Nhgirl1970's Personal Finance Blog

There is one more day in the month, but I don't anticipate not being able to reach the Swagbucks goal. This means I hit it all thirty days. I will get 300 extra Swagbucks in addition to the extra 10 percent each day. This should be a total of around 550 extra Swagbucks! I cashed out 5 $5 Amazon and 3 $5 Walmart this month. All gift cards earned from mid-September through end of November go for Christmas.

October personal finance goals:

Tutoring earnings: $900 (Remember this is still a new business. My ultimate goal is $2100 monthly after paying employees and overhead. I also hope to take a semi-annual bonus. I do have other household income thank goodness.)

Reboot emergency fund and add $26.50 per week. This is the "easy way out" for the 52 week challenge. It comes out to $1378.

Step up the budget. The emergency budget is $2500 per month, which we have been on since August. The "full" budget is $3100. I plan on hitting in between the two at $2800 per month through the end of the year and hope to return to the "full" budget in January (more debt repayment).

I just spent $26.88 on Amazon for household goods including toothpaste (2), paper towels, razors, shampoo (2), and deodorant. I have Amazon Prime so shipping is free. Actually it is all "free" because my gift card balance was earned from Swagbucks, Instagc, and Media Insiders Panel.

So happy to save a trip to the store and knock $26.88 off the monthly grocery/household good budget for the month!

After getting students to tutor with all of our initial leads from my previous boss, things dried up and I have been waiting for mid-month advertising to kick in. I am still waiting on that, but doing some work online listing the business in directories is paying off. We obtained four new students!

I am hoping by mid-October to be able to take my planned salary. Right now I am taking very little. This is okay for another month or so, but eventually it will be a huge issue. However, I firmly believe we will be fine and have plenty of students to tutor very soon.

I also got a windfall yesterday. I had written for a chicken company early in the summer and had told I would get a check within two weeks. It never came. Finally, after a third email last week I received a $50 check yesterday. It will go to help rebuild the emergency fund.

As I said previously, I am going to stay on the emergency budget for September. I should have a better idea of regular income later this month. School has started and we have advertising going out mid-month. It should be prime time for tutoring by then.

Hubby has some extra income coming in September which will help tremendously. I can rebuild savings and pay off the laptop I had to buy for the office.

I have decided if things aren't where I want them to be by late September, I will look for a weekend job to supplement.

I was so busy with the new business, I let some smaller tasks slide more than usual in August. For example, I try to earn $50 from Swagbucks every month and only earned $40 in August. There are a couple of other areas where I earned less also. I have to watch it and be careful not to lose that cash in September.

Have a great holiday weekend everyone. My exciting weekend will consist of accounting and some writing.

I am working very hard at the tutoring center. Panic has set it knowing half of our students are doing SAT/ACT prep and will be gone shortly. However, myself and my education coordinator (also a good friend) put our heads together and bartered for free advertising so I am sure we will be okay. We have an ad going up on a local deal site similar to Groupon. It costs us nothing, but we split what we sell.

I know there is a lack of tutoring available in our area with the franchise we worked for closing down. Our new center is basically it. We simply need to get the word out of our existence.

The frustrating part is digging into savings and simply not knowing my long-term income. I am trying to remain calm and not freak out. I know I can make this business a success with a lot of hard work and a little luck!

In the meantime, I am going to try and do a little more freelance writing to help make ends meet and stay on the emergency budget.

So far, so good overall with the new tutoring company. The worst part is keeping track of the accounting using my personal account. I can't wait until the LLC approval comes back from the state so I can open a business account and separate all of this from my personal finances.

School starts here on the 27th, so we can have more regular hours and get in a routine which should make things a lot easier!

Hoping to relax this weekend. Picking up my sister-in-law at Logan (Boston) on Saturday and spending the day Sunday at a lake house my brother-in-law has rented for a week. I hope you all have a great weekend!

Although I feel out of control this past week, I know every penny I have spent has been necessary. I am in the process of opening my own tutoring business and starting up is expensive. So far, I am even with the checks that have rolled in this week. Still, for me to spend almost three hundred dollars in one week is unsettling.

