It's all about the money

Before we started homeschooling, I worked part time.  We had decided that the amount of money I would make at a full time job wouldn't offset the amount we would spend for child care, plus part time allowed me to do all the volunteer stuff and handle all the appointments  and school stuff that I did.  I was a lunch lady, working 2 hours a day, only when the kids were in school.  I didn't make a ton of money, but it was enough for all of the extra stuff that came up. Because it was lunch, it was directly in the middle of the day and there was no way I could be gone for 2 hours and get anything done at home, so I had to quit, but giving up that bit of extra has been hard.

There are several things that I've been doing from home to help earn a little earn.  It should be noted that this isn't "quit your job and move to the south of France" money.  This is, legit, a LITTLE extra.  It also requires only a little time and no kind of set schedule, which works well for me, right now.

The first thing I've been doing is SwagBucks.

This is a points program.  You earn 1 cent per point and can cash your points out for gift cards to all kinds of places likeAmazon, Walmart, a prepaid Visa gift card, or even a Paypal credit. If you sign up through the above link, you get 150 free points to start! You can use it as as search tool and occasionally, you will get rewarded with points for searching for the things you search for anyway.  You aren't awarded points for every search and the results aren't that great, compared to Google. I did just earn 31 SB by searching this afternoon, so it can be done, it just requires several searches to get anything.  I wouldn't count on searching to earn the bulk of your points, but there are a lot of other ways to earn points and those are all pretty easy.

The EASIEST way to earn points is download the SBTV app to your phone or tablet.  I have an old iPhone that I have the app running on and it just runs off to the side while I'm doing other things. It mostly shows movie trailers, which can actually be kind of interesting.  I have found that some of the ads that play between videos can require interaction and hang up the process if you aren't paying attention.  I've found that the ads tend (although not exclusively) to hang up more on the weekends, which is a little weird.  You can earn up to 36 points a day through that app, although a lot of times I qualify for a bonus, which means I just keep letting it play.  There are other apps, including EntertainNow, MovieClips, Sportly, and LifeStyles that are all associated with SwagBucks.  I only use them when all other methods fail me, because you have to watch a LOT more videos to earn SB than the SBTV app and you max out at 10 SB.  I've also found that a lot more ads require interaction and shut it down.

You can also earn points for your regular online shopping.  It is places that you shop anyway, like Walmart, Amazon, Best Buy, Target, plus tons of other sites.  I don't do a lot of online shopping (I'm all about the instant gratification), but you can 3 or 4 SB per dollar spent if you shop online.  You just have to remember to go through the SB portal to get to your site to make sure you get your points.

The way I earn the bulk of my points is by taking surveys through the Swagbucks website.  There are different surveys throughout the day, every day.  They have various levels of points and time required.  Unless I'm really hurting for points, I try to stick to the short ones that have mid level points.  There was one the other day that wanted 72 minutes for 45 points.  I passed.  I may not be making SuperPAC money, but my time is worth more than 45 cents an hour.

Some days, my dashboard looks like this, with lots of choices.

Other days, it is empty or close enough, and I have to check back several times.  The majority (all? Although I wouldn't swear to that) of the surveys have an unpaid screener associated with them.  For the most part, it is a handful of demographic questions and only take a matter of minutes to complete. I've had a few that went on forever, but mostly they are short enough to not be a problem.  I get rejected from as many surveys as I get accepted for, but I still get accepted for enough to get my daily goal every day.  

You also get messages, that have stuff like download an app for 45 points or watch ads online, that can help you make your goal each day.  

The site has a daily goal, that if you meet it each day, they give you bonus points and if you make your goals for several days in a row, they give you more bonus points.  The more days you hit your goal, the higher the goal becomes.  It started out with 40 or 50 points a day.  Since I hit 14 days in a row, I've been having goals between 70 and 100 most days.  I've been doing this regularly since late August and I've made about $100.  Like I said, you aren't getting rich, but I've set a personal goal of earning 100 points a day or hitting the daily goal, whichever is higher.  

