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Archive for May, 2006

End of the month tally

May 31st, 2006 at 05:08 pm

Well, since today is the last day of the month, I thought I would add my last few additions to the challenge. I saved $4.69 in coupons last night at Publix, and I also sent the Walgreen's rebate form in for $4.49. This brings my total for the month of May to $161.68.

I think I'm going to change my process a little, just to make my life easier. From now on, I'm not going to worry about weekly goals or totals, just monthly. I'm shooting for saving or earning $100 per month.

My outstanding items are: $1 from ebookdrop.com (which I may or may not see), $4.49 Walgreens rebate, $50.00 Bank of America bonus, and $10.00 gas rebate from Traveler's Advantage.

Weekend update

May 30th, 2006 at 04:11 pm

At the end of last week, I was at $121.50 for the month. I paid myself $5 for the massive cleaning I accomplished on Saturday (I was finally able to de-clutter a little around the house). I also met my exercise challenge, which added another $1. This weekend, I saved a total of $25 by using coupons ($1 at Walgreen's and $24 at CVS). This brings my total to $152.50. I'm very happy with my saving so far. It's amazing how quickly the little things can add up.

Free tank of gas!!

May 25th, 2006 at 09:37 pm

Well, this week has been a good one for me challenge-wise. I was off work yesterday resting from my business trip. My husband asked me to help him with a work-related errand. He had to go about an hour away to pick up a car and needed someone to drive him there. His employer filled up my car before we left and then again when I got back. I figure that saved me about $40 at least. I've added that to my challenge money, of course.

This means that this week has already made up for the slow week that I had last week. In addition to my free gas, I also had about 3 no-spend days, since all my expenses for my business trip will be reimbursed.

For the month, I have already met my goal - I am currently at $121.50.

This is a slow saving week.

May 19th, 2006 at 04:34 pm

It's Friday and my "saving week" ends today. I'm not even half way to my goal because so far I've only saved $8.27. It's so easy to get discouraged, but I just have to focus on the long term goal and the benefits of what I HAVE saved. I guess I'm up eight dollars from where I was before the challenge. Also, I have a total of $77.87 in challenge account, which means that I've done pretty good for the month. I need to average $90/month to meet my end of the year goal, and I should be able to make that for May.

Great Mail Day!!

May 18th, 2006 at 08:55 pm

I normally hate going to the mailbox, because I usually only get bills, bills, and more bills. However, yesterday I got two unexpected surprises.

1) A packet from the Publix Pharmacy. It was four coupons for a $25 Publix gift card for switching two prescriptions and having them both refilled twice. I'm very excited about this. I have really low co-pays anyway, so I don't really have pharmacy-loyalty issues. I don't mind switching at all. And, then I get $100 worth of free gift cards. Smile I'm not sure yet if I will save these and use them to buy other gift cards for gifts for others, or if I will actually use them to buy groceries.

2) The second surprise was a postcard from Toyota. If I go test drive a new Toyota before June 30th, I get a $50 Prepaid Mastercard. I'm actually in the market for a more fuel-efficiet car right now anyway, so this will definitely motivate me to start looking.

Progress so far....

May 17th, 2006 at 09:34 pm

I'm just starting my fourth week of the challenge and this is what I've accomplished so far:

Week 1:
I sold some books on half.com a few things on ebay for a total of $18.92

Week 2:
Money saved with coupons at CVS and Food World for a total of $32.19

Week 3:
Sold books on half.com and ebookdrop.com, met my water and exercise challenge (only one day though)Frown, used coupons at CVS, and received a gas rebate check from Traveler's Advantage. Total $18.49

I figure if I can keep averaging $20/week, I will have $720 by the end of this year.

Total challenge: $69.60

Extra work = Extra money

May 17th, 2006 at 07:51 pm

I just got a call from the nursery coordinator at the church that we just started attending. My DS is in the nursery there, and they ask that parents sign up to work one service a month. The coordinator explained to me that I could volunteer to work once a month, or I could commit to every other week or weekly and get paid. Of course, I signed up for the weekly one. It pays minimum wage and it will probably only be about 2 hours a week. It's not alot of money, but every little bit helps!!

Since my short term goal is to save or generate $20/week -- this will bring in about half of that each week.

Just getting started....

May 16th, 2006 at 09:19 pm

I actually started my $20 challenge about 2 weeks ago, but I haven't had a chance to make any entries in the journal until now. I'm so excited about this challenge because I'm always looking for new and creative ways to save money.

From what I've read on the other blogs, it seems like everyone is kind of doing his or her own 'take' on the challenge. I hope this is the case, but that's exactly what I'm doing!! LOL

Basically, this is my plan:
I want to save and/or generate at least $20 each week by doing something that I would not ordinarily do.

How am I going to do this?
1. Coupons/Rebates. Now, since I've been using coupons for awhile now, I knew I had to change it up a little. This is what I came up with. Before the challenge, I saved money by using coupons, but I never set aside any of the money, so it basically got spent somewhere else. Now, I've started looking at my receipt and actually transferring the amount that I saved into my Challenge savings account (I opened a new account so that I know this money is separate). I'm using the same concept with various rebates that I get. Instead of going into the checking account, they go into the Challenge savings.

2. Selling books on ebookdrop.com and half.com.

3. Walking/Water Challenges. I pay myself $1 if I walk for at least 30 minutes and $1 if I drink all my water that I need to drink for the day. Hopefully, this will motivate me to do these things, since I need to be doing them anyway. Smile Oh, this money gets transferred to Challenge savings too.

I'm still trying to think of other ways, so please feel free to send suggestions.