Today I woke up with some stomach issues & ended up buying breakfast at work. THis is the 2nd time I've bought food at work, and its been due to not feeling well both times I needed a lot of carbs in my stomach to help with acid, so I got a bagel & some breakfast potatoes.

However, to make up for it, lunch was free! We had burgers (and hot dogs for whoever wanted them), potato salad, macaroni salad, cookies and water. I also got a 'free' casual day at work to use when I want, and some little toys to keep at my desk. ALl in all, freebies are fun.

THey were pushing the foodbank donations at work and last time, I brought in a ton of stuff. So am going to work on getting some in this week.

I also need to rework my budget. I'm hoping to be able to buy some stuff for the AnySoldier.com program that Elisabeth was talking about in her last post.

Tonight, I have 5 Things I need to do:

1. Eat dinner at home, pack food for tomorrow
2. Work on Budget
3. Go to nephew's playoff game
4. Clean litter box
5. Organize list for home depot trip tomorrow

Well, I've never really put it out there, but here goes. I got a raise & my new annual salary is $41,000.00.

Per my work information, the company's estimated yearly cost of benefits are as follows:

Retirement $1325.83
401k Match $2328
Health & Income Protection: $3817.20
Social Security & Medicare: $3037.05

TOTAL: $10,508.08

So, my total annual compensation is roughly $51.5k.

I also get tax breaks for using my HSA which arent counted in this.

So I guess I'm not doing too bad. But one of my financial goals for this year is to look for a new position in or outside of my company that will challange me more (as well as pay more! lol).

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So I re-started at the part time job last night. We were sent home an hour early, so only worked 3.25 hours. Today I would have worked 8.5, but no work due the snow. So now, my 12 hour week turned into 3.25

This week (starting tomorrow), I'm scheduled 16 hours. Then 12 hours the following week.

I like the 12-16 hours. Definately do not want to be working the 20+ that I was during the holiday season.

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As for the roommate. He'll have been here 1 month this week. Paid when agreed, is neat and courteous. He stays up in his room most of the time, but he's starting to come out of his shell. This is definately working out!

When he pays me on the 9th (the agreed upon date based on the day he moved in), I will be taking the $487 and putting:

$91.30 to pay off the vet bill.
$45.00 to home repairs
$82.00 to increased utilities fund (includes the comcast upgrade he asked for)
$39.17 to pay myself back for a grocery splurge
$229.53 to the credit card.

Here's Monday & I'm in a sleepy mood. Dont want to work today

I've had a great weekend. Stayed within my grocery & entertainment budgets! Yeah

I'm kinda in a financial stall right now. I'm sticking within my budget, but as things are tight, I'm not putting as much to savings as I'd like. So now I'm looking at alternate ways to generate income.

The first step I'm going to take is to list some things on Craigslist. I have:

an old desk
a scientific calculator
a graphing calculator
a wireless router
an extra DVD player.


I have a lot of upcoming incedental expenses in the next month & every little bit helps. I have the following:

Car Registration
Car repairs - check engine light is on
Dental Bills - cavity to be filled
Sister Birthday
Dad Birthday
Dad Father's Day
Mini Vacation - want to drive to the beach at least 2 times this month. Can be done very frugally, but gas will still be an extra expense.

I've decided to not renew my AAA membership this year.

In lunch news, I've packed breakfast, lunch & snacks 100% of this month again so far! Its become pretty easy

And in utility news, my electric usage is low, more so than this time last year. My gas usage is at 0!

I still have yet to turn the air on, although its getting much more humid. I'm hoping to hold off as long as possible, but historically, by mid-month the A/C goes on.

Hope everyone has a good week!

I love tv. Love movies, reality TV, LOST, ect. But I'm getting more and more annoyed with the cost of cable.

I have bad habits with tv. I live alone, and have the tv on a lot for background noise. SO if I did get rid of the cable, I wouldn't want to give up tv altogether.

Right now, I utilize HULU for a lot of stuff. I get movies & older shows on dvd from the library. The main shows that I watch are available for free online somewhere.

So I wonder if I could live without the cable. I'm really taking the time to think this one through. And worst case scenario, I try it out for a month and decide to take it back.

Also, if I got rid of the cable, I probably would get rid of the land line as well, depending on if I can shop around for a better price from a non-cable company

I'd definately keep my high-speed internet, which would mean my bill would drop from 105.00 to about $47.00. It only cuts it in 1/2 bc of the packages I get for having phone & internet along with the cable, but every bit helps!

