Or maybe it's 4 days. I get paid on Friday so however that works out.

Gas. No worries there. I do have a dr's apt today to drive to and a couple other meetings during the week but not so much that it'll use up what's left of the tank. I have a $10 Shell card in my wallet which is good since I used my $10 cash last night that was left over from my gas budget this month to pay for my roomate and I to go to the movies. So I still have $4 in my wallet for gas at least.

Food. I used the last of my food budget, just barely squeaking by. I had $25 in my wallet and my total came to $24.22. Unfortunately, I left the sour cream out (I pulled all the to be refridgerated stuff out of the bag, set it on the counter, but then when I actually went to put it away somehow I didn't notice it and it stayed out all night) and I need some for a recipe. So I'll need to dig into the last $12 in my bank account to get a tiny bit of sour cream and probably some oil for my car too.

Extra money earned last week. I didn't get paid last night because the pastor forgot to bring a check with him so I'll get paid double next week. No big deal, just means that the $25 won't get applied to the credit card before the next statement. As far as I know, I'm doing child care tonight which should be at least $25 possibly $30. I'm expecting a PTR check for $25 and a Pinecone survey check for $5 at some point, however if it doesn't show in the mail today it won't get applied til next week as I've decided to only visit the bank once a week on Tuesdays before work. I need to put my paperwork together and mailed off today for the theater check I did so I can get paid for that.

Money from step brother. Still hasn't shown up in my account yet. But I don't know if that's because the wrong information got submitted or because I'm impatient. He says the money has been taken out of his paychecks already so that part is working. I'm going to wait til tomorrow after I get to work, if it's still not deposited I'll give him a call and see what's up.

Dollar jar. I borrowed from that this weekend because I knew I was going out to eat with some friends and to the movies with my roomate. I had $8 in there. I spent $5 on breakfast after church and $3 at the movies for pizza. Perhaps not the wisest expenditure of money but I didn't charge it.

I got my $10 shell gas card from MyPoints! Yipee! I was debating about checking to see if I could add more to the card, like perhaps I could put my gas budget on there instead of carrying cash. But I don't always go to Shell, it just happens that I have a lot more recently. So it's going into my wallet and I'll use it the next time I get gas. Which will hopefully be after I get paid next week. Should be, I've only used about a quarter of a tank. Mostly because I walked 3 days to work. I've got some driving to do this weekend but I don't think my tank will be on empty and if I play my cards right, I won't have to put in the last $10 left over from my gas budget for the pay period either.

My insurance agent called back today and the new quote including the ticket wasn't worth switching. So I'm staying where I am until the ticket officially catches up with me. Two more years, and it'll be gone.

I'd gotten an email yesterday from the gal I was going to sit for stating that they had something come up and didn't need me on Friday. No worries, it just meant I had another night free. Today I got a call about doing a blind theater check on Friday. There's two show times they need me to check, fortunately I can leave the second one after I finish counting patrons else it would make for a really late night. I get $10 per showing plus reimbursed for ticket price up to two tickets. It's one of the cheaper theaters in town so it's only $3 to get in. Too bad it's not for a movie I really wanted to see. Ah well.

Still I'll make $20 all in all. I might see if anyone wants to go with me to the first showing although it's going to be tricky getting out and then back in for the second one. Not that I wouldn't pay again but just hoping that they wouldn't notice that I'd just left the theater and was paying again to watch the same movie. The last time I did it for a cheap theater, they had a seperate exit so walking back in to pay wasn't that big of a deal plus there was quite a bit of time in between showings and a change of cashiers. Ah well, I'll make it work.

It also means I don't get paid right away, after I send in my paperwork it's at least another 6 weeks before I get the check. But it's still extra money, no matter when it comes in.

I'm no longer just paying interest in my high student loan!! That'll teach me to skip a payment just cuz they tell me I can. Tsk tsk.

I expect next month to be more on par with what it will actually be. Out of a payment of $259 only $50 went to principle this month. But at least my numbers will start looking better NetWorth wise next month.

I'm going camping this weekend. Really looking forward to it. I think I'm going to take my babysitting money from tonight and use that to pay for the campsite (there's a bunch of people splitting the cost so I don't know how much it will be but not more than $13, plus I'm getting a ride out with friends and we're sharing food) and breakfast on Sunday.

I'm so tired right now. Coffee sounds really good. Even though I should avoid caffiene.

