I hit my August savings goal of $800, actually went a bit past it. I had the auto deposit of $10 today but also went down and added in $17.15 bringing me to a grand total of $810. Just $190 to go to hit the big $1000 mark.

My goal for the month of September will to be to bank at least $100. I think I can do it. I think I can do better than do it, as I have the set $10 per week and I am supposed to be putting in the old cable payment of $65 each month now, though that went into new tires this month. With that though, that's $105 and I'll make a few bucks with PTR's so it shouldn't be a problem. If I could push hard enough, I might make the whole $190 bit I'm not sure I want to push that hard and with soccer I will have to spend more on gas. I don't want to cut to the bone.

We'll see. I have to wait on what the new payment will be on the consolidated credit card before I can finalize the new budget.

I am making my first step beyond a traditional savings account Friday. I am taking $500 in my savings account and putting it into a 3 month CD at 3.75%. I know that does not seem like a lot of money to you diehard savers and I know I can get 5% at an internet bank, but I just have not done enough research on the internet banks to make me happy. I figure this way, I'll have 3 months to research and if I still need more time, I can up it to another 3 months.

Plus, a 3 month CD seems like a good start, it won't tie the money up for too long, and I'll get used to it as being untouchable. Yet, I'll still have $300 instantly available to me in my regular savings account. I don't need this money before April at the earliest, so I think I can safely do this.

This is a very simple step and yet it is so scary to me. Not so scary that I won't do it, though. Hmm, and maybe if I push real hard, I can have another $500 to put into a 3 month CD by January 1st. They don't do $1000 CD's for less than 9 months at this CU, so if I want the money in April, that's the best I can do. But I am happy with the decision.

Last night I googled myself. Not me, but LuckyRobin, just out of curiosity. Wow. And of course, all of it related to stuff from here or some other blog sites that had cherry picked a couple posts. Never had any kind of presence on the web before. Certainly not with my real name.

I got caught up in an old forum post about ING vs. Emigrant Direct. It took me 5 hours to read the whole thing. So much good information there. Now I have to go read the one about ED vs. HSBC. I am a long way from making any decisions, not without more information.

The money from ReadRevenue showed up in my paypal account today so transferred that to my credit union and with any luck it will show up by Friday so I can add that $3 to my savings account. I was hoping to hit $800 in savings by the end of August, so after tomorrow's automatic deposit will be $7.15 short. So I think I will go on over there and add ten bucks more in since I will be in town anyway.

The closer school gets, the more my kids are fighting, it seems. I only have to get through 6 more days of that. Less, if I can talk Mom into an overnight with them. Here's hoping. I think they just may kill each other before that. I miss my good kids and wonder when they plan on coming back.

Soccer starts next week, too. I've heard from Rose's coach but not Tobias' coach yet. Hopefully, I don't have to spend a lot of time tracking that info down like I did last season. It is a pain in the neck to do. I'm not looking forward to the extra gas spent shlepping to practices but I think the exercise will wear them out and help them sleep better on the new change to school sleep schedule. Because I haven't had much luck trying to adapt them back off the summer schedule even though it is getting dark shortly after 8 right now.

I can't wait for next Tuesday!

Today I cashed out 3700 points at MyPoints to get a $25 Shell gas card. I got a sample in the mail of Aquafresh Extreme Clean toothpaste with a $1 off coupon. This is the first toothpaste sample I've received despite signing up for at least a dozen. I think I signed up for this one back in the beginning of May. I've done a few PTR's and 3 surveys.

The kids are out in the yard with 3 of the neighborhood kids and I don't have to start dinner yet, since I only have to warm it up, so time to settle down with my laptop and read a few blogs and then if there is time, a chapter of the fiction book I'm currently reading.

After the kids go to bed tonight, I will do some more PTR's while I listen to the 2nd CD of The Automatic Millionaire and at least one side of one tape of Damia.

Okay, so it has been a pretty boring day and I just can't make it interesting. Oh, I'm waiting to hear back on a massage appointment because my hip is tweaked again, so that will be money out this week if I can get in.

And DH made it safely up to work. And the guy who has the position that they were hiring an alternate for before that DH applied for but didn't get the position, well that original guy has injured himself and now his slot may be vacant. He was close to retirement so he may not come back, hasn't made the decision yet, but there is a possibility that they may put DH in that slot. I am not getting my hopes up this time, though. If it happens it happens, and I'll be happy if it does, extremely happy. But no chickens in that basket.