I really hope this venture is successful. So far we have 6 students and 4 more solid leads. My business partner and I have been working non-stop. I have been doing the bare minimum for my other jobs. I definitely will spend Friday and Saturday tending to them.

I hope everyone is well. I have been reading posts when I can.

I was so worried about income, especially this month with such short notice on the tutoring center shutting down. I am much more optimistic as things seem to be working out well. However, I hate to "count my chickens before they hatch."

It looks as if taking on the remaining students will work out well. So far, it looks as if myself and the other tutor who are building our own little business won't lose much, if any, tutoring income.

Also, I had a conference call with a client who I write real estate articles for. He more or less offered me full-time work.

So, if all of the above go as planned, not only will I not lose income, I will add quite a bit to it!

I still plan on staying on the emergency budget this month. After all, I need to have that income in place before I can plan its use. The one thing I may go ahead and do is pay the student loan payment rather than putting them back on deferment (which I can do next month if necessary).

Keep you fingers crossed, but I do believe everything is going to work out quite well! The only downside is I may be working 12+ hour days every single day.

I have put more effort into Swagbucks this month and it paid off. Basically I work on it for 15-30 minutes in the morning when I am too tired to do anything that takes effort. Then later on I try for a survey or two, other than that I do activities while multi-tasking. The main idea is not to let it suck my time and earn $1 an hour when I can be making money elsewhere.

Today I hit $50 for the month! I had cashed out 5 $5 Amazon cards (best value but the limit is 5 per month) by the 12th and today I cashed out for $25 Paypal.

The only thing I don't like is some of the quality of the brand activities/videos lately (as others have also noted). I contacted someone regarding this and hope that improves. Otherwise, I have been very happy using Swagbucks the last four years. However, it is only lately I bothered to figure out a "system" to earn more.

With my lower budget for August that $25 will certainly help out! I spent the Amazon earnings earlier this month on household goods. Anyhow,that's my "exciting" news for the day. Hope you all are having a good Sunday.

After a final last ditch effort with the CEO of the company calling me, the tutoring center is definitely closing on Wednesday. He really wanted me to buy it and I told him I would need them to cover everything for three months because we have so few students. He also wanted me to sign a 10 year agreement. No way!

I didn't waste time and met with my friend/co-worker yesterday afternoon and there is a plan in place for us to tutor the remaining students at the library. We will make calls this week. I don't anticipate losing much income and possibly none at all, but I told my husband we are on the emergency budget for August.

1. Savings is cut to $15 per week (can be cut altogether if necessary).

2. Cut weekly grocery, gas, etc. budget by $15 (It's already quite low so can't realistically cut much)

3. I hate this, but put student loans back on deferment.

4. I am ahead on the car payment so I can pay as little as $150, but will see where I stand on the 22nd when it is due. I usually pay $400. I am hoping to pay at least $200.

I am due a paycheck on Monday and have one more coming in two weeks. I am going to ask if I can get paid everything so I don't have to worry about that last check. My boss is a nice guy, but I fear he is in huge financial trouble and worry the check will bounce or possibly not even get paid.

I am going to spend today catching up on other work I put off with all of this fiasco. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

After several conversations, I have decided not to take over the franchise where I tutor. My boss is a nice guy, but hasn't run the business well the past year and there are not many students left. I don't have any momentum to get things going and paying the overhead in the meantime would be difficult to say the least.

I was talking to the Education Director and told him I would love to take on some of the remaining students and tutor them at the library, but don't want to "step on any toes". He thinks it is a wonderful idea and thinks the owner will appreciate it. I will call him today about this. One of the other tutors is willing to do this with me (I do English and she does math so it is perfect). I believe we will not only make up our lost salary, but potentially make more. Who knows maybe we can grow our "business" as well.

I am still a little sad as I will miss the rest of the staff and the students we won't see again. It's a shame my boss didn't handle this better. I think it would have been salvageable a few months ago. However, I am feeling a lot less stress now that I made a decision. I only have the final hurdle of calling the boss. I believe my final official day tutoring for the company will be Tuesday.