I'm waiting for my Emigrant Direct account to be set up. In the meantime, I'm wondering if this sort of saving for a large ticket item is prudent at this juncture. It was one thing when potential childcare opportunities were sporatic but now I've got one set in stone and some of the sporatic are potentially more regular.

I'm wondering if I shouldn't either make it part of my Emergency Fund, the money I'm setting aside in Emigrant. Or if I should just use it to pay off debt. Basically, I'm looking at a guarenteed $100/mo (although don't know about the tax ramifications yet) plus potential for extra. Since it's guarenteed, I have a hard time saying I'm using it for something frivolous, like a bed.

Or perhaps...I should change it from Bed Fund to Necessity Fund. A good bed is a necessity but so are tires. I can stash the excess money away and just use it for whatever Necessity comes up. Like for example, I need two new tires. I was going to pull the money out of my Emergency Fund, but it's not really an Emergency more of a Necessity. At some point too, I imagine my car will give up the ghost. Once it does, I will only have my Emergency Fund to use for a downpayment. But if I have money in a Necessity fund, that could make things a little brighter.

For some reason I just feel with the sudden influx of extra money, that I'm being irresponsible to save for a Bed. But just for a general, all purpose 'larger items that are bound to come up' it seems to make more sense in my HeadSpace.

I think I need to think more on this.

I suppose the stupid mantra that's behind this all is a signature line I saw on the creditboards a while ago that states 'a penny saved is a penny not going towards paying off debt'. I realize the importance of some savings, which is why I'm working on building my EF, but in my head, anything more than that is frivilous.

But on the other hand, I like to have backups for my backups. For example, I know that I spend a little bit of money so I created a 'Personal' category in my budget and if I don't spend it all it goes into my savings when the next check arrives. But on top of that, I also try to give myself a cushion in my checking account of another $20. No reason, just mainly so it doesn't turn out that I get down to a whole $0.10 in my bank before the next check arrives.

I like the idea of an EF but I'm worried about potentially spending it for non-emergencies that seem like emergencies at the time.

Anyway.

Just got off the phone with the gal I interviewed for about a week and a half ago. It's a pretty simple job, infant childcare for a church, two hours on a Sunday afternoon. Pays $100/mo. I don't even have to change diapers, just make sure everything's bleached before the kids get there, keep the kids occupied during the service, and make sure the right kid goes home with the right parent. I think I can handle that.

The only question I have is where to put that money. I'd said any extra babysitting money would go to the bed fund, but this is regular work even though it's extra work. I think what I'm going to do is this... put all extra income money into my Bed Fund account up to $100/mo. Once I've deposited $100 whatever else comes in will go to emergency fund savings. After all, if I start saving now, and put in $100/mo, I'll have $1100 just in deposits by the time Sept '07 rolls around. And I'd decided I only was going to save $1000 max for my new bed related purchases.

I don't know how they are going to pay me, if it'll be once a week or once a month. I'm also starting an 8 week, $20/night, 1 night a week child care job on Monday. That one I know is paid weekly, and I might not be needed all 8 weeks.

It's kinda nice trying to figure out what to do with the extra money. I know if I don't plan specifically what to do with it, it'll just get spent and I need to avoid that.

Once EF and Bed Fund are at their goal levels, any and all extra will go towards debt.

I am all tapped out of ideas. Here's the deal. I went on a mission trip that some friends of mine organized last May/June. The only thing we had to pay for was the plane tickets. Well, thanks to the World Cup the ticket price doubled. We trudged on ahead thinking we'd still be able to come up with the excess. But that was not the case unfortunately. We were still short before we left, and because we'd committed to buying the tickets, regardless of whether or not we went we still would have had to pay for them. (Some people had told us perhaps we shouldn't go since we didn't have enough money but we were past the point of no return money wise so we went) The excess that we were missing, one of the gals put on an empty credit card with the intention of continuing fund raising when we got back.

And we did. We got back, more money had come in, it got sent to the credit card. But it wasn't enough. Now we're just contributing personally to send in the monthly minimum payment every month because we're all tapped out resource/idea wise.

I do not have anyone else to ask money from. I've written all the letters I can, received all the money I'm going to. The balance on the card is about $6k.

Now this isn't all me, I'm not the only one trying to raise this money. Just we're all in the same boat.