You don't want to go into this with no plan though.  You'll want to set a daily goal and figure out something that you are saving for.  It isn't enough money to keep you motivated on it's own, so you need to know what you want the money for.  I'm saving for Christmas presents but you could totally do it for your Starbucks fix or extra grocery money each month.  Since I started late in the year, I'm not going to have a ton for Christmas this year, but if I can earn an average of 100 points a day, I can save over $300 for Christmas, with a time commitment of less than an hour a day.

The second thing I do each day is MTurk from Amazon  They have you do small tasks for small pay.  I have my dashboard sorted by the tasks (called HITs, or Human Intelligence Tasks) that I'm qualified for and that pay the most first.  

These can and do change day to day.  I'm terrible at transcription, so I generally pass on those, although they are much higher pay per piece than what I normally do.  There are data entry type tasks, which are a few cents per item, like 1-5 cents per piece. I actually kind of enjoy those, although they are pretty mindless.  I do try to find ones that pay a minimum of 10 cents because a penny each isn't really enough.  There were ones a few weeks ago that were entering information off scanned hospital records, that the computer couldn't read.  I did a bunch of those and really enjoyed them.  

Mostly, I end up doing academic surveys, which can be pretty interesting.  I shoot for earning a minimum of $2.00 a day.  Some days, I'll get a couple of decent pay ones and be done in no time.  Somedays, I'm scratching together a bunch of 40 cents to add up to $2.00.  Once you do a survey for a group, you will occasionally get invited back to do additional surveys and those are generally much higher pay per survey.  

Finally, I do Perk  This is the same deal as Swagbucks.  You download the app and watch videos for points.  You can also download apps for trivia, games, etc to earn additional points.  They offer the same search as well.  The points on this one aren't nearly as good as Swagbucks, so if you have to chose between the two, do SB first and leave this one out.  PerkTV earns 1000 points per dollar instead of 100 points per dollar.  I started it at the same time as Swagbucks and I've earned almost $10, instead of closer to $100.  The thing Perk TV has going for it is that some of the channels are actually kind of interesting.  I have one running right now about DIY and crafts and I'm kind of enjoying it.

If you are  looking for something that pays real money check out Real ways to earn money online.  She has lists of "side hustles", stuff like I've been doing but she also has lists of real work from home jobs.  Stuff like call centers, virtual assistant gigs, free lance writing, etc that let you work from home.  Most of them require more hours a week than I'm willing to devote to it or need set hours that don't work with our schedule, so I haven't looked into most of them.  She does reviews of many of the companies and most of them seem legit.  

The links I included for SwagBucks and Perk should be my referral links, which should get you points to start off.  If it doesn't work, and you want to sign up, leave me a comment on here and I'll send you a direct invite.  Might as well get all the easy points you can! :)

Eating on Food Stamps

The question that Chambanamoms posed was "could your family survive on food stamp budget" because Amy is taking the Feeding Illinois challenge. The rules are pretty simple. You $4.50 per person day for your grocery budget. A family of 4 would get $18 dollars a day or 126 for a week. You aren't allowed to eat out, and you aren't allowed to use food already in your house, unless you cost out the portion that you use from your budget.

I don't know about your grocery budget, but the reality for me is that I would really like to have a food stamp budget. For our family of 4, we budget $300 a month for groceries (if you did the math, the SNAP budget is $504 a month), $150 out of each check. Occasionally, I go over budget (which I realize isn't an option for food stamps) like my last trip when I hadn't been for over a month because of the move. And we also eat out occasionally, which, again, I realize isn't a reality for food stamp participants. However, included in our grocery budget is our paper goods and cleaning supplies, which wouldn't be included in a food stamp budget and the food for the kids' packed lunches for school. If we were really on food stamps, we would also be getting free or reduced lunch at school and the kids would eat what was on the menu so those things would be slashed from my budget.

I understand the point of the challenge. If you have a $200 a week grocery budget, it can be pretty eye opening to see how little food stamp participants get. But I don't. I have an even smaller budget and I manage to eat just fine. None of us are going hungry, we eat meat, we get fresh fruits and vegetables and I even buy convenience foods.

My question to you is where is the break down? This budget is livable and workable with very little effort. I shop at 2 stores, both within a block of each other, I don't clip coupons and we survive just fine. I even kept to my budget while doing Weight Watchers, were I only ate low fat, high fiber foods (which is another point of contention. Why is my bag of spinach $1.99 but a bag of Doritos is $.99?).