Tonight (or technically yesterday) was my mother's 67th birthday. It was me and my kids, my sister and her three youngest kids, my neice (from my other sister) and her husband, and my parents. My mother invited everyone over for dinner tonight, and out of my sister, neice, and me, I'm the only one who stayed in the kitchen to help my mother out. No one ever helps but me, anyway, but come on, its her birthday and they don't lift a finger? That is so not right.

But the meal was fabulous and I got a ton of leftovers to take home. A big gallon Ziploc full of fried chicken, a quart of gravy (only fitting, as I made this), 2 quarts of green beans, and a quart Ziploc full of broccoli/cauliflower (which I'd also made). No one else went home with leftovers, one of the benefits of working in the kitchen. Anyway, I have enough there for at least 4 meals for me and the kids for free. I just need to add potatoes or corn.

I may make soup with the bones, depends on if the weather drops out of the 80's or not. I am not having a stock pot on the stove all day in this heat. Well, maybe the crockpot, though.

DH is gone again, took him to the airport before I went to Mom's. Just as well, as there would have been no gravy left if he'd gone to Mom's, LOL.

We had a pair of twins move in 3 houses down today, a boy and girl aged 6.5. Tobias is in heaven. And they will come to our bus stop when school starts.

I listened to the first CD in "The Automatic Millionaire" and it was really good. I did it while I was doing my PTR emails. I wanted to be listening to Damia (book on tape by Anne McCaffrey) instead, but after the first 5 minutes I was really enjoying it.

I have just finished reading an anthology of Robert Heinlein stories, his juvenile space adventure stories which was quite good. I'm a couple chapters into The Best of Living Cheap News on the financial side and started 1 Million A.D., an anthology of speculative science fiction stories.

I am not buying anymore books this year unless they are by Elizabeth Moon or Anne McCaffrey. I have a list of financial books I am getting from the library as I finish one. And I have about 500 books in my den that I have ordered from the SFBC that I became a member of in 1990 but never got around to reading. Okay, that is an exaggeration, but I have a six foot tall bookcase double stacked on their sides with hard back books. I don't need to buy more. I just need to work through what I have and start listing them on half.com or somewhere to sell.

I am reading so much more without the cable tv. It really frees up my time.

The $3.00 from paypal from GaryMails was deposited in my account this morning, so I transferred that from checking to savings, bringing that account up to $782.85.

I cashed out ReadRevenue for $3.00 this morning. I'm not close on anything else at the moment, so it will probably be next week before I cash out more.

I'm only doing a couple right now. Once the kids go back to school, I may do more, but I've promised myself that as soon as school starts I will go to Curves to exercise 3x per week, and ride my bike outside for an hour at least twice a week. I will also spend 2 hours a day writing. I've got a great outline and 25 pages and just need to write oh, about 175 more. If I'm in the flow I can do about 10 pages a day.

Then there's all the housework to get done while the children are not underfoot, so I have maybe one hour a day to do click-thrus while no one is home. Maybe an hour in the evening during homework. But we will be running for soccer (both kids) so who knows?

I received the $3 from the new PTR cash out into paypal today so transferred that into my bank account. $1000 here I come, LOL.

I thought I would post the PTR's that I have actually received money from.

Classical-Mails
Time-Mails
YeahCash
ReadRevenue
CashOrigin
TinklyCash
GaryMails
CashforAction

And the one I have not received payment for so far despite follow up email:

Seekbizs

Our freezer quit working in a quite spectacular fashion. Combine this with the door being left open a couple inches and it was not a pretty site that greeted me. Since it is older than I am by a few years, I guess I'm surprised it lasted this long.

There is no fix to it, it won't turn on anymore and there were sparks involved and a rather obnoxious noise when it quit. So we had a nice 2 inch layer of water/ice cream/stickiness of unknown origin to deal with on the laundry room floor. Okay, well it is mostly cleaned up now, though there is still a high level of stickiness. But I am soaking that up with wet towels and hopefully by morning it will just wipe up. One can hope.