What are your thoughts?

Got a nasty cold and am feeling down right yucky. If there wasn't so much going on at work, I'd stay home tomorrow. So to cheer myself up, here's some numbers!

Today, I spent:

- $3.70 on breakfast & lunch at work because I was feeling too sick to make anything myself.

I received:

- 1 large box of Snowcaps candy from a coworker
- $20.00 gift card to the local mall from my employer

The mailman brought:

- $25.00 Pier One gift card from My Points
- $10.00 off $25.00 purchase to Lowes coupon

My current healthcare plan is:

- Going up $12.00/paycheck or $288.00/year for 2009

A similar healthcare plan option is:

- $10.50/paycheck LESS than my current plan for 2008
- Which is $252.00 LESS than my 2008 plan
- And $540.00 LESS than my current plan for 2009

My current Dental plan is:

- Increasing $0.25/paycheck. In 2009

The alternate Dental Plan is:

- $1.90/paycheck LESS than I am currently paying

(I would like to mention that the two plans are pretty much identical, just with two different companies – both of which prominent in my state)


My Health Care Spending Account will save me an estimated:

- $226.50 Tax Savings

Total Student Loan Payments this paycheck:

- $169.06

And the best number yet...........

.....
.....

Total paid to student loans in 2008 to date:

$8475.20 !!!!!!!!!!!!

Got paid today. Paid my mortgage & normal monthly bills. Put gas in my car and put $237.00 in an extra payment to my student loan.

I put the extra money from the electric budget ($37.23) and a few other catagories into savings. I like to build up a small amount in a freedom account for any expected 'unexpected' expenses (if you know what I mean).

Since I have all these planned savings and planned overpayment of my student loan, I sometimes have a tight month cash/spending wise. But its by choice. I want to meet my goals and for the most part its not a hardship for me to do so.

Last month, I had a lot of events - camping, a concert, and a wedding. So I spent more entertainment/gifts wise. So this motnh the entertainment budge is a little smaller

I also filled up the tank and made a BIG grocery run. I plan on doing some baking and I wanted to try making my own bread. Now I'm set except for getting some more milk and veggies later next week.

So now, after all is said and done, I've got a small amount left for discretionary spending.

From today until the 15th, I have:
-$16.02 in the gas budget (But I usually only fill up once a pay period).
-$36.96 for groceries
-$19.21 for entertainment/spending (this was already a lower amount than usual)
-$6.00 for cat litter
-$15.28 for personal items (really need to stock up in this catagory)

My goal is to stick to all of those budgeted amounts. To not go over in any catagory AND to not move funds from one to another. Its doable, mainly I just need to plan food and keep myself entertained VERY cheaply

Luckily, there's a lot of good tv on right now. And what I don't watch during the week, I can catch up on with Comcast On Demand and the internet

For meals,

I plan on having oatmeal for breakfast, tomato & cucumber salad & a cheese sandwich for lunch. Dinner will be pasta most likely

Thursday: Cheerios & milk for breakfast, pasta salad for lunch, meatloaf muffins for dinner.

Friday: Cheerios & milk for breakfast, salad w/ meat for lunch, tacos for dinner.

Today's start to the lunch challange went well! I did stop by the grocery store tonight to pick up salad fixings. For tomorrow, I will have:
Breakfast: Oatmeal, fruit cocktail
Lunch: A BIG, yummy salad and all bran crackers
Snack: Carrots and pudding.

Then tonight, I made a TON of phone calls, all financial related.

-First, my car insurance to confirm the final payment was received to pay through July. It was. There was also a 'convenience fee nicely tacked on for $4.00, which the rep kindly waved. ($4.00 saved!)

-Second, I called a company that I had signed up for a trial with as part of a Cash Crate offer. The shipping & handling was supposed to be for 99 cents. But my card was charged for $1.89. The rep said that they only billed for the 99 cents, but since the credit card is showing $1.88, they would credit back 99 cents to the charge. I pointed out that then the amount I paid them was only 89 cents and she said thats fine, she could only credit back in the amount of the 99 cents. (so 10 cents saved!)

-Third, a RIDICULOUS phone call with Comcast. They had made a billing error last month and charged me for phone & internet, but not cable (although they gave me the $10.00credit for the special I was on). I had pointed out the error last month, but the rep told me it was a system glitch and they would fix it in the next month's statement. Well, they did find the error & decided to charge me $50.00 for it. In reality, I should have owed about $40.00.