The change isn't more money being thrown at the program. Perhaps the program should come with some basic budget, shopping, and nutrition classes to help the participants get more for their money? I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that not only will I take the challenge, I live the challenge every day and have for years and have no problem living that way.

Whole lot of things

So, basically I suck at blogging. Even Quigs is doing better than me at keeping up with hers and that is saying a lot! :) Since we got back from vacation, nothing much blog-worthy has happened. There have been lots of little things but nothing worthy of a post on it's own so now you get a bullet point list of all the things that have happened in the last month.

-TB started baseball this fall. He has never played before and missed the only two practices of the season because we were on vacation. He jumped right in to playing in a real game and we have been doing 2 games a weeks since then.

-Baseball bores me to tears. I cheer for our team, but I would rather be almost anywhere else. TB feels the same way. He likes to hit but hates being in the field. He is the kid in the outfield, kicking the dirt, chewing on his glove, chasing butterflies, dancing like Michael Jackson, etc. At least twice during every inning the coaches are yelling at him to pay attention

- We are at 3 losses, 2 wins, and 1 tie. I'm surprised that we have done that well because most of these kids are young and not exceptionally good at baseball. Instead of telling them where to make the play, the coach is simply teaching them to get it to the pitcher to stop the play because most of them aren't able to process the situation fast enough to do any good.

-We started school last week. We got the teacher we requested which is fantastic. She is active in the PTA, she taught drama club last year and we both knew her and like her a lot. I think she is the kind of teacher that TB needs and I'm hopeful that she will have a very positive impact on him this school year. Let's cross our fingers for reading by the end of the year!

-I'm babysitting a little boy after school. His mom works with my mom and she was concerned about the after school program. We worked out a deal and I pick him up 4 days a week after school, while I'm there picking TB up. It works out well because he has the teacher TB had for K so she knows me and knows the routine. It is a good deal for all involved. He gets to come and play with the kids and do the other fun things we do after school each day. I get a little a little extra money and she gets someone that she knows watching her kid every day. Good all around.

-We've been spending time with some kids from TB's class. He is thrilled to see more big kids.

-Soccer started last week, but due to conflict with baseball, this is the first practice we've been able to make.

-I can not tell you how much I LOVE soccer. The coach is good, if a little tough. There is at least one other kid who has never played and one girl who isn't interested in played (she spent a lot of time standing around at practice tonight). The coach believes that a sport isn't played by kids alone and requests parents assistant at practices. He asked me tonight if I could help out at future practices since I have soccer experience.

-TB was FAR more engaged in every step of practice than he has been at any point during baseball.

-Poor TB was a red little sweatball when practice was done. Apparently despite the running and playing he does, he is pretty out of shape. We are going to have to work on that.

-Speaking of getting in shape, I think, while it is decent weather, TB and I are going to think about the C25K program. Probably not 3 days a week between soccer games and practices and baseball games but as often as we can. With playing soccer, he is going to need to get in running shape and he wants to play basketball in the winter, which is going to require running. As an added bonus, he is hoping to get faster than the other boys at school because he kind of gets left behind sometimes.

-We are, hopefully, going to take karate this winter as well. Assuming it doesn't conflict with basketball, he and I will sign up for TKD through UPD. He took it through CPD a few years ago and I hated the instructor and I pulled him after 2 classes. I tried to get into the CPD karate class, but could never get the person to call me back about he and I taking it together (it was divided by age, which defeated the purpose of taking it together).

-My weight loss is slowing way down. I've been in the 180s for over a month and I'm SICK of it!! I gained over 5 pounds while on vacation and lost it all but I'm still stuck here. Hence all of the activity increases in our house.

-MT is starting school next week. She is really excited about it and I'm hoping she is keeps that up. She is going to be sad when she finds out that H won't be in her class this year but I'm hoping she will make new friends as well.

-I have a wedding to go to in October. I'm by turns excited about it and irritated by it. I like wedding receptions and dancing. I just hope I have someone to actually dance with. I'm not thrilled with the idea of going to the wedding but it is expected.

