Our Debt Free Mission

2009-12-23T08:08:00.001-08:00

Please visit this for my Aunt Karen, this is her second year participating in the 3 day walk!!

Paid off another debt!

2009-04-14T06:27:00.001-07:00

As of today we have paid off our car! This means that both of our cars are now bought and paid for! This will free up about $400 a month for us, although some of it will go towards paying for preschool for my daughter. She will be turning 3 next month, so it's time to get her into a preschool a few days a week.

We ended up paying off our car sooner than expected because every month we always paid about $10-$20 more on each payment and it might not sound like a lot, but it really did add up! So except for a few medical bills which should be paid off in a few months, we will be officially debt free!

I haven't written in a long time, because there wasn't much I could update about and quite frankly, I sort of forgot about this blog! We love where we live and I'm finally able to have my vegetable garden! This will save us lots of money as I plan on freezing a lot of it and making my own tomato sauce and freezing that as well. We even bought a small chest freezer in the basement to hold all the surplus and stuff I get free or super cheap from triple coupon shopping!

As far as making money online, I still get a little bit of income from Associated Content and about every other month I get a check from Cashcrate! I haven't done offers in awhile, but all my work getting referrals has really paid off!

Maybe I'll try to update more, probably to talk more about saving money and living frugally than paying off debt, since we don't have that much left!

CashCrate now accepts PAYPAL!

2008-09-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

This is some awesome news! I've been wanting Cash Crate to offer Paypal for payment for awhile and I am so happy that they now are!

I've still been making some money every month from Cash Crate ever since I signed up last year! It's one of the best GPT sites out there and they're always adding new offers and contests!

Still doing good

2008-08-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

Since we've paid off our credit card debt, things have been good. We are now in our new house and we're really enjoying it. My kids really deserved to have their own room and a place where they can play. It's so great to be in a nice, quiet, safe area.

The phone calls and letters from collection companies have finally stopped and there's a lot to look forward to. The car loan is almost paid off and we're slowly paying off medical bills and once things settle from our move, we're going to start saving for a down payment for a house.

I've gotten a few comments in my previous post about paying off our debt by taking out some money from my husband's savings fund. I completely expected to receive the comments I did and I know that most people wouldn't understand our decision. I do want to say though, that it was not a 401k and it was not a loan. We do have to pay some penalty taxes next April, but we are already prepared for that.

When we settled some of our previous debt last year, we knew the amount "forgiven" would be considered income, we received the necessary tax forms for them and it was taken care of. We are also fully prepared for any money we might owe the IRS for the amount of debt that was forgiven.

My husband and I gave our decision a lot of thought. I guess we did take an easy way out, but it was what we felt we needed to do in order to make a better life for our children. Just to make the record clear, I've never used a credit card in my entire life. All of our debt was from my husband's previous marriage and we haven't charged a single thing in 5 years. All of the credit card accounts are closed, the cards are cut up and we both are looking forward to a better financial future.

But this doesn't mean we are completely out of debt! We are still working hard to pay off those medical bills, we still live a very frugal life. I cook as much as I can, pack my son and husband's lunches, line dry our clothes, go to the library, live within our means, among many other things. We don't go on vacations, buy new clothes or buy frivolous items.

Our mission isn't over, but it does feel damn good to be free of credit cards. I've seen what harm they can do and my husband has learned his lesson. We both made a vow over a year ago that this is a new start and it will never happen again.

We're Credit Card DEBT FREE!

2008-08-15T20:31:00.001-07:00

Yes, that's right! After a year of trying to pay off our credit cards, it's finally happened, we are now credit card debt free! I know I've been neglecting this blog, but believe me, a LOT has been going on. First I'll explain how we were able to finally get it all paid off.

Well, we found a house for rent in a gorgeous area of Solebury Township of Pennsylvania. It's an old house, but that's how I like 'em! We'll finally have a back yard for the kids and it's right across the street from the school my son will be going to!

In order for us to afford to move to this house, we needed some money. We didn't have enough saved but we needed to move out of our apartment. Rosemary needs her own room and we were tired of the area we were living in. Plus, this house is actually cheaper than our apartment! So, we decided to take some money out of my husband's savings fund at work.

At first we tried to come up with other ways to get money to move, but there were no other alternatives. We realized that this could actually be a new start for us, so we took out enough to pay off the credit cards in addition to the amount we needed to move. We got some good settlement offers from the credit card companies and we are now officially credit card debt free!

We still owe some money for medical bills, but those should be paid off in a few months. In other good news, we only have a few months left on our car loan! Once that is paid off, we'll have over $400 a month left over!