So I called to challange the charge and talked to what had to the be stupidist person alive. It took him 40, yes 40, minutes to understand that I was being double billed this month because I was not billed last month. All I wanted was for the bill to be corrected by $10.00 and the guy just kept reading the bill to me over & over. Then he refused to get me a supervisor. So I asked him to just transfer me to one of his peers. I figured a different set of eyes on the problem would help. He also refused that. I didn't want to hang up, because the hold times were ridiculous. If I could get an in house transfer, it would be a lot quicker. But he still refused.

Just when I was going to hang up on him, he put me on hold (without my permission) and then he transferred me to the New Jersey Sales department, which couldn't help me, even though they tried. I got a 2nd rep on the phone who helped me in like 5 minutes and gave me an $18.96 credit, which was more than I was even asking for! I got to talk to a supervisor after that and the guy told me that he was going to pull the first rep off the floor right now to have a discussion about what he did. Whether the supervisor did that or not, I don't know, but I seriously hope he did. (So, $18.96 saved!)

-And as I apparently am a glutton for punishment, I decided to start calling credit cards that I am no longer using (for over a year) and wanted to close. I closed
- Gap
- The Limited
- Chase (I actually transferred the line to another Chase card prior to closing it)
- Sony Visa.

All closed me within 5 minutes, with very little hassle! I received a lot of 0% offers, but refused them all. I don't have any credit card debt to transfer anyway. (No monetary savings, but I did get a big splash of peace of mind!)

I still have two store cards & 4 major credit cards open. Although I am not going to be using credit cards, I am keeping those few open for the time being.

I plan on keeping it a low key weekend this week. I have been fighting a migrane, we're in for a big snowstorm and truth be told, I'm just stressed about some familiy stuff.

I have some library movies & books and I've taken to pulling stuff from my dvd collection that I haven't seen in awhile.

Also, I put up an add for a roommate on Craigslist. Last time that I did it, I mostly got scams and scary people. So hopefully, I'll do better this time around.

I moved into my house October of last 2006. When I did, I signed up for Comcast's Triple Play program, which entailed cable, internet and phone. The program lasted over 14 months and this month it ran out.

So I called them and reached a customer service rep. I explained that I am living on a budget and I need to do something about my bill going up $45.00 this month. I nicely explained that I've gotten several offers from other companies like Verizon, but I wanted to talk to them first.

The girl was able to finagle some things and give me the internet, phone and cable for $5.00 more than what I'm paying now. The new plan took away long distance & voicemail from my phone. Which was fine, because I didn't use either. Then the plan upgraded my cable from regular cable to digital, which I'm enjoying.

I really had started out the call expecting a fight. But I just started things out nicely and the call went that way. I hope the call goes as smoothly next year when my rates reset again

When I got my house, the electric company made me put a $180.00 deposit on the account. They told me that after a year of on-time payments that I would get the amount credited to the account. So since last month, I’ve been literally begging them to send me a check for my money.

I’ve never even had an electric bill over $100.00, so why should they get to keep my money for an extra couple of months. They said it would take about 6-8 weeks to get a check out to me, which is ridiculous, but even with some excessive begging, I couldn’t get them to commit to doing anything quicker.

Anyway, today is the day that the electric company bills me. Normally, I just go online, where they will show the balance due. But of course it was $0.00, since I now have that large credit on the account. So I called them and I found out that I had my best electric bill so far!!! $50.58!!!! And that in the next 2-3 weeks, I should be receiving a check for the difference of $129.42.

So I’ll be waiting for that check, which will go towards my student loan. And the $120.00 that I’ve budgeted for electric & gas for this month is going towards a birthday gift for my nephew. I wanted to give my sister some money towards his Karate Lessons. The kid has WAY too many toys, but loves his Karate. And my sister just had a big financial setback in that my nephew’s father is no longer willing (not able, but willing) to pay child support even though the courts ordered him to. So I know $120.00 will go a long way to help her and my nephew

Some quick updates:
-I made my 12 no spend days for the month!
-I ended up working 20.5 hours of overtime last week
-Yesterday, I bought 4 deoderants, 1 V05 shampoo and 1 conditioner, and 3 Aquafresh toothpastes for 8.33 (or 88 cents each)
-Today, I bought hair products with a gift card to the local pharmacy
-I'm looking for another prescription transfer offer to another pharmacy to get some kind of incentive gift card. Every little bit helps
-I worked 6 hours of overtime today
-I put my car back in the shop because of the check engine light coming back on. Total cost was $135.59.
-My overtime goal for this week is to do 16 hours between now & Thursday. I have vacation time for Friday & Saturday. I plan on using the 4 day weekend as a mini vacation. I'm not going anywhere, but I am going to get some much needed rest.
-I lost another pound this week. I'm down 4.8 lbs so far!