-This is the wedding that I had expected to be asked to participate in and then was not only not asked, I feel like I have been actively excluded, despite multiple offers of help. I didn't want to be in the wedding. Being in a wedding party is a PITA and costs more money than I'm willing to spend. Plus, it is usually a lot of work and terribly enjoyable. So yeah, I wanted to say no but I wanted the OPPORTUNITY to say no, instead of not even being asked. This friend and I, although tight throughout school, are in vastly different points in our life. She is just now getting married, working full time, etc where I'm staying at home, have kids in school, etc. Not a whole lot in common anymore but really, being friends since we were 8 should hold some meaning. Done ranting, I'll go to the wedding, I'll have fun and I'll move on. Eventually.

-We were supposed to move upstairs this fall but that isn't happening. My mom decided that RF and I weren't putting forth enough effort to facilitate the move. She said that it didn't benefit them so if we weren't going to do things how she wanted them, then we weren't doing it. Fine. We'll stay in the basement.

-We are supposed to be getting new windows this week. That means tearing apart the bedrooms for a couple of days. That gives me an opportunity to rearrange the rooms which have been pretty set in stone the last 6 years. I'm excited for a new look! :)

Time to vote

Back in October I wrote about my support for 1% sales tax increase. Unfortunately, it didn't pass in the fall, probably because of a lack of education about what it involved in the outlying districts (this is county wide so not just our school district).

It has been put on the ballot again this election. Again, I encourage everyone to vote YES for more school funding. This increase is a good way to support our schools because it allows us to take advantage of the huge student population, in a way that property tax just doesn't. In Unit 4, this money means a new school in Savoy, a new building for BTW and a new addition for Garden Hills (which fulfill the consent decree requirements of more strands north of University). In addition, it means a reduction in property taxes and building improvements for most of the other elementary schools in the district.

I don't know the specifics of what other districts are doing, but I do know that many of them are pledging property tax reduction as well.

Just to reiterate, please vote YES for a 1% sales tax increase to support school funding on April 7th!

Political Propaganda

If you have a child in a Champaign county public school (not just unit 4, but all of Champaign county) or will have a child in a Champaign county public school, you should check out theChampaign County Class website for information about a referendum on the ballot to increase sales tax in Champaign County. Most of the districts are planning to use the sales tax increase (which applies to all people shopping in the county, not just homeowners like property tax, includind all the students at the U of I) to decrease property taxes so the increase should even out for homeowners. Champaign is planning to build a new school in Savoy, increase seats at one school and remodel all of the older schools to bring them up to current standards. They are planning to make them more energy effcient (sp?), which will save money in the long run.

Many schools in this district are so far behind the times that this something they really need. I urge you to vote yes to supporting area schools when you cast your vote on Nov 4th.

Back to your regularly scheduled drivel, thanks for reading.

Home from vacation

We got home this afternoon but after eating lunch, running a couple of errands and going to playgroup, we didn't get to stay home until after 7 tonight. It has been a long 3 days. Everyone was pushed to the limit and then some everyday. It is now 10:30 and the kids have been in bed for an hour. I'm on my way right behind them. I'll update tomorrow and give a review of our trip. The most important point is that we all had a wonderful time. No one got sick or hurt and miracle of miracles, no got sunburned. Not even pasty white RF, who has no base color because the poor thing is trapped at work all the time. We also came back with enough extra money to pay off the tires we recently had to put on the van and buy a couple of more expensive items that we have been wanting. All in all, a fantastic trip. :)

Tire-d of this mess

My van tire was flat on Saturday. I took it and they patched and we were all good. Sunday morning, I went to run to the grocery store, only to find that my tire was flat AGAIN! There was another spot of metal in it, just down from the original one. RF put the the spare on (which is fortunately full size), marked both spots and we did our stuff that day. This morning, we took it to the same place that we had patch it and they told me that the tire was bad and I'd have to replace it. Grr! They told me on Saturday that "the tire looks good and there is nothing else wrong with it. We checked your other tires and they all look good too"

I ended up calling a few tire places and got prices for tires. It was hard to compare since some give you prices for mounted and balanced, some quote you prices on pairs, some give you single tire just the tire, some have no idea what tire my van needs,despite me telling them the number on the freaking tire. Eventually, I got prices that were comparable and figured that was the best I was going to get.