My next plan of action is coming up with a bid for this writing project. I would love others with experience to weigh in. It is for 42 articles that should be around 400 words each. I have to proofread, edit, and add info where necessary. I haven't looked at all of them, but the half a dozen or so I took a look at were only 200 words. I am thinking of bidding $250.00 total. I want to be fair because I have ongoing work with this client, but I don't want to undercharge either. I am used to writing from scratch so this is a tough bid for me to figure out. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Not only do I have to worry whether or not I have to purchase a home sooner than later, but now I have major job decisions to make as well.

I received a call Thursday for a long writing contract for a client I have worked with in the past. This will increase my income anywhere from 425-600 per month. Within an hour of that phone call,I also found out my boss is not renewing his franchise where I tutor.

I had a lot of weekend plans so I decided to do my best not to think about all of this and enjoy the weekend. Last night I had an email from my boss asking if I wanted to take over the franchise for the remainder of the term (18 months) at no cost. I am in the office this morning and he is supposed to call with more details. Needless to say it was a sleepless night. I am infusing myself with coffee so I can be coherent when my boss calls.

I took an extra $100 cash out this week. I cringed, but it is the most I will spend all year. I have four free passes to a water park for Friday. I plan on packing food and water, but at the very least I will need to purchase extra gas to get there.

Also, on Saturday we are going to see the Bon Jovi concert. The tickets were bought months ago (My son's birthday was last week and this was his gift), but again it is a lot of gas (not sure offhand on mileage but over an hour each way) and parking is $40!

On a side note, I have to vent a bit. The apartment buildings where I live were bought out a few months ago by a corporation who are doing improvements. I do appreciate them sprucing things up, but they are very inconsiderate in doing so. We almost got towed one day because they were doing work on the parking lot and "forgot" to give us notice to park elsewhere. I got home just in time to stop the tow truck from towing our second vehicle.

The "best" part was coming home from an errand at 6pm last night telling me I have to move all furniture away from the windows because they are replacing them at 8 am this morning. Call if there is an issue. This infuriated me. How can I call when the office is closed and 14 hours notice (overnight at that) is completely unacceptable. If I hadn't happened to run that errand I would have never seen the note which was not there at 5pm when I left. Not to mention they didn't call or knock on the door (hubby was home).

I do feel a bit better now that I vented. I really was hoping not to move until I am financially ready to purchase, but this company is making me rethink my plan.

A couple of months ago I signed up with Smarterbucks and got the Smarterbank debit card. Long story short, if it is used as a credit, you earn .05 percent of each purchase toward student loans. When the earnings reach $15 they send in a payment to the student loan you have on file. You earn 1% for each purchase over $100.

They have a deal right now that once you reach a $5, they will give a $10 bonus (if earned by 9/15/2013). I reached my goal and got my bonus today so I have a $15 payment on the way toward my loan!

I simply transfer my weekly spending allotment to the Smarterbank card each week and use the card as a credit each time I make a purchase. There are other ways to earn as well if you decide to check out their site (smarterbucks.com). It isn't a lot, but every little bit counts! I figure I can average 2-3 payments a year via Smarterbucks (in addition to my own payments of course).

On my last update, I had $60 left for the week after buying gas and groceries(weekly spending will replenish Wednesday night). We had no plans over the four day weekend and it was hot. I had to get out of the apartment (other than just for my morning walk) and figured if I did, I could save on air conditioning.

On Friday, I took $20 and put it in the tank and we went for a ride up north to Conway, NH. Yesterday, I saw Staples started their sales for back to school. There was a minimum $5 purchase to get the special items for a penny, but that is worth it to save big. I spent $5.56 and got folders, pens, erasers, two binders, and tab dividers. I also went to Walmart. I was only going to get water, cereal bars, bananas, and shipping materials for a package for my daughter. However, I splurged and got a seafood salad and bought some ice cream as well. I spent $17 and change there (can't find receipt).