And one random thought---does anybody else get annoyed at those Visa commercials where everyone is paying with their debit card & its going smoothly, then everything grinds to a halt when one guy wants to pay cash? I can't stand those commercials. Which is ironic, because I use my debit card more than cash

I opened up a trial size toothpaste this morning that I had gotten as a free sample. I have another one somewhere in the drawer. Its berry flavored, with a hint of mint, which is a little weird, but it was free & it'll last me a good long while I'm going to organize & use all my free samples, before they get lost.

I'm going to be putting together an organizer for my card collection. I keep a stock of cards for birthdays, sympathy, congratulations, ect on hand. But when I go to find them, I can't because they've been shoved into some drawer in the spare room. So I cut the top off a tissue box & I'm going to organize the cards in it tonight. This means cleaning out my desk drawers, but that needs to be done as well.

I'm in the process of reading Green with Envy: Why keeping up with the Jones is keeping us in debt by Shira Boss. I got it from the library awhile ago, but I'm making time to finally read it this weekend. After that, I'm re-reading the last few Harry Potter books so when the new one comes out July 21st, I'll be refreshed!

I am holding off on my impulse to pre-order Mean Lean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich. I LOVE this series. I have all the other books in hardback. But I"m really trying to hold off on it, get it from the Library and just put it on my Christmas list in December. We'll see.

I've been listening to back episodes of Dave Ramsey's show & heard his guest Henry Cloud. I put two of his books on my want list at the library. Boundries, and Integrity. Both should be good reads.

For the weekend, I plan to:
-Deep clean the house
-Finish cleaning the basement after the repairs
-Clean out my car, including vaccuming
-Start updating my resume
-Put some stuff up on Craigslist (I keep putting this off)

Next week I plan to:
-Finalize my car insurance decision
-Work any OT available to me
-Pack breakfast, lunch & dinner every day next week, no exceptions!
-Work on prescription billing issues

I was just updating some numbers for myself to see where I stand and decided to share.

January I had a total of $2852.63 in cash savings.

Today I have $9038.44 (not including 401k, IRA, and savings bonds)

Seeing the numbers makes me want to save even more Right now I'm playing on the computer & watching a movie borrowed from the library. I have the heat off, windows open and the lights off. I want to keep my electric bill low, all the extra in that budget catagory goes to the student loans too

I'm going in for overtime tomorrow. Somewhere between 4 & 7 hours. We'll see how I hold up. I'm still feeling a bit ill. If I'm up to it, I have $20.00 in gift cards to Bed, Bath & Beyond, plus a 20% off coupon. Its about a 1/2 hour drive there, but I might go & try to get a few gifts for my gift closet. I have some birthdays coming up soon.

I have about 3500 points in my MyPoints account. I'm thinking about cashing that out too, so I can use a gift card for the birthdays too.

I never checked my mail on Saturday and I grabbed it on the way into work this morning. It’s a good thing that I looked through it before I went to the doctors. In the mail was an offer where you get $25.00 off any purchase if you bring a new prescription into the local Happy Harrys. So I took my antibiotic in. They wouldn’t allow me apply the $25.00 to the prescription (which ended up being 8.92), so I got a $20.00 gift card to the store, to use for future prescriptions. And I go some candy, a drain strainer for the kitchen sink, and a body poof for the additional 5.00. I had returned something to Lowes earlier that day and was issued a 9.91 credit on my Chase Amazon card, so that, combined with the $25.00 statement credit paid for my co-pay & prescription, so it was no money out of checking. And I still have 5.99 left on the credit 

Then, for my family birthday, we went to Texas Roadhouse. Very yummy. My sister gave me a $50.00 visa gift card (which was really too much), my 6 year old nephew gave me an XBOX game (Spiderman… more for him than me), and my parents gave me a digital camera. Its pretty nice, not the one I was drooling over. But seriously, I never would have bought that one, it was way too much. I am SO psyched over the camera! I plan on taking lots of pictures & sharing!

