeling pretty good. Now I need to get my butt back in to exercising and working out, I know I will feel so much better once I do. I've also been making myself drink water in between every diet Coke and this is helping me feel better along with saving money. I'm not ready to give up my diet Coke habit altogether, but these small steps are at least in the right direction.

Hope you are all having a great week!

Current debt: $242,805.55 (feels like I'm stuck at this number, but I know it will move again soon!)

Frugal weekend...

So, we had a great, fun filled weekend, but didn't spend much money at all! Yay! Friday night I went to the clubhouse at my condo where they have a weekly cocktail party. Everyone brings what they want to drink and a snack to share. Very fun, low cost and it was nice to know that after drinking, I just had to walk upstairs to my home. Saturday, I did a little grocery shopping early and scored some great bargains in the markdowns. I spent the rest of the day at home while BF worked, then my brother and sister in law brought their kids down to spend the night. We stayed home and made caramel corn and watched a movie, then woke up to snow on Sunday morning. After making a big breakfast and filling our bellies, we went for a walk in the snow, it was beautiful and we burned off some of that breakfast having a snowball fight. Very fun!

After taking the kids home, BF and I came home and watched some football and a movie we got for Christmas. Lounged around the rest of the evening and enjoyed relaxing and the quiet of the kids being gone. HA! I love those kids, don't get me wrong, but my goodness they can be loud. :)

We watched Extreme Cheapskates last night which was quite entertaining, not to mention troubling. Some of these people are WAY over the top in their efforts to save money, but there were also some really great thoughts shared as well. While I'm not willing to ask people in restaurants if I can have their leftovers or resort to recycling toilet paper, I like the idea of a weekly fiscal fast every few months to use up what we have on hand and save some money. I'll watch the show again, if for no other reason than to glean a few good money saving ideas and to be disturbed by the doings of some people out there.

Current debt: $242,805.55

Just going through the motions....

It's been a long week! BF and I are arguing, about what you ask? Money! He has quite a bit of debt from his divorce, I have some from mine as well, but not as much, my main debt is my car and my mortgage and I'm passed that living paycheck to paycheck, but he's not. He seems to be OK with that and the occasional bouncing of a check, I'm not OK with that and I'm having a hard time dealing with his nonchalance with money. I've worked really hard to get where I am and to have the credit score that I do and I'm not sure I want to move forward with a life with him if he's not willing to put in the hard work to get things paid off and be debt free. It also does not seem to bother him that he's still listed on the mortgage of the house that his wife was awarded in their divorce. She's in no rush to refinance and he doesn't see an issue with that. He's currently working on getting his bills paid on time, but doesn't want to listen to my advise. I have a credit score over 800 and have never paid a bill late, recently had no problem getting a $26,000 loan for my car, I was approved in less than 10 minutes, yet he seems to think he's got it all figured out. I'm hoping that we can sit down this weekend and go through all of his bills and plot out a plan, not only to get him paying them on time, but paying them off. He says that's what he wants, but I think it might just be lip service. Wish me luck!

Current debt total: $242,805.55 (hoping for some survey money in this weekend to bring this down a bit more.)

Fairly frugal weekend...

I had a relatively non-spending weekend which was great! I've been fighting headaches my whole life and I just went on a new medicine that I wasn't sure how I would react to it, so I didn't plan much and I'm glad. I slept a lot!!! Not sure if this medicine will work or not, it takes some time for your body to adjust to it, so we'll see, but the nice thing about sleeping so much this past weekend is that while I'm sleeping, I can't spend money. :) The BF and I stayed home on Friday night as he has to work on Saturdays. Saturday I went to a baby shower, then came home and since he was on call, we didn't want to plan anything. Sunday we went out for breakfast and then out to my parents to visit for a bit, came home from there and watched football and a movie. Now, I'm back to work today and I'm really sleepy still. I think I may have to cut back on the meds a little bit and slowly build up, I can't function on work days like this. Not too much going on this week, should be a fairly inexpensive one.

Hope everyone had a great, fun, frugal weekend and is doing really well on their resolutions...

Current debt: $243,079.16 (darn interest brought this back up, grrr!)