I know you're probably thinking it wasn't smart to take money out of my husband's savings fund, but we agreed that once we are settled in the new house and get an idea of what our bills will be like there, we are going to increase the amount being taken out of his pay check that goes towards his retirement. We also justified taken the money out, because those credit cards were a lot of baggage from his first marriage and we really needed a fresh start.

But this doesn't mean that I won't continue with this blog. We are now more determined than ever to pay off the rest of our debt, save money and ultimately move a lot closer to my family. It feels wonderful to be free of those credit cards and we really did work hard to pay off most of them. There were only 2 left that we paid off with the money we took out, yet there was a total of 7 all together.

Next weekend is when we're moving to our new house, but I promise I'll update the rest of my blog, with our new totals for the medical bills debt and post more regularly. :)

Tough times

2008-07-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

For 2 months now finances have been really tough for us. I haven't been blogging as much because I'm depressed about money and not being able to update our debt payments on the left there. We haven't paid off anything and are just barely getting out Baby Emergency Fund back to $1,000.

Just the other day my husband's car needed 2 new back tires. It couldn't have come at a worse time, the first of the month which is when we have to pay rent and our gas bill. It was $224 for the 2 tires and an oil change. Now we are left with only $90 to last for 2 weeks. We made sure to budget plenty for groceries, but I'm afraid we might end up dipping into our grocery budget to pay for things like gas, copayments at Dr's, etc.

One of the things that's been hitting us hard is doctor appointments. My daughter had to get tubes in her ears and had to have a lot of doctor's visits. Next week is her follow up appt. to her surgery and it's $25 for that visit. I hope we won't need to dip into our emergency fund!

I've also been selling things like crazy on eBay and on July 12 our apartment complex is having a yard sale, so tomorrow and all this weekend we'll be going through our place gathering stuff to sell at the yard sale and what's left will go on Craigslist and ebay.

Things are real hard for us right now, I hope it starts to get better soon!

Under budget!

2008-06-15T17:35:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I made an entry called: Grocery Budget Challenge. I was going to challenge myself to get the most out of our grocery budget and have enough left over to transfer to savings, which will then go to pay off debt.

Our budget for groceries was $300 and I was under budget by $56.04! I was able to do this by shopping at Aldi's and taking advantage of triple coupon days at Superfresh! I went to Superfresh 2 times to do triple coupon shopping. The first time I spent $72 but got groceries worth $200. Some people can do better than that, but I did buy a few things during that trip that were on sale but I didn't have coupons for (ex. blueberries, hummus, salad).

My next trip I spent $20 but got $156.00 worth of groceries! I then only had to stop at the store a few more times for things that were on sale at certain stores, like flour, chicken breast and produce.

Our budget for the next few weeks is $350, but I know I will come under that. We have to stretch it out for awhile though because of the way my husband gets paid next month. I still have plenty of things stockpiled and I bought a bunch of meat on special today. I plan to go back to Aldi's and one of my missions is to try and find a local farmer's market. Wish me luck!

Stockpiling!

2008-06-09T16:30:00.000-07:00

2 weeks ago I cleared out a shelf in the bathroom closet and tried to organize some of my CVS and triple coupon shopping stuff. Here is a picture of all that:

As you can see, I'll probably never, ever have to buy toothpaste again! Out of sight to the right there is a bunch of Johnson's Buddies soap too.

Then last week I reorganized my shelves above the washer and dryer in the kitchen so I could put up all my stockpiles from triple couponing:

All of this I got for free or almost free with coupons during triple coupon days or matching up sales with coupons!

Yesterday, while taking a bike ride with my son, I found a metal 5 shelf storage unit on the curb, from someone's trash. When we came home I went back in the car and got it! Today I cleaned it all up because it looked like it was in someone's garage. I am using it for even more CVS and triple coupon stuff!

This actually isn't all that I have. I still have a few bags and a wash basket filled with stuff but I didn't have any room left. The bottom shelf is mostly the Nutrisystem food my mom sent and a bunch of things I got on clearance at Walmart for 75% off, I plan on using them as gifts for David's coworkers next Christmas.

The shelf above that I put an under the bed storage box on with a lot of little things to keep them better organized. There's more stuff in there I'll never have to buy again thanks to CVS: Excedrin, razors and toothbrushes. In the wipes container are a ton of Revlon emery boards and make up from CVS deals.

The 3rd shelf is mostly lotions, shampoo, conditioner and laundry, the shelf above that is Pampers diapers and wipes from CVS deals (she only wears them at night) then dish soap and a bunch of stuff from triple coupons. The very top shelf is toilet paper! :)

Grocery budget challenge!