So out of the $60, I have $17.64 left until Wednesday. I will pay a few dollars to ship my daughter's package today, but should have at least $10 leftover. Other than the salad and ice cream, I am satisfied with the money I spent.

On my last update, I had $60 left for the week after buying gas and groceries(weekly spending will replenish Wednesday night). We had no plans over the four day weekend and it was hot. I had to get out of the apartment (other than just for my morning walk) and figured if I did, I could save on air conditioning.

On Friday, I took $20 and put it in the tank and we went for a ride up north to Conway, NH. Yesterday, I saw Staples started their sales for back to school. There was a minimum $5 purchase to get the special items for a penny, but that is worth it to save big. I spent $5.56 and got folders, pens, erasers, two binders, and tab dividers. I also went to Walmart. I was only going to get water, cereal bars, bananas, and shipping materials for a package for my daughter. However, I splurged and got a seafood salad and bought some ice cream as well. I spent $17 and change there (can't find receipt).

So out of the $60, I have $17.64 left until Wednesday. I will pay a few dollars to ship my daughter's package today, but should have at least $10 leftover. Other than the salad and ice cream, I am satisfied with the money I spent.

My weekly deposit for spending hit my card last night so I went grocery shopping and put gas in my tank this morning. I had a total of $114.90 (105 for the deposit plus a little left over from last week). I only spent $54.72 for gas and groceries, so I have $60 left for the week and nothing I have to buy.

I did my first Amazon subscribe and save purchase so I have a six month supply of soap and deodorant coming next week. Of course that was paid with funds earned by Swagbucks, etc.

I have no plans at all this four day weekend and not much work to do. I think I may splurge and go for a drive up north or to Vermont tomorrow or Saturday since I was able to spend so little on necessities for the week.

Nothing special on the agenda here today. I think we will do some teriyaki chicken and corn on the cob for dinner and maybe go to the local fireworks. I hope you all have a safe and happy 4th of July!

I've had three no spend days in a row. I don't see myself spending anything today either. My weekly spending will hit my account tomorrow night, so either then or Thursday I will need to do some grocery shopping.

I need to stock up on some household items soon, but plan on doing that with the Amazon cards I am earning on Swagbucks and a couple of phone apps. I have $25 I am waiting to hit my account so I can place an order. I have a plan to order 8 items over the summer as part of Amazon's Subscribe and Save program.

I may have mentioned this, but I called about my student loans and have settled on a $200 payment (this is for both undergrad and grad) loans. It's a doable payment. It will be nice to take them off deferment and make some progress! My first payment is in August.

I have used Swagbucks for years, but recently put forth more effort and figured out how to reach my daily goal without having to do surveys, games, and other time consuming tasks. I use SBTV mobile and that helps a lot.

Anyhow, my new plan is to cash out $40 in Amazon gift cards every month on Swagbucks and another $10 via other sites/apps I earn from. I will use this $50 a month for gifts (as I already do) and for some household items. I found seven items that are about the same price on Amazon as they are at the store. By time I get free shipping (I am an Amazon Prime member) and make less trips to the store, it really pays off!

By purchasing items on Amazon, I will be able to lower my weekly budget for gas, groceries, personal items and spending money. I currently budget $115 a week, but I am now lowering it to $105 per week, which comes out to $455 a month. I am confident this new system will work out well.

I kept spending to a minimum this weekend. I spent a total of $24.96 and $20 of that was for gas. I spent $3.87 at the gas station on Saturday because I was going to a one time job of interviewing customers at a major store for four hours. I didn't have time to go home to grab water and a snack after I realized I had forgotten to bring anything to eat or drink with me.

Today I put gas in the car and met up with the ex to drop off my son for his summer visit. Ex was running late so my son conned me (He is turning 14 soon so he is a pro!) into buying him an ice cream cone. I won't see him for three weeks so I consider it $1.09 well spent.

After I dropped off my son, my husband and I took a drive to the beach to try and see the sand sculptures, but there was not one parking spot to be found. This means I may have to throw a few extra dollars in the gas tank before my spending replenishes on Friday. Other than that, I don't foresee having to spend any other money.