So just to tally for April, I received a 25.00 Chase credit, a 5.00 Pinecone check, 20.00 Happy Harry’s gift card, 5.00 of free stuff from Happy Harrys, and a $50.00 gift card! I also got those pillows, a couple of really nice dinners, and the digital camera! For May, I’m looking at a $400.00 gift card from work (I made the 160% production), and a $10-20.00 deposit in my checking.

And here’s some April Totals:

April ING interest $39.18
April Emigrant interest $9.70
April Savings Total $3328.04

Ugh, after a real weekend off (first in quite a while), I went back to work today for some overtime. I'm working 8am to 2pm, then I'll run a few errands. I have a 3:15 doctors appointment & my family is taking me out to dinner tonight for my birthday.

I plan on being home by 8-ish. So I can premake food for tomorrow and then sit down to watch the new episode of Heros. I am SO addicted. By the way, any Veronica Mars fans out there-- the new season starts Tuesday! I love my shows

I packed my food for work today, but I will be shelling out for the office visit & medicine. Oh well, I have the money for it. I'll use the 25.00 credit I have on my chase amazon credit card, and I have some money sitting in my medical fund.

I have a whole to do list for this week, entailing cleaning & organizing around the house. I also want to gather some video games and some dvds to sell in the resale shop. Due to my planned and unplanned spending for this month, I didn't put ANY of my overtime money towards savings out of my paycheck today. So I am looking at other ways to do that. Every little bit counts.

I am happy to note that I have not turned on the heat. I am using the fans some, but not a lot. My electric/gas bill went down consideribly and should be even lower for May.

I also put an ad up on Craigslist to rent my room out. I had a couple of interested parties. I'm still not 100% committed to renting the room out to somebody that I don't know, so I figure I'm going to go really slow about this

Up until this year, I've always been on my family's AAA membership. I've used the services a few times & I really feel that its important to have that help since I'm a single woman who knows nothing about cars

So this year, I signed up for the AAA membership on my own, since my primary address is now different than my family's. I used a link through MyPoints, saving $10.00 off the annual fee, and getting 2 extra months as part of the deal. Then I used my Chase credit card, which had a $10.00 credit from making $100 of purchases last month. I had put my gas and groceries on there and paid it off immediately. So my true out of pocket expense for the membership was $39.50! Plus I'll get points towards a gift card through mypoints.

I feel like I got a GREAT deal!

I feel happy that, although its been pouring non-stop since yesterday & the wind is really howling, I haven't needed to turn on the heat in a couple of days. Its a litle chilly, but I just put on my slippers & the cozy robe that I bought on sale recently. I can't wait til it turns warm & I can keep the windows open.

I've been working hard at overtime, working nearly 7 days a week. Its something Big that I've been doing to meet my savings goals, but it has been taking its toll on my health. So I'm going to slow it down some & if I don't meet my goals by the time the overtime stops in May, then so be it. I'll find other ways to do it.

I worked 6 hours of OT today & originally I was going to work 7 or 8 hours tomorrow. But since my stomach problems have been acting up, I'm going to see how I feel when I get up, but if I do go in, I'm only going to work 4 or 5 hours. Then I'll doze away the afternoon on the couch

I premade food for tomorrow, so if I do go in, I have food to take & lunch to come home to Dinner will be a veggie burger & baked fries, both of which are in my freezer.

They put our paychecks up online at work a few days before we get paid. So I checked mine today & my paycheck on Friday is going to have 683.90 in overtime money! All of which is going straight to savings! Plus 130.00 from another monthly bill that I only pay 8 months of the year! So it'll be a total of $813.90 to savings on Friday.

I only worked 3.5 hours of OT last week, but I"m going to do between 14 and 20 hours this week (depending if we are open on Sunday). I am $1810.86 away from my 2007 savings goal (to be completed by 12/2007). I would have been a lot closer, but I have been throwing some of the extra money at my student loan. Once the savings goal is completed, I'm going to put all extra income towards paying down my student loan.

And here's a few quick updates:
-I spent .55 today for a soft pretzel, although I packed my lunch & snacks today
-Yesterday, I had dinner out with my parents & spent $16.65.
-I had 4 no heat days and I'm back to using the heat, but I am keeping it low.

No spending yesterday or today. For Easter, we had brunch at my sister's work. She and I were to split the bill, but she wouldn't let me. Apparently her boss compped (spelling?) her for 1/2 the bill. So she refused to let me contribute. Which I REALLY appreciate. The brunch was GREAT!