2008-05-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

Today my husband got paid, so I went to add it to our spreadsheet of expenses/income. When I opened the document, I saw that my husband had a space already filled out for $300 for groceries! At first I was shocked that he expected me to buy groceries for the month with only $300, but then I realized that it was only until he gets paid again mid-June.

Now, I think $300 is a lot, but then again prices are going up everywhere but $150 a week for a family of 4 does sound like a lot. So I'm going to try and come under the budget of $300 and whatever is left over is going right towards the debt.

It's a good thing Superfresh is doing triple coupons again :) The only thing is, the cheap farmer's market in NJ isn't going to happen that much anymore because of the high cost of gas, so now I need to find a place locally to get cheap fruit and vegetables. Which reminds me, I really need to write about my seedlings I started! That'll be next :)

Back with cloth diapers

2008-05-26T13:40:00.000-07:00

For a few months I had to stop using cloth diapers on my daughter because she got a really bad rash. We're still not sure what it was from, but the daughter advised using disposables until it cleared up. I was a little uneasy about having to buy diapers because of the price and because of the environmental issues, but I knew I had to do what was best for Rosemary.

I ended up getting a lot for free using CVS extra care bucks but sometimes I did have to buy a box of diapers. My daughter goes through a LOT of diapers because she's a heavy wetter. We were going through a box of diapers every week for $13 (the cheapest brand I could find is Walmart's).

Now that everything is going up in price and we're still trying to get out of debt, I knew something had to be done to save some more money. So one of the things that could be changed was the diapers. Rosemary's rash was cleared for months now and I guess I got used to the convenience of disposables and she was all outgrown of her old cloth diapers so I never went back. Now it was time. I found about 20 AIO (all in ones) diapers on Craigslist for $75.

$75 might sound like a lot, but all the diapers were brand names, Kushies, Fuzzibunz, etc and they cost more than $10 a piece retail. The best thing was that they were all in ones and a few pockets, which meant they were very easy to use. Once she outgrows these or is fully potty trained, I can turn around and resell them, along with all her other old diapers!

So now I'm back into the cloth diaper thing and I feel better that I'm saving money and not throwing away so many diapers, Rosemary also seems more comfortable too!

Race4Offers is no more

2008-05-19T08:44:00.000-07:00

A few of you may remember me going on about how great Race4Offers was (a gpt site) but as it turns out, the site is no more. My first month with them I made a lot and never had any problems with my offers crediting but that slowed down dramatically so I stopped doing offers.

It seems as if it's now up for auction and when you go to the website it says that the site is suspended. So I am going to remove my links and if you're a member with links on your blog, make sure to remove them or else you might be losing that click as a potential referral. I'd rather have someone sign up for Cash Crate where you can actually make money than a place that doesn't exist anymore! :)

Lots of good deals!

2008-05-01T12:42:00.000-07:00

This past week I've been getting a lot of good deals! Here are a few of the best ones:

At Walmart Scrubbing Bubbles automatic shower cleaner is on sale for $12! That along is a good deal, BUT, in the 3/30 Smart Source coupon insert is a $10 off coupon! Making them only $2! I got 3 of them, I would have got more but I only had 3 coupons.

This weekend my mom is watching the kids for us (first break in awhile!) so my husband and I want to go to the movies. At ACME they are having a deal, if you buy $25 worth of select Kellogg's products you get 2 free movie tickets! There is a similar deal too, spend $25 and get 2 free tickets, so if you do both offers you get 4 free movie tickets and a $10 off your next order! Now my husband and I get to go to the movies for free!

I just found out that Superfresh is doing triple coupons, yet again! I really hope my bi-monthly shipment of coupon inserts gets here soon! To make it even better, they are doing Bonus Bucks!

Only 2 credit cards left!

2008-04-28T08:12:00.000-07:00

Today I paid off another credit card! We now have only 2 left and a medical bill. The medical bill will probably be the next one to get paid off since it's the lowest amount in line.

I honestly don't know how we're going to get the next 2 credit cards paid off. One is over $7,000 and the other is up to $20,000. I'm hoping this summer I can do a few flea markets and earn some money that way.

Last month we received over $100 in misc. checks. Most of them were rebates and refunds! All of it went towards our debt, which helped us pay off that credit card today. I have to update our April earnings, but I did update our debt payoff amounts on the left sidebar.

Happy Earth Day!

2008-04-22T11:59:00.001-07:00

Today to celebrate Earth Day I planted some seeds, which will hopefully sprout into a successfull container garden! I've tried container gardening in the past, but I got frustrated with the costs of the containers and plants. This year I am determined to get some vegetables!

