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About Me:

Cindy

We're debt free! Well, almost. We still owe on the house, but that is our only debt.

We started the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps in October 2005 with $39,289 in credit card debt. It took 42 months to pay it off - and it was the best thing we've ever done.

Right now our goal is to have 3 months basic living expenses (baby step #3). We also want to to pay off the house and retire! I need to SAVE and be FRUGAL.

Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps
We didn't learn about Dave Ramsey until after the kids were done with college, so we get to skip baby step #5.
[x]1. Build $1,000 EF
[x]2. Pay off debt
[ ]3. Build 3-6 months EF
[ ]4. Invest 15% for retirement
[x]5. College Fund
[ ]6. Pay off the house
[ ]7. Build wealth

My Ten Goals for June 2009

[x] Visit with our new financial advisor
[ ] List 10 items on Craig's List and/or eBay
[ ] Get two auto insurance quotes to compare to existing policy scheduled to renew July 7th
[x] Get lawn chairs for cook-out on the 7th (POSTPONED)
[x] Host cook-out for friends on the 7th
[x] Make Father's Day cards for dad and dad-in-law, and maybe hubby too
[ ] Stain all three decks (right side, back, and left side)
[ ] Plan menus for the entire month - IN PROGRESS
[ ] Start a compost bin
[ ] Avoid the icy cold beverages on sale at the registers when out shopping - TRYING REALLY HARD

Baby Step #3 progress
Current savings: $1,000
06/30/09 goal: $3,000
07/31/09 goal: $5,000
08/31/09 goal: $7,000
09/30/09 goal: $9,000
10/31/09 goal: $11,000
11/30/09 goal: $13,000
12/31/09 goal: $15,000

My Pages

YouData, Loose Change,

May 29th, 2009 at 10:55 pm

Friday's spending:

$40.99 dog food
$130.00 plumber

The dog food should last about 3 weeks - we have two Chows.

The plumber was a budgeted expense and not an emergency. We needed to get hot water plumbed to the laundry room. A one time expense - thankfully!

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

I signed up for

YouData last month. Basically, they pay people to view ads. YouData deposits money into your Paypal account every Friday, paying you for the ads you viewed during the week. (I spend less than 5 minutes a day clicking on the ads.)

Being the last "payday" of the month, I just transferred my "earnings" of $2.33 from Paypal to my Bank account. That's a whole month of viewing ads at YouData. It's definitely nothing to brag about, but I do it anyways. Guess I could click on more ads in June! Smile

Total Added to Savings: $2.33

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

Like just about everyone else, I toss my change into a jar at the end of the day. Usually, I bring my change to the local CoinStar machine and dump the change in and listen to that wonderful sound of money sorting. It's like being in Las Vegas and winning at the slot machines.

But the CoinStar machines in my area charge a coin counting fee of 8.9 cents per dollar. In the past, I avoid the fee by opting for an e-certificate to Amazon.com which waives the fee. But this isn't really saving me any money. I'm forever shopping on Amazon to find out what I can spend my e-certificates on. (I still have a balance of $9.04 at Amazon just waiting to be spent.)

Today, I stopped into my bank and asked their policy on depositing coins into my savings account. I discovered they only take rolled coins and I can bring them in whenever I want. And she even gave me some coin rollers.

Even though my change jar has a lot of coins, I was only able to roll $11 worth of coins. And that $11 is in my savings account as I type.... Smile

Total added to savings: $11.00

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

I also listed a bunch of books on Craigs List. Hopefully they will sell and I can add to my savings.

Posted in Saving Money, Other Income Sources | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “YouData, Loose Change,”

HouseHopeful Says:
May 29th, 2009 at 11:55 pm 1243641356
1243641356

I use the bank to do my change too! They will provide you with wrappers and its very easy to roll the change while watching tv
creditcardfree Says:
May 30th, 2009 at 12:10 am 1243642244
1243642244

If your books don't sell on craigslist, try half.com, used books stores that buy books, or cash4books.net. There are also other sites that pay you cash.
lizajane Says:
May 30th, 2009 at 03:46 am 1243655195
1243655195

I usually roll mine to deposit also at the bank in my small town. When I went to the same bank in a bigger city on my lunch hour one day, they told me I'd wasted my time rolling it and they were required to run it thru the coin machine there. 20 minutes later they were done. I think it was $35 tops. 20 minutes!!! I made a mental note to take any further coin deposits to the local branch.
PottersClay Says:
May 30th, 2009 at 09:34 pm 1243719282
1243719282

cash4books.net was great! I started keying in the ISBNs and I'm finding I can get cash for about 1/4 of the books. I'll definitely go that route if no response from Craig's List. Half.com looks interesting too. Thanks for the tips.

Rolling the coins was definitely easy to do - and now I don't feel like I have to shop at Amazon. I can deposit the coins directly into my savings.

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PottersClay Personal Finance Blog

YouData, Loose Change,

4 Responses to “YouData, Loose Change,”

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