The rainy season is here, car washes are out of the question as are garage sales. I'd thought about talking to various restaurants about fund raising options (ie slow week nights all sales that come in with a flyer we get 10-15% of) but one of the places my friends are boycotting besides the fact that the nearest location isn't conducive for high volume traffic. I do not have a workplace where I can peddle candy bars, well I have a workplace just not a big one and I've done it before and it doesn't work well.

I don't know what else to do. Except perhaps make tshirts/sweatshirts that just say 'Please give me $1 Thanks!' and spend weekends wandering around downtown and see what happens. Sort of a low key pan handle (which I absolutely loathe but if it would work...)

The other thing is...we all really want to go back and work on the project again in May. If this doesn't get taken care of, we can't. Argh!

Oh my other idea I'm going to pitch is for everyone to scour Craigslist for odd one time jobs and just donate the cash to the credit card, especially if it's Independant Contract work since it's tax free. For example, I have (I think, it's a little confusing with their correspondance so I don't really know) a 6 hour job on Sunday promoting Sun Chips at the finish line of a race, handing out samples and cheering on the finishers. Pays $14/hr.

So I started this whole Bed Fund idea right, thinking I'd just throw extra cash at it from things like the occasional babysitting gig or survey. Now look what it's turned into...

Starting Sept 25th I'll be doing child care for two hours on Monday nights, for six weeks potentially, pay is $20/night.

I had an interview this morning for a church that has a paid child care position, two hours a week on Sunday afternoons, ongoing with potential for nights off if they know in advance, pay is $100/mo. They'll get back to me in a couple of weeks but I think I've got it.

Because of the interview and knowing I would have to give references, I contacted one of my friends who I babysit for on occasion and asked if she wouldn't mind being a reference for me. She said no problem and oh by the way, if I want more steady babysitting she and her husband are thinking about having an every week Date Night and if I'm up for it I can sit for them too. They pay me varing amounts of money. Because usually the kids are asleep by the time I get there and I'm just in the house and check in on them on occasion, I just take whatever they give me. Usually it's anywhere between $15 and $30 a night depending on how long they're gone and how much cash they have on hand.

So that's three nights a week now that I might be doing child care. Potentially. I went over to a friend's work after the interview to kill time before work, and she mentioned that our mutual friend had also told her about the Date Night babysitting so we're thinking perhaps we can trade off on it so it's not an every week commitment for one of us. That's fine by me, she really needs the cash more than I do.

If this all comes to pass, I think I'm going to rethink the bed fund. Either stash it all away and once I hit my goal start using it for something else, or change my goal to be max deposit of $100/mo and once I've hit that send the rest of the money to something else (EF or CC) Going to wait and see what actually comes about first.

This morning I realized that it had been six days since someone had won my eBay auction but had not paid yet. Umm. That's a little long isn't it? I couldn't remember so I consulted eBay's help section and found where it said it was ok to email the buyer anywhere between 3 and 30 days after the auction ended. Good deal. I also looked at his feedback. At least one item that had recent feedback for he bought AFTER mine. Tsk tsk. So I emailed him a couple hours ago. He replied just a bit ago to say he would be paying via PayPal in the next couple of days, probably today. If he does pay, I don't really see giving him any negative feedback but it would have been nice if he knew ahead of time that it would be a week before he could pay to contact me so I wouldn't sit and wonder.

I really need this one to come through because I have three other auctions that I relisted and if they don't sell I'm going to owe eBay out of pocket money for it. And his winning bid ($41 when the rest are going for $3) will more than cover that extra cost.

My step brother just called. I've been debating the best way of handling things with him, ie how often to call and remind him that I need payment soon. He's been fairly good about being proactive and calling me about it so I decided to wait until the 10th to say 'hey, don't forget my cc payment is due on the 14th). But he called me today so I don't have to worry about it! Of course, this weekend is a drill weekend so he's pretty much going to be stuck there the whole time. But he's pulled out cash and we are making plans to meet up this evening or tomorrow. When we do meet up, I'll give him my account information so he can set up the allotment. And until then he will give me cash. Totally fine by me. I never told him that my regular budgetted minimum payment totally covers the increase from the money I borrowed for him. He needs to be responsible to make a payment to me before the bill is due. I don't mind making an extra payment on my cc since the sooner the balance transfer is paid off the sooner the interest on everything else will stop getting added back onto the total.