Having a big garden is my dream and is what keeps me going with trying to get out of debt and save money for a down payment on a house. Being restricted by a deck at this apartment is depressing.

I spent about $10 to begin my container garden. I got organic Miracle Gro potting soil, small seedling starters and seeds. I could have tried to plant the seeds directly into the larger containers, but I need to see if the seeds will actually sprout before investing in some pots and window boxes.

This morning I planted parsley, cilantro, cayenne peppers, jalapeno peppers, green peppers, spring onions, roma tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, zucchini and peas. Another reason for planting seeds in the starter pots is so I have a little bit of time to acquire the containers I'll need, without spending a fortune. Soil isn't that expensive, about $1 a bag. I would like to try some hanging plants too for strawberries and tomatoes.

Even if I don't get much of a harvest from my vegetables, hopefully it will save us a few trips to the farmer's market, which saves money and is better for the environment. I'll be posting pictures of my progress!

Taking advantage of bank rewards!

2008-04-16T10:52:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago we received a letter from our bank about their rewards program called "Points4U". Whenever we use our debit card, we get points which we can redeem for prizes! My husband and myself both have a debit card from our bank, so I called and asked if we could get our points onto one account, to make it much easier to keep track of.

After they were combined, we had enough points for redeem for a Target gift card worth $50! The gift card came a week later and I used it to buy things I couldn't get free at CVS or from triple coupon shopping. Things like toilet paper, vitamins for the kids and similar items.

Even though the rewards are real nice, we're being careful not to overspend on our debit card just to get the points! :)

Question about moving/jobs

2008-04-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've been giving it a lot of thought to the actual process of moving and David getting a new job. Basically, my whole thing is, so when we do pay off all this debt and clean up our credit report (trying to remove all of the discrepencies), then what? How does someone actually go about relocating?

My thought is that I should start writing a resume for David. My mom said I just post it on headhunters (I guess that's a website?) and all the other online job places. So if he does get an interview and actually lands the job, then what? How does someone go about renting a place over 2 hours away then? Doesn't an apartment complex or even someone private want the tenant they're considering to have had a job for a few months? Or doesn't that even matter?

Different directions

2008-03-16T15:32:00.000-07:00

Since I last wrote we have been busy trying to get into the swing of things with the new elliptical and changing our eating habits. We are trying to get into a more healthy lifestyle and this has paid off! Literally! In order for us to fit our new elliptical in the space we wanted, we had to get rid of a few things. Instead of throwing them out, I wanted to see if we could get any money for them and I posted them on Craigslist.

We sold a glider with ottoman (the ottoman was broken), a lateral thigh strider, a rocking cradle and an elliptical/stepper (had a few problems, we lost the tool to tighten a certain screw that kept coming loose, the handle bar padding was torn and the cup holder was cracked) and we made $70! I realize that might not sound like a lot for all that, but like I mentioned, most things had something wrong with them or we were even lucky to get what we got for them.

So not only have we cleared out a lot of space but we made some money to go towards our debt! Last Saturday we set up our elliptical and I have already lost 1 lb.! In Dave Ramsey's book, "The Total Money Makeover" he compares debt to losing weight, so it's funny that those 2 are going hand in hand for us now!

Lately I've been thinking about the direction of this blog. When I first made it, I had the intentions of blogging a lot about making money online. But over the past couple of months I realized it's not really feasible for someone like myself to make a lot of money online. I tried the niche website thing, but I do not have the time or patience for that. The get paid to sites are really hit or miss and the time I need to devote to them I could spend more wisely to get a better outcome. I have decided I am going to put most of my efforts towards Pinecone Research surveys, paid emails, selling things online, living frugally and saving money as much as I can to pay off this debt. I will admit though, that I really enjoyed writing articles and I earned pretty much from them, so when I have the time I would like to try and get into that again.

March Earnings

2008-03-16T15:27:00.000-07:00

Misc. Income:
Rebates - $5.29
Items Sold on Craigslist - $70.00

Total Misc. Income - $75.29

Grand Total of Earnings for March - $75.29

Took a break

2008-03-05T14:40:00.000-08:00

I haven't been updating much because a lot has been going on and I needed a little break from thinking about how we're going to pay off all this debt. We did really well and paid off a lot of debt at once thanks to our income tax refund.

My husband has been diagnosed with high blood pressure, so we decided to take a mini break from paying off the debt so we could buy an elliptical. We really need to get in shape and sometimes your health needs to come first. Even after we bought a high end elliptical, we'll still have enough to cover the rest of our emergency fund.