RF took my paper to the place and explained to them what happened (I'm feeling inexplicably grumpy today and I don't think I would have been able to be calm about) and asked them to price match the cheapest place we found. They agreed to that and RF pointed out that we paid $20 to have the tire patched, just Saturday and that we felt that should be applied to the cost of the new tires (because if they had told us on Saturday that the sides were weak and probably needed replaced, we wouldn't have paid to patch it) The guy agreed and took the money off the price match that he gave us.

So my van is sitting at Kirby Firestone on Mattis, waiting for the tires to come over from another store so they can be put on. Poor Rf though. When we took the van to actually drop it off (RF walked to check on the tire), I asked the guy how they were going to put the tires on. I said "when you put the new tires on, will they go to the front, with the front tires being rotated to the back?" RF said "no, the rear tire" The guy knew what I was asking and told me that the rears would be replaced but that they would rotate them around to make them work best. RF just looked kind of confused until I explained about new tires going on the drive wheels and the older tires going on the other wheels. Then he wanted know why I hadn't just dealt with it LOL (as explained above, I likely would have taken someone's head off if I had to argue even a little bit about any of it)

Shop til we drop

For the first time, I went to Aldi's yesterday ofr goroceries. Some of you remember that one of my 2008 goals was to spend less money. I succeeded in paying off my van, which was a huge help, but groceries were kicking my butt (as is gas but we ride the bus when we can so I'm doing what I can with high prices). I budget $300 a month for a family of 4. We were under most of the time, which was great. Then 2 weeks ago, I spent $160+, not including the meat that I got (we don't get meat at the grocery store anymore because Old Time Meat and Deli is way better). Time for a change, I say.

I knew there were a few things on my list that I couldn't get there since they carry mainly off brands and I needed a couple of name brands (I don't eat generic Jello, for instance). I ended up getting everything on my list aside from the things I expected and a couple of other things I was a little surprised about. I spent $60 on 90% of my groceries. Then I went to County Market and spent another $40 on the things that I couldn't get at Aldi's. Total was about $108, including some things I had to pick up at Walmart that I would have gotten with groceries, had I gone to Mejiers. Now I still need meat but that has to wait until I'm out that way anyway. Probably not for a couple of more days but still, I spent $50 less by going to 2 different stores instead of one.

The major problem is that you have to take your own bags. I need to learn to sew so that I can make the cool t-shirt bags that Missy made. Then I could kill 2 birds with one stone byt making my own bags AND cleaning out my overflowing closet :)

Lameness

I tried to get everybody to go eat at LJS with me tonight and I got dissed by one and all. Including Ms. Quigs and her brood, who eat a very late lunch and can't do dinner at 4:30 like us. My kids were the only ones that wanted to go with me and they were being animals. I decided to go to the bank and check my balance just in case and it turned out to be a good thing that everyone didn't want to go. Instead of the amount I thought I had, I actually only had 1/6th of that, which wasn't enough to go eat with. I came home and made tacos instead. They were good but not really what I wanted. Despite eating 7 tacos, I'm hungry. I don't think I'm really hungry, I think I'm bored but ice cream cures boredom as well finding something to do. :) I'm trying to decide if I can justify having ice cream twice in the same day since I had some for lunch too. I think I can probably talk myself into it, when I switch from teen soap opera on DVD (first season of One Tree Hill) to trashy reality TV (Ms. Rap Supreme on VH1).

Next post is 200. If I hold off posting for a few days, don't mind me. I want to post something decent for my 200th post insead of this update-y stuff I usually post:)

Money

We got our stimulus check back. It wasn't as much as I thought it was going to be because we have no tax liability. I put almost all of it on my student loan, although I kept a $100 to buy a few things I wanted (mother's day presents and new shorts for me) and we should be getting the rest of our refund back in a few weeks and that can also go on the student loan. Sadly, it isn't enough to pay it completely off, which it would have been if we had gotten the full amount, but it will be close and I'll only have a couple of payments after that.