I just checked my email and I have another Pinecone Research survey waiting for me and a response back from a posting I saw on Craigslist about a one day event that pays $13/hr as an independant contractor. Don't know if they'll want me to work for them but I might as well try.

And I start babysitting for some church classes on the 25th. Since they don't know how many kids they're actually going to have, I might not actually do it for the whole two months, but I'll take the nights they need me!

I have these action figures that I originally bought off of eBay years ago. I finally decided to part with them so I put them back up on eBay to see if I could dispose of them easily. Especially since I never opened any of them so they're all New In Box. There wasn't much of a presence on eBay anymore but I had hopes that perhaps I could still get a nibble or two. There are seven action figures all together. My initial asking price is $3 and the shipping is the actual shipping costs so no money to be made there.

In actuality though, if I got 1 bid on each one I still wouldn't make $3 on it. If they pay by credit card, PayPal will take $0.50. Plus there's the $0.35 listing fee (I'm cheap and wouldn't spring for any extras to list it). So that makes the total profit on each, if each got one bid, $2.15. Multiply that by 7 and you get $15.05. Not much but it's something.

Last night, I had one bid on one (I'm putting them up one per night just to spread it out a little and not have all of them end at the same time) with 10 watchers and one watch on another out of the three I'd put up so far. Wake up this morning to find the one with a bid is now up to $41 with 2.5 days left to go! Umm. Ok so even if that was the only one that sold, taking out the fee for credit card on PayPal ($1.23) and the listing fees for all 7 ($2.45), I'd still make $37.32 on just one.

If that's the only one that sells, I'll be happy.

The people I babysat for last night said they'd write me a check later and I told them not to worry about it. They've got enough stuff to sort through right now with the house getting rebuilt and all. They protested saying they had every intention of paying me and I protested saying I had every intention of refusing payment. After all, they gave me dinner, and I had time to write the draft of a letter I want to send out in September. Something I've been meaning to do for a while. So in my mind it all evens out. I'm sure another time I babysit they'll try to make it up to me and I'll let that slide. But for right now, they have bigger fish to fry.

I talked to my friend with the car problems. Turns out the idiot who talked to her had turned in his 48 hour notice earlier in the week and that was his last day. They not only appologized profusely, but they offered to do the 60k mile checkup on her car for free, dropped the fee for checking out her car down to $25. She needed an oil change as well so since they needed to keep her car to do that, but she needed a car to get around in, they gave her a loaner car also for free. It's an '04 bright yellow mustang. There's some other things wrong with her car too, not sure if it's accident related or not. At any rate, it sounds like they got really screwed by that guy but are bound and determined to not let customers get away because of him.

I got a $10 check from NFO today. That'll go straight into savings tomorrow. Yay!

I tackled the paper monster sitting in my living room again tonight. I spent probably an hour or so sorting (recycling, shred, file). I have been working off and on on this for a while so it's not just tonight's work that caused this, but I did take out two full brown paper bags to the recycling bins. One full just of recycling and the other full of shreds. The file pile is staying relatively small. That's a good thing.

I talked to my current roomate about the potential move. L says I don't need to move in til November or December, if I'm going to move. So I let my current roomate know what my option was, and what I was thinking about it. The thing that it boils down to is, if my current roomate stays around town then I'm not going to move. Yes, it might save me a little every month but it's not worth it to me to just up and ditch my current roomate. If she happens to find a job that requires her to move (something she's anticipating but she hasn't actually started looking for work yet) then she knows I'm taken care of.

I've got this mildly awkward situation where my youngest brother's ex-fiance has asked me to be a bridesmaid. I haven't said yes, but I haven't said no yet. The wedding is not til Sept '07. But today she sent me a link to the dress. Honestly, I don't really care to be a part of her wedding. I'm not really a part of her life and I don't really see that changing. But I don't know how to let her down easy. *sigh* Part of me is hoping that the wedding will be canceled. But I should probably address this at some point soon so she can find a replacement. I really don't need to be spending $165 on a dress that I definately will not be wearing again. I already have a dress from my brother's wedding (different brother) and it is something that should the occasion arise, I would wear again.

*yawn*

Time for me to head to bed.

I got an email from certified market research saying they had a past due mystery shop available and were offering double pay for it. So instead of $8 (for doing the shop) + $3 (towards the purchase of something) it's $16 + $3. To me that's worth it to drive a little today. Granted I won't get the check for a couple of weeks but that's ok.