As far as making money online goes, I've been busy working on pads and I hope to get a few articles written each week.

To save money this Easter, I am making my daughter's Easter dress! With all materials it was just under $10, which is a lot cheaper than buying it retail! Plus, I'll be able to have it just the way I want and it will be a thousand times more special. I'll make sure to post pictures when it's finished!

4 more bills paid!

2008-02-20T12:08:00.000-08:00

Today I finally mailed the checks out to take care of almost all the medical bills! We still have another one to pay off and it's next in line after we pay off another credit card. My husband is still trying to figure out who to get a hold of to pay off one of the other cards. I'll be honest, the debt we're trying to pay keeps getting shuffled from one collection agency to another. The last we heard, it was in the process of being sold. I would like to get it straightened out by the end of this week!

Another credit card paid off!

2008-02-18T13:16:00.000-08:00

ALRIGHT! It feels really good to have another one paid off and cross off our list! We have 4 more to go and some medical bills left! We have 5 medical bills to pay and I'm going to write out checks for 4 of them now! Then we can cross those off our list!

I finally added our total amount of debt to the top of the blog. We started out with $37,016.56 and we've paid off a total of $6,322.74, which means we now have a remaining balance of $30,693.82.

I'm not quite sure how we'll get the rest of that paid off by January of 2009, but we need to stay motivated and try as hard as we can. We still have to replace our emergency fund, but that shouldn't take too long.

Tomorrow we're going to try and pay off another card! We couldn't get a hold of the right people today :)

Time to pay off some debt!

2008-02-15T07:31:00.000-08:00

Today we got our income tax refund and it's time to pay off some debt! We will also be able to replace our emergency fund since we had to clean it out a few weeks ago.

We're really excited to be paying off some more debt and once we do I will update with the total amount of debt we've paid off since July.

As far as making money online goes, I've been starting to do some more offers on GPT sites and I've got a lot of ideas for articles. Lately I've been a little more focused on organizing the house so I haven't been able to spend as much time earning, getting new referrals, etc.

Paid off another card

2008-02-01T09:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we did closed another credit card out and it's another one off our list. The reason why I'm not too excited is because how it happened. We received, what I think is a "summons" that we were being sued by one of the creditors. It was going to cost us a fortune if we had to go to court and hire a lawyer, so I made my husband call the lawyers who was handling this for the creditor and they agreed to take a reduced settlement.

We're getting a letter stating that it's being closed and paid in full. The original debt was $3000 and the settlement was only $2500. If we didn't pay it we'd have to show up for court and spend well over $3000 that we didn't have. They were willing to take a postdated check so I had to transfer everything we saved to pay off the next card and the entire emergency fund to our main bank account to cover this. I consider going to court an emergency.

So, another one down, but we're worried that now the other creditors are going to follow suit and try to take us to court. Luckily we were able to file our taxes last night, so hopefully we'll have the refund soon and be able to pay off some more debt.

Our refund is less than we were hoping for. We had a 1099 from one of the credit cards we settled and the balance was considered taxable income and there was another 1099 from when I cashed out my 401k from a job I had years ago. The 401k was less than $500, but there's a 10% penalty also.

Getting the notice about court really, really scared us. We're now even more determined to have this debt paid off by Jan. 1 of 2009.

January 2008 Earnings

2008-01-28T17:48:00.000-08:00

Not much going on as far as earnings go right now, hopefully I can get that to change soon!

Cashcrate - $16.60
Associated Content (performance bonus) - $2.39
Surveys - $3.00
Rebates - $9.00
Advertising - $84.00

Total - $114.99

"Are you alive?"

2008-01-28T15:37:00.000-08:00

*lol*

Today I received an email from Blair over at Becoming Debt Free asking if I was alive! I had to laugh, because yes, it does seem as if I have fallen off the face of the earth lately!

January has been a difficult month for us financially. My husband's car was due for inspection and with everything that needed to be done with his car, we had to pay $800 to get it fixed. Well, technically it's not even fixed yet. We paid for the parts already but we're waiting for them to come in and then we'll pay for the labor and inspection fees when it gets done, which is hopefully tomorrow.

We could have used the emergency fund to pay for it but I'm not considering this an emergency. We knew the car would need an inspection and probably need something done. Even after all the bills for this month were paid and the car, we still have a little bit left over. But not much, not much at all!

Even after my husband gets paid at the end of the month, we're still going to be short for a few weeks since all of our bills are due the first week of the month. I just haven't felt like updating much since I was a little down in the dumps due to not having any money and not having much going towards debt.

I have managed to make a little bit this month with Cash Crate and some advertising. I will be updating my earnings after this :)