Afterwards, my parents & I went to see The Reaping. My parents treat, they wouldn't let me contribute either.

I got some goodies for Easter- a decorative basket, some toiletries, and a few knick knacks. No candy since dieting.

On Friday, I received a $2,500 check from my Aunt's estate. I've known for a year that this money was coming, and I've planned to set it aside in a New-To-Me Car fund. I figure I've got about 2 or 3 years left in the car I have currently, so it'll come in handy

I'm working 6 hours of overtime tomorrow and then I'll head to the bank to make a deposit.

I have a $5.00 Pinecone check, the $2,500 inheritance check, the cash I had planned to use today and the $40.00 found money from earlier this week. All of which is going into my savings, plus 20.00 of my bimonthly 'spending money' that I'm not going to use before I get paid again.

Tonight I'm working on a meal plan for the week. I'm planning on packing my meals for work through Saturday breakfast, lunch & dinner at work (working 9am to 8pm most days). It's easy to do as long as I plan. I have most of the stuff at home already, but I do need to pick up some veggies from the store tomorrow. I'm hoping to come underbudget on groceries for the next few weeks, since I overspent last month (stocking up on some great sales).

Oh, and because I just got around to totalling my March spending, here's my March savings total! $1179.45

I have accounts with both ING & Emigrant and I've decided to start tracking the monthly interst on savings.

March's total : $42.12
Year to Date: $106.84
Month to Date: $6.46

A digital camera has been on my wish list for a long time. Its definately not something I could put on my birthday wish list (too expensive), so its been sitting on the sidelines. I have no camera at all. The crappy one that I got for opening an account with a local bank died after the first use. And the bank was crappy too, so no shock there.

its sad, but I google cameras on a daily basis. I REALLY want a Sony Cybershot. The version that I like (not the most extravagent) retails for around $150.00. I have been looking at alternatives, so if anyone has suggestions, please let me know.

I've earmarked all my overtime money to savings and when I meet that goal, then its going to my student loan. So I've been thinking of ways to come up with funds for the camera without using the OT.

So I've decided to take the $40.00 of my 'found' money (see today's earlier post) and start off my camera fund. We'll see how it goes from there.

Ironically, one of the things I'd like to do with the camera is take pictures of things I'd like to sell on Craigslist. I defintately wouldn't make enough from the sales to justify the camera, but I'd like to get rid of some stuff since its clutter.

I am SO anti clutter. I came from a home overrun with stuff and junk and space-wasting crap. Its REALLY bad. And I just can't take it. So while I may let a pile of clothes grow in the corner of my bedroom, and I may leave the sales inserts on the coffee table for a few days, for the most part I am organized. And that comes from being clutter free. Now I just have to get rid of some stuff from the basement and I'll be all set

Just paid 165.45 to savings! Now I'm $2,721.42 away from my 2007 goal!

I've been looking at this goal as almost a debt to myself. I owe it to me to get the rest of the amount by the end of the year

I'm keeping up with the overtime- Working about 11 hours this week. I have worked 53.5 hours of overtime for the month of March (Up from 40 hours in February).

I'm going to aim for 60 hours in April. Definately doable !!

I haven't gotten the bill with the breakdown between gas and electric yet, but the website gives me the total and I am happy to say that my electric AND gas went down by $38.19 !! This is based on a much larger month than the February was. So even though there were more days in this cycle, I still paid less.

I really want to see how much my gas usage has changed... mainly because I installed that new programmable thermostat. And I didn't install it until about a week into March, so I still should see more savings in April. I'm also hoping that it'll warm up soon & I won't be using heat as much. I was able to open my windows up on Sunday (it was beautiful out!) but then it was back to heat on Monday.

Overall, I'm happy at the savings and the extra between what I budgeted and the actual amount will be going directly into savings!

It was on my financial goals list this year. I wanted to get it done in January, but I prioritized overtime above making the appointment. NOW I'm finally getting around to it.

I have an appointment with my bank to set up an IRA. Once its set up, I'll submit the paperwork to my previous employer to move my 401k over. I'm excited because I also want to talk about contributing for 2007. I hope to make the contribution limit by April of 2008. To be honest though, its all dependant on overtime. If it keeps going, I might make it, if not, I'm going to have to get that 2nd job to make that goal.