I just arranged to have the last of the balance on the credit card paid off this coming Monday (waiting for a transfer from one account to another). I took part of it out of savings, but in the end it makes a lot more sense to pay off a card with 14.99% interest rate rather than letting that cash sit in the EF at less than 1%, although I will build the EF back up asap.

I do have 100 of that money coming back from my daughter, but I won't get that until late next month. She is in the hospital having surgery on her infected gall bladder later today. Luckily, this won't affect her new job. However, because she is new, she isn't getting paid this week so I told her just to pay me sometime in July.

I also talked to my student loan lender. Long story short, starting in September I will pay 198.98 per month which will cover both my undergrad and grad loans. This was one of six choices I had. I liked this particular choice because it gave me a low payment without having to re-do paperwork each year based on income. If there is any balance after 25 years it is forgiven, but I honestly want these gone asap. I will start formally tracking those here in September.

Still pretty far off from where I want to be financially, but happy to be making progress!

I have used Swagbucks since 2009 and accumulated several hundred dollars in Amazon gift cards. I rarely reach the daily goal. However, I just downloaded the SBTV app on my phone. Since I run my phone on wi-fi 90% of the time, it isn't using my data.

I simply let the videos run over and over on the app in addition to doing the usual tasks (daily poll, NOSO, toolbar, couple of searches, codes) and find it will be very easy to hit the goal every single day.

Therefore from now on my plan is to earn at least $30 a month. I will cash out for $25 PayPal and a $5 Amazon code. Who knows, I may even do better and grab and extra $5 Amazon or two.

I will keep you posted on how well this works out. I did already reach today's goal and it is not even 9am!

I am aggressively trying to work on paying off my credit card in the next couple of weeks. Just last week the balance was at $557.42 and now I owe $395. My daughter (authorized user) owes about $100 of this and she will pay off her portion on her next payday (6/28). She rarely uses it, but just started her first professional job and needed to purchase a few business pieces for her wardrobe.

I am still on the hunt for another side hustle for the summer. I will spend some time on Odesk this week to see what is there. I will also try and pick up some extra mystery shopping as well. I was lucky enough to get a one time customer interview gig for next Saturday through my favorite mystery shopping company. I will earn $76 for three hours of interviews (and probably another half hour for the report).

No big plans here for the weekend. I tutor this morning (It is the last Saturday for the summer!)and have a couple of articles to write this afternoon. Other than that I will get my walk in today and do a little cleaning. Not very exciting, but at least it is productive.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

My tutoring hours always vary a bit, but in the summer they really slow down. The company I work for does not have hours on Friday and Saturday in the summer and the other hours are a little shorter as well.

Since I won't have a firm grasp on my income for a couple more weeks, I am planning on doing my best to pay off the credit card before things slow down (last "big" check will be the week July 1st). I will also cut down on savings and only save 50-100 per month. Finally, I will most likely try and find another writing "side hustle".

My guesstimate is I have to make up about $500 a month until the end of September when the tutoring gets back to "normal."

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to sail on a schooner around Boston Harbor. My hubby, son, and a friend went. We tried to find a meter (free on Sundays), but of course all those spots were taken and had to spend $20 to park in a garage. We also spent $31 on lunch and tipped the crew on the schooner as well. In the end I spent $65 yesterday.

However, for a great day in the city and a free two hour sail, I think it was worth it! For us to spend money like that is extremely rare, so I suppose it is best not to fuss over it. I will shave a few dollars off my weekly "allowance" (covers groceries, gas, and spending) the next few weeks to make up the difference.

I have been reading the blogs here on Saving Advice for quite awhile. I must confess; I am a lurker. I love, love, love how everyone tracks their finances and stays accountable. This motivated me to start a blog here myself. I do have a "regular" blog that is related to personal finance, but it has other topics as well.

I figured here is a great place to track each and every personal finance success (and "failure").

I will be adding my numbers in the next couple of days. For now I wanted to introduce myself and say hello. I read everyone's blogs here so often I feel like I "know" you all (I hope that isn't creepy sounding!).