I will admit, I joined Facebook and am really enjoying it! Initially it was to hook up with people from high school before our reunion last year, but it is so much more! I have reconnected with "far away" family, some wonderful old friends and some super SA friends!

The best part, besides the updates and pictures, is the FREE games you can play. Not just the time consuming ones (I try to stay away from most of those! I don't need a Farm or a Fish tank! )But fun ones like Family Feud, Scrabble and even Uno! And it is all free and I can play them with my kids online at the same time with some of them! Nice for connecting with them when I have downtime at work! They have lots of fun word puzzle game too.

Going to talk to DH about him getting a second job. (AGAIN!) Wish me luck!

Wow, I rarely have these! I hope I can have many more. A new goal for me!
Tomorrow I my goal is to clean out the fridge and the pantry so I have a good idea of our inventory.
Having another NSD would be great too, but I never know until day is done!

September and the beginning of October are a landmine of birthdays here!
Managed to get away pretty easy. Bought DD3 a $15 phone card and a Reeses. She was thrilled. DD1 will be getting her own printer/scanner/copier I got on sale at Target for 28.88. Bought and stashed. DD2 wants Phantom tickets. This will be trickier. Expensive. Ugh. For Mom's bday, I bought 2 GC's for the price of one ($25) for a bbq place and took her to dinner. Ahhh, done for another year!

So, have been being pretty disciplined with my little babysitting charges. Their momma was not giving me money to take them out anywhere, so I stopped spending my own money. It takes a lot of discipline on my part, because mom is VERY strict and she has been working from home. Pretty hard to maintain your sanity when you are only allowed to play dollies or make art. These sweet little ones have mastered the art of WHINE and sometimes you just need a break! So I like to get them out and away from the house, but the parks have been off limits since the little one broke her leg. We have been doing the free movies a lot and I stock up on snacks from home before we leave. I fill up a backpack full and off we go! I took my kids and the baby sitting kids to the zoo last week. Our zoo is free and I packed a lunch from the babysitting house, so no cost to me. It was hard not to just run out and buy them all Lunchables or something, but I resisted! You have no idea how big that is for me.

That is it really. I had a NSD yesterday. Today I am going to take the little ones swimming. Dinner is planned, so another NSD looks to be in the works!

Spent today going through my coupons, purging, adding new ones. I saved over $10 at the store today! Whenever we have eaten out lately we have used coupons and gift cards. It pays to try to be a little organized.

DH and DD2 got 2008 Six Flags season passes for $10 each last year for going on the last day.
So I bought the "family pack" for myself and DD1 and DD3, with the parking pass. Today, it paid for itself and it is only June! I love that they have free coupons to bring friends and with your pass, you get a discount at every shop for drinks, etc. They have an awesome water park at our Six Flags too. So it was waterpark, out to the parking lot for our lunch from the cooler, under the trees, then back in for rides. The day was hot, but there was a breeze and the lines were SHORT!
Good time for all girls and friends, and everything from here on out is GRAVY!

I guess I'll say it is REWARDING the kids for saving money! At Easter time my kids have gotten too old for stuffed bunnys and crayons, so they have VERY generous family who give them lovely cards with money in them. (Not me! I still give them just candy and a special treat). Each child made off with $50 total. I told them if they put $20 of that in their savings account, I would add $5 to their account too. Bingo! All three stashed the cash! I'm so proud!

Help! We've been trapped inside with no school, no spend and cases of Girl Scout cookies. Ummmm..... life is good??!!

It was easy to have no spenders, but Saturday we got OUT and had SPECIAL OCCASIONS and Sunday we were BUSY and had to go SHOPPING. Well, you get the picture. We did spend, but not too much.

Wow the ice storms were nuts! And now more snow is supposed to come tonight. Please, please, please, make the kids go to school.....please!!!

Babysitting tomorrow. Good for the pocketbook, but not so good for the fybromyalgia. Ugh, the pain and all the other fun symptoms have been really flaring up this month. We did eat out too much, shot one of my goals down. At this point it is called survival.

Hoping to fix the wreck of Sat/Sun and make another snowflake payment to the Amex!!

Well, in reviewing the "ugly debt", I decided to move a hunk of the Amex to a 6.9% Chase interest rate good till the debt is paid. So I will throw $11,000 on there and make the left over amount the object of my snowflake, as it is the highest interest rate. So, housecleaning already!!

I have to snicker a little bit here. I am the girl guilty of spoiling my family till we are deep in debt. Of course, that has changed and I have tried to be very proactive in our debt pay off, at least in baby steps. First is no new debt. That is going okay. So I am learning to say NO! I guess even to the point of being a little mean. DH was extolling the virtues of a great boat, better than the last one he was looking at. I calmly said, "There is not a chance you will be buying a boat!" I hated to squash his dreams (for now!), but then again it felt pretty good! I never told him he couldn't stop dreaming or shopping for one, I just draw the line at BUYING.

I did a phone interview today and the lady wants me to come in tomorrow for a face to face. We'll see how it goes!

I did spend today. Our local store had a 10 for $10 sale, so I looked through my coupons and went and spent a little bit. Used a competitive grocer coupon for $10 off my total order too!

Picked up breakfast on the way to work with my Starbucks GC. Yum!

Went to work. This situation is getting WAY to uncomfortable!! Yikes! I'm sorry, but there is a woman who is running the business that is running it LIKE a man would say a woman would!! Secrets, back stabbing, running amuck!! AHHHH! I may have to quit before I find something else, as it is almost a moral dilemma for me!

DD3 wanted a new game for her Nintendo DS, so we gathered all her unplayed games and an old Gameboy her sister unearthed and traded it in. Not only did we get the new game for FREE, but we also got 8.15 in store credit for next time!! Woo hoo! They gave us money to take things from their store!

No, trading spaces did not come knocking at my door. My DD2 has been wanting to redo her room and finally decided on penguins. I sold a gift card for some things DD2 returned from Christmas and bought a bed in a bag set for her. Then we used the Home Depot gift cards I got for Christmas, for the painting supplies. Viola! A new room! I will try to post some pictures once we get everything back into place!

First off I have to say NO SPEND DAY!!

Okay, with that said, I need some opinions. I know what I think, but have to convince DH, so let me know if I am seeing this wrong. My mortgage broker called today. This is a person I have known for years and trust not to screw me over. He said we can refinance for no cost and that it would save us $50-$70 dollars a month. Now with the job search not going great, this would be welcome money. There is a new bank in town (that have favorable reviews) that is looking for new loans. He said we would have to pay 4 months escrow up front, but our old loan would refund us the escrow money we have in there,and we could then send that money to put toward the new loan. Our interest rate would drop about .25 of a percent. Certainly not earth shattering. We pay no fees or closing costs, just basically sign the papers and make new payments to the new bank. I guess they are giving some sort of bonus to him for new loans, cause I flat out asked him, if it is free for me, whats in it for him?? He just said "oh we still make money". So... thoughts, opinions?