In other news, I was a complete slug today. We went to TKD this morning and that was good. We learned kicking this week, which was cool. We are going to miss next week because C has his first 4-H meeting so we will miss punches but I'm excited about 4-H too. After that, I came home and never ever bothered to change out of my sweatpants. I just sort of laid around and did as little as possible.

Now, I'm debating whether I want to finish watching the movie on TV (Because I Said So) or if I want to watch the rest of Weeds or if want to just turn off the TV and finish my book. In any event, I'm having some ice cream and some iced tea and going to be early, because my throat and ears hurt.

Doing the happy

In a change from the grumpy grumpies of the past week, I have a happy post.

First up, we figured out a work around for the scouting issue. There are 4-H groups in town and they have groups for kids starting at 5! We are going to our first meeting May 10th so YAY! Daddy is still taking C to the scout open house and he might end up doing both but being a former 4-Her myself, I'm way more inclined to lean in that direction. There are just so many options that have nothing to do with camping (I HATE camping) and when they do camp, it is in cabins, which still sucks but way less than being in a tent.

Next, I was griping about my "economic stimulus" rebate not being here yet because I seriously want to stimulate the economy in the worst way. I was also missing about $800 from my refund because a form didn't get sent in. I figure we won't get the rebate direct deposited because of the error on our return. We called and found out that they had processed the rest of our refund and are sending it and it should be here in 2-3 weeks, probably closer to 2. YAY!! That means I will have some money to take on vacation with us which is super! Then when I get the rebate, I can pay off my student loan and free up a little more money. Hooray!!

Next up, I toured the preschool that I think we are going to send Lizzie to. It was a little chaotic and kind of crowded, but she seemed to LOVE it. It is at the local high school and it has a head teacher and a bunch of high school students working with the kids. It ends up being 1 or 2 big kids to each little kid so there is a ton of supervision (although, while I observed, I could definately tell who was there for easy credits and who really wanted to work with kids). the first words out of the teacher's mouth were "I don't believe in paper and pencil preschool. Kids this age need to play" and I nearly hugged her! That is so nice to hear. She told me that they go through May 22nd and if Lizzie wants to join them for the next couple of weeks, she can. I'm seriously thinking about doing it. That way, I can see if she likes it and if she does, she will have something to look forward to in the fall. Plus having a few hours a week to do things would be SUPER!

If she does that, I'm having dh join the gym at work and I'm going to get serious about getting in shape since I would be able to run over there for an hour while she is in school and still have time to shower and pick her up before lunch. The only problem is going to be having such a late nap. I'll have to have food in the car for her when I pick her so she can eat on the way home and still get down at a reasonable time.

Finally, I had a dream the other night that K and Looseyfur and I were all in high school together. It was a pretty standard "teen comedy" scenerio where we got up to all kinds of hi-jinks before learning some valuable lesson in the end. Nevermind the fact that we are fairly different ages and wouldn't have been in school at the same time, even if we were from the same place :)

The haps

Lots going on. C finished roller skating lessons and has requested a roller skating b-day party (nothing like planning for the future LOL). I'm planning to take him a couple of times a month so he can keep practicing. He is also COMPLETELY obsessed with Star Wars. This is from Lego Star Wars. We got this for the Xbox and after playing all 6 episodes, he decided he needed to see all the movies. We are doing "milkshake and a movie" night on Weds and seeing all the episodes, starting with 1 and working towards 6. I haven't ever seen all the movies either so he is excited that I get to see it for the first time with him. He has also started collecting action figures from the movies, so yay, more toys.

Lizzie starts shake and make in a few weeks and she is really excited. She has been so sad since we didn't get into Wiggles and Giggles. She keeps asking when she gets to go to her "school" again. Other than that, she hasn't had a lot going on.

I've been working at the school with the K-3 reading program, which is 100% not as advertised. We were told that it would be a mentoring type program with one or two kids and focused reading instruction. Instead it is 9 kids (on the big day, only 6 the other day). What ends up happening is 1 or 2 kids are paying attention andthe others are laying on the floor or playing with the globe or picking at the carpet and completely not paying attention. I spend more time saying "guys, if you aren't going to pay attention, you'll have to go back to your class" than I do actually doing anything with them. I did stop doing the Wed group, which I feel kind of bad about but I don't enjoy the large group aspect of it. I don't feel like I'm doing any good when only one or two (that seem to already know the material and I wonder why they are in the group) are even getting the information.