Well, I was going to go in for overtime today, but I just really needed the day to relax. I worked 17.5 hours of OT last week and even with skipping today, I can probably work about 10 this week. I did pretty much nothing all day and it was great!

Yesterday I did some deep cleaning in the kitchen & living room I did all my laundry over the weekend. And while I had a few things to do, non were pressing. So I vegged all day. Even got an afternoon nap in

Obviously, since I stayed in all day, it was a no spender And I've already premade my food for tomorrow. So tomorrow should be a no spender as well.

I deposited more money into my savings after I was paid on the 15th, so because I like to see the big numbers--- I totaled the amount I've added to savings this year.

January $300.97
February $1345.43
March (so far) $1014.00

I got paid today and used most of my overtime money towards savings and student loans. Since I've upped my 401k, my take home was a bit lower, but thats what I wanted I've upped it again to continue through overtime, and since I don't want to lose the extra take-home, its actually motivated me to do even MORE overtime.

Anyway, I put $300.00 directly into savings, $50.00 to student loan principle. I also used some of the funds to replenish a few of my cash catagories that I had used to pay for my IKEA trip last weekend. All planned, all good

My goal for March is to do an average of 10 hours of overtime per week. There's 5 weeks in March, so I should make 50 hours. I'm hoping to beat that figure. We'll see how it goes. I'm getting a bit burned out from the overtime.

Today was a no spend day, packed breakfast, lunch AND dinner for work. No money spent on vending machines or the company cafe! Yay.

Since I'm getting so much overtime, I upped my 401k withholdings to utilize the extra income in retirement savings as well as my regular savings. Since I've been with a new company, my 401k matching doesn't start until 1 year, so It'll go into effect in June. They match dollar for doller up to 5%, per paycheck. I can't wait!

The place I buy my expensive anti-crystal cat food has a frequent buyer program, which I never remember to get stamped for. Well, the girl ringing me up noticed this, and went back through my records. I ended up getting 2 bags for free! Sweet!

I worked 40 hours of overtime in February and I"m going to beat that figure for March.

Yesterday I packed my food for work. I'm working so much overtime, I'm taking both my lunch AND dinner at work. I didn't spend a dime on food at work. However, I did stop at the grocery store for some salad stuff. Spent $12.01.

Today I packed again & I'm heading straight home after work, so today will be a no spend day.

I've been doing ridiculous amounts of overtime. Its getting to the point where people are teasing me for working so much. I'm averaging about 10 hours a week. I've already met my 10 hours for this week, but I"m thinking about coming in Sunday for a few extra hours. Probably 11-3.

I increased my 401k witholding, while I have the OT & I'm looking to keep it there even when the OT runs out.

I've been throwing all my extra income straight into savings, but I think I'm going to put some of it to paying down my student loan. I really want to get that one down since my parents cosigned for it. They don't mind it, but it bothers me that they're associated with that debt. I have always been aggressive with the payments, but less so since I bought the house. Its time to step up on those payments!

Just a quick update on my February #s. I'm still totalling the spending, but I've already calculated the amount I've transferred into savings: $1,344.61!

Some of this was my state tax refund (122.00) & an inherited insurance dispersement ($470.00). The rest is all from my overtime and any misc. savings. This is a great number!

I know I way overspent on eating out this month. So my goal for March is to make up for it.

I'm continuting with my overtime, I did 21 hours in January & 40 hours in February. I'm trying to do about 10 hours a week through the end of March. Every little bit helps!

Well, the ice storm is headed this way, set to start a little after 1pm here. I'm at work (yes, on a Sunday). I leave at 1. I'm hoping to stop at Lowes right before the storm to pick up some salt. Then if it hasn't started snowing, I'm going to the grocery store. I just want a few veggies, so I'll be able to go through the quick lane.

Its a miracle, but my work is still offering overtime & will continue to do so through the end of March. I'm hoping to do 10 hours a week during that time.

I will have 357.00 to add to savings from Wednesday's paycheck. I also have $478.32 from an inherited insurance payment, which will also go directly to savings.

When I have my taxes back, that will also go directly to savings ($936.00)

I've roughly figured that if I continue to do overtime through march and I put all the overtime into savings, then after that,I will have less than $1500.00 to save by the end of the year to meet my goals. Which would be awesome.

However, I am not going to let myself get burnt out. If I can't do the 10 hours without overstressing myself, then I won't. But I am really going to try to do so, with the minimum amount of stress.