Gift Cards Redeemed!

I've posted before about using swagbucks to earn amazon gift cards, but I also use Bing Rewards!  Bing is probably easier but a little more limited in the amount you can earn per day.  The results aren't random like swagbucks.  You automatically earn 1 bing reward for every 2 searches up to a certain number.  My number has been 44 lately.  I make sure to do this every day and it adds up pretty quick.

Today I used my combination of gift cards from BING and Swagbucks and bought my son's 3rd bday gift.  It was 69.99 and I didn't pay a dime for it!  I even got free 2 day shipping!  He's getting a little tykes work bench that has a motor to work on attached to it.

GROCERY DEAL!

This week Knorr sides are on sale 10 for $10, I usually pick up 10 of these when there's a deal like this.  This week is even better and you get a FREE 3 lb back of best choice chicken with it!!!  Of course last night when I went to take advantage of the sale the chicken was already gone :(  They did give me a rain check for it though!

I do not NEED...

an IPHONE, but I really really really WANT one!  I almost ordered one once but didn't.  I'm not getting one because my verizon contract is over tomorrow!  I've been planning on canceling it once the contract is up and switching to straight talk.  It will save me about $55 a month on the cell phone bill!  Today while at the zoo my camera battery died, but my little sister happened to be with us and have her awesome IPhone 4, so I used it to take pics the rest the morning, which only made me want one even more!  Not only could I take great pics with it, I was able to upload them straight to shutterfly.  I was pretty impressed that I was able to type on the touchscreen pretty quick too!  I don't need it. I don't need it. I don't need it.  Just reminding myself!  That $55/month I'm gonna be saving will be great to add onto the mortgage or to save for a replacement vehicle, or some home remodeling projects, etc.!

FREE Lunch!

This week is Nurse's week, which at some point in time became hospital week.  I feel like making hospital week the same week as nurse's week minimizes the recognition of nurses, that's not the point of this post though.  We have had several activities at work this week.  Wednesday we had a "poker walk," which I won with a full house (8-8-8-4-4)!  I received a free lunch ticket today for it, 10 punches :)  That saves me $20 over the next couple weeks!

Second Job

I've thought about trying to find a second job to help pay off debt, something like waiterissing or bar tending maybe.  I do actually have a second job, I take call for the ambulance, doesn't pay a whole lot but I do enjoy it and I feel like I'm helping give something to my community by being part of the service.  We have a set amount of pay per call, but as of January we are actually getting paid $1/hour, doesn't sound like much but it adds up pretty quick!  I've been picking up lots of extra call time, especially the midnight to 6am shifts.  The extra shifts mean there's an increase chance of getting a call, so I've ended up with more calls too.  I had a $500 paycheck for the month of April.  Once we get rid of my car and only have the mortgage debt left I plan to start putting all these checks towards it!  

No Sale

No one showed up yesterday for my car or no one that we know of, if they showed up after noon the dealership was closed.  They had also been hard to get a hold of through the week and hadn't called since Monday.  My car did get cleaned up really good though and there are 2 other potential buyers interested in it, one of them is even local.

PAYDAY FRIDAY!

I'm not near as excited about payday as I am about selling my car tomorrow!  I've already paid a couple bills first thing this morning.

Cable/Internet/Landline- $140.00 - We thought about getting rid of the cable, but my sister is going to be babysitting in our home this summer, so I think we'll keep it.  The landline is because when my Grandma babysits I need to be able to get ahold of her.  (One time I had a bottle of Apple Juice that I used to mix some alcoholic apple pie drink in, I really needed to let Granny know that it was NOT apple juice b4 she gave it to the 4 y/o and I couldn't get ahold of her!  She didn't give it to her.)

Verizon- $136.00 - Our contract is up May 13th!  I plan to order 2 straight talk phones with the $45/month unlimited everything!

Blue Cross Blue Shield- $240.00 - This will be my last of these payments!  DH is getting insurance through work and his will be completely covered, then about $100 a month will be taken out for the kids to be on his plan.

DayCare- $272 (every 2 weeks)- no cutting here and this is really reasonable.  This summer I plan to pay my 16 y/o sister $150/week.  This will save us from driving about 12 miles every day, DH will start driving his moped to work everyday as soon as schools out for the summer and he doesn't have to take kids to daycare in the morning.

Car Payment - ZERO DOLLARS (instead of $645, but I was actually paying $800! I'm also gonna save about $100/month on insurance AND pay about $600 less this summer for tags!)

Clothing the Kids on a Budget!

My husband has a co-worker with a 3 or 4 y/o boy.  It just so happens that he is about one size bigger than my almost 3 year old boy.  She brought me 2 totes FULL of size 3T clothes to go through for him including both summer and winter.  I offered her $100 for both totes and she took it.  It's a good thing this kid has a big closet!  He's now got a complete summer AND winter wardrobe!  Hopefully we'll be able to keep doing this every year!  She was also checking to see if she had any size 6 girls clothes for my daughter :)

Sorta a Compromise

Today I met my husband at his work for lunch and right away he says, "hey come here, I wanna show you something."  So I immediately say, "We are NOT buying anything!"  My husband works at a car dealership, so we have this discussion every time a vehicle comes in that he can own for under $1,000 or about every month! I actually AGREED this time though, under the condition we get rid of his van, which is worth roughly $1000 and has 190,000 miles on it.  This weekend we will probably be trading in the challenger for a Volkswagon Psaat that has about 170,000 miles on it.  The only reason we are trading in the challenger instead of selling the challenger outright (since we already have a buyer) then buying the Psaat is so that we don't have to pay sales tax.

No more Loan!

For now anyways!  The dealership paid off the loan on my car yesterday, because the state of Kansas is going to be closed for a week after today and they wanted to get the title on the way here as soon as they could.  Saturday night the guy wanting to buy the car called and said he was coming here this Friday to get it!  Guess I'll be driving a couple last times this week :)