Other than that, I've been walking nearly everyday for the last two weeks, no weight lost but I find I'm walking faster and working harder so I must be getting healthier.

As to my other goal of not being so poor, I haven't done the best job of not just spending money, but I'm doing better. I quit just hanging out at Target, which has helped. I need to stop "running by Meijer" for things since every time I go in, I spend $50. It is always stuff I need, but when I say "I'm going to get Jello", there is no need to come out with 5 bags of stuff. I need to do my shopping all at once and just quit going more than once. However, with our taxes, I'm going to pay off my van and then my student loan and that will help a ton!

That is really all, been watching the last season of Gilmore Girls, trying to keep up on the housework, and planning the games for Funfest (which is another thing I'm so not thrilled about but that is another post altogether) and just trying to keep my head above water.

So taxing

We finished our taxes last night and we found out that we will be getting over 6k back! That is enough to completely pay off my van!!! Then I can that money and put it on my student loan and have it paid off in the less than a year. I'm so excited to be out from under this debt and in plenty of time to start saving to replace dh's car (it is 7 years old and will probably be good for another couple but I don't want to be in huge deb again so a nice down payment would be great)

Scrapping and paper routes

I've been busy tagging the CATW kit. Talk about blah. I remember how overwhelming it felt to tag all my files orginally and this feels the same way. It is too much, but I can't do anything else until I get it done. That puts me behind on the project for my parents and I haven't scrapped a current picture since C's b-day in October. I have several that need done but it is going to be awhile. I've finished all the backgrounds and I have 300+ more elements to go. :( I have deleted a TON of stuff that I will never use. Really how many snowflakes does one scrapper need? I need to apply the same theory to my current files but somehow I can't. I think "I don't want to tag all these frames because I never use frames. I've used frames on maybe 5 layouts ever so I don't need to keep these" By that reasoning, I should just dump my whole "frames" folder, but I can't do it. I might need a frame for something someday and I'll be mad as heck if I don't have it :)

Going through all these files has made me question some of the designers I like. I have a few fave designers that I dl pretty much anything they put out there (free only because I don't pay to scrap). I don't use a lot of the stuff but I feel like I should have it because I might need it and hey, it is free. I see some of their stuff in CATW and it is UGLY. When I think about it, most of their stuff is ugly, yet I keep dling it because there was something that I liked at one point. Again, I need to delete a BUNCH of that crap, but I probably won't. I'm a packrat, what can I say.

I quit my paper route today, via email because I'm a coward. He told me they want a month's notice to quit but that seems so extreme. I told him that it is more physically demanding than I expected and I won't be able to do it anymore because of the pain that it is causing me. My back has been hurting again since I started it and I don't need that. I just got it were it wasn't killing me every time I moved and now it is starting up again. So Friday will be my last day as a paper girl. I told C I would work up a list of things he could do to earn money and I'll figure out something else that will bring in a little bit. I don't want any major commitments (I hate being tied down everyday) so it is going to have to be something on and off. I might start subbing again so that I can make a little bit but aren't commited to doing anything all the time. I might also offer babysitting services to my playgroup on a drop in basis, as long as they don't mind their kids running all over hell's half acre with us :)

Paper route

Day 2 of the paper route and it SUCKS! My mom gave me a really hard time about it last night and I ended up saying to her "no one asked you to do it. If you don't like the idea of a paper route, then don't do it. Oh look, you aren't. Problem solved" She was pissed but at least she dropped the subject.

I convinced C to help me out and I told him I would pay him a dollar a day, for each day that he helped me with the papers. He has been thrilled to do it the last couple of days. We'll see how he feels about that when I drag his tail out of bed at 6 on Saturday to go with me. Honestly, we'll see how I feel about it when I have to get out of bed at 6 on Saturday. I doubt I will be pleased because I hate mornings :(

I honestly don't know how long I'm going to stick it out. The weather is terrible, there is 6 inches of snow on the ground and we have to tromp through it to deliver the papers. It was 34 degrees today and windy. Taking the kids with me makes it take a lot longer than it should. C told me he would be really upset if I quit since I told him that I will pay him a dollar for each day he helped me out. He is crazy excited about the potential to have money of his own to spend (I told him he has to break it into 3rds so that 1/3 goes to long term savings, 1/3 goes to short term savings, and 1/3 can be spent on whatever he wants). It ties us up every afternoon and it means we can't stay and play in the afternoons. It means that we can't go to early afternoon playgroups and I have to get up early on the weekends. Lots more negatives than positives. The only pluses are the money (which after taxes and what I offered to pay C, is insubstantial, less than $100 a month, which is no where near what I wanted to make) and the excercise. I work up a serious sweat running around out there and that is good. I need to find some other way to get motivated to excercise and then that wouldn't even be a bonus. That would leave me with only disappointing C as my motivation for keeping the route. I could probably come up with something for him to do around the house to earn back some of that money :)

New "job"

I got a paper route. I needed something that I could do to make a little money, that the kids could go with me and that wouldn't take up a ton of time. I looked through the paper, thinking I would do some sub work or something like that. I figured up how much I would have to work and it wouldn't have been the minimal amount that I was looking for. The newspaper is always advertising for carriers and adults being welcome. I decided that that sounded like a good choice so I called and the guy brought the paperwork over yesterday. I'll make around $150 a month (piddly, I know) but that is enough. Evan's check covers the bill, but only just. This will be extra money for the "things" that come up all the time. Either holiday presents, school charges (spirit-wear, that I spent a fortune one, field trips skating rental, etc etc etc) car expenses, dinners out, whatever. I told C if he would help me, I would pay him a portion of the amount. That way, he has the opportunity to earn a little money as well. He has been asking about an allowence, but I think 6 is too young for that. Having him help me and paying him for the amount of help he gives (probably a price per paper he helps with) will hopefully help him learn about money and money management.

In other news, we got a really strange check in the mail yesterday. A few months ago, we got a letter from child support enforcement saying that dh was $1200 behind in his support (he wasn't). Since then, we have been trying to figure out what is going on, talking to CO, trying to talk to IL (they have this horrible automated system that basically says "if we didn't answer your question, get on the website" which requires a name and password we don't have), talking to the people at work, etc, etc, etc. Our checking account was frozen and I opened a new one in my name alone to take care of bills and things still. Since then our account has been unfrozen (although I only knew that because I tried to send a bill payment, not because I got any notification). Despite the fact that this mess is still pending, we got a check yesterday for over $2000 from child support enforcement. Of course, we can't call IL to see why we got the check or what we are supposed to do with it. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. $2k right before Xmas could be a really good thing, if it actually ours to use. I know what I would like to do with it but what is actually going to happen is that I'm going to deposit it in savings and leave it set for some time. At some point in the future, if the state hasn't contacted us and said "oops, we didn't mean to send you that", we'll use it to help pay off some of our debt, which will be awesome :)

Secret update

I can finally talk about my secret. Dh got full time at work! We knew last week, but they hadn't finished interviewing everyone else so we couldn't talk about it. He has worked there for 2 years and has put in 2500 hours in the last year and nearly that many the year before. Full time status includes being assured of at least 40 hours a week (Typically he works around 60 hours a week but is sometimes, like over Xmas and all summer, dropped down to barely 20), access to insurance (we are keeping our current insurance for the time being because it is cheaper and covers more) and, best of all, a $7/hour jump in pay!!

The only draw back is that there are 105 people picking runs in front of him and they all have to pick at least 40 hours. He will be stuck doing the worst of the worst for another couple of years until he can move up where he gets some choice in the matter. Probably nights and weekends, although he is really hoping not to have to drive "safe rides" (a service for our university that involves drunk college students calling and requesting a ride anywhere they want to go). Honestly, nights and weekends will work out well for us. It will allow me to help in C's classroom while he stays home with Lizzie. It will also help when I go back to work, if one of the kids is sick, he'll be home so I won't have to take off nearly as much time for that sort of thing.