We probably lost about $300 worth of food since we had a lot of beef, chicken, and fish and shellfish in it. Very little was salvageable. Pretty much just the butter and some bricks of cheese and frozen berries that were in the back behind everything else and were still frozen solid.

Well, today was payday and we did have the $65 that we normally used for the cable bill when we still had cable that was going to go into savings and I was ahead on the house insurance payment, so the extra money I was sending there I combined with the old cable money and we bought a half size chest freezer at Sears for $189 with tax. At least the door to this one can't be left open. Well, it could, but people would notice.

Fortunately it only took the freezer 4 hours to get cold. We did a big Costco run today, $145, and were able to cage freezer space from a neighbor until it was cold, but we would have just used our ice chests if we couldn't have.

Obviously savings did not get as big a boost today as planned, but I did put in the $50 I owed it, so it is now at $779.85, so I have passed my goal of $750 and am on my way to my next goal of $1000. Just $221.15 to go. I'm a little irritated when I think it should be $844.85, but for the freezer debacle and then I'd only have $155.15 to go. I need to look on the bright side and consider that at least I had the money available to replace the freezer without putting it on a credit card. That is always a blessing.

This purachase wouldn't be quite so bad if it wasn't for the fact that DH's birthday is on the 30th and he wants a weight bench. Well, that will have to wait until next month. My mother's birthday is on the 28th and I have to figure out what I will do for that. I have to drive DH to the airport that same day. My sister and her family will be at my mom's for dinner so we will make it back in time to go there, also.

Today I also stopped at a farm stand and spent $10 on fresh fruit and some sweet corn.

Bills paid were the power bill, internet bill, propane tank rental bill, and phone bill. I also have to pay the mortgage out of this paycheck and the medical mortgage, but haven't made it into those banks yet. Will probably do so on Monday.

Also spent $55 to get a new tire for my ten-speed and had them put it on the wheel. It is made for bumpy roads or it would have been $15 cheaper for the tire. We have very bumpy roads out here, so felt the expense was justified. DH will put the wheel back on my bike in the morning and he has already put on the new, cushy gel seat and then he has to put the new pedals on his bike and we need to finish teaching Tobias how to ride without the training wheels, he's about five minutes from it so should be good by the end of the day tomorrow. Then we can start riding again, this time as a family.

Samples in the mail today were Degree anti-perspirant, biore face wash (2) and pore strip (1), and miessences body wash. I just sent for that last one this week, so it came super fast.

Paid fines at the library today (not my fines, DH, the kids, which is DH's responsibility as well, and one lost book of T's) and picked up my hold, which is a book on CD as the library didn't have the book at all. It is The Automatic Millionaire. Should be interesting.

I have to write a balance transfer check out and mail it off tomorrow. It will pay off the Chase card and then everything will be combined onto the other card, so we will be down to just two credit cards with balances on them. This one is at 6.99% until April. Two payments will be a lot easier to manage and keep track of.

I think that pretty much covers everything that we did today.

Today is the day of the weekly auto deposit of $10 to savings bringing the total in there up to $715.56.

Today I intend to deposit:
$8.29 check from the cable company refund
$7.00 that I borrowed from the change jar

That will bring the total to $730.85.

If all goes according to plan, then tomorrow I will deposit $65, which is the amount of the old cable payment, and $50 that I still owe savings from earlier this month.

Well, DH did not get the new job...but they are going to install the new software on his computer anyway so he can master it and they are going to start grooming him for that position for the intended opening of a new project in 12 to 18 months. So, better than what it he might have been left with which would be nothing. And the new guy could still go kaplooey.

Although, I suppose its not nice to actually wish for that, but so many of the new hires can't hack the work conditions, especially come winter. I mean, arctic circle people. It's gonna be dark most of the time. And cold. And then there's the family seperation, which some people are not suited for. I do okay, as I'm a loner and DH does okay though not as well as me, he's less of a loner. The kids are who its the hardest on. So maybe he'll have twelve kids and they won't be able to stand it. Though come to think of it, having twelve kids might make him want to stay up there, LOL.

Okay, so no bad wishing they go kaplooey, but we will be happy if they have to leave due to circumstances beyond their ability to cope. >;o}

Well, DH will be able to pick up an extra week in December and some extra days in January when his alternate goes on vacation. If we are careful and don't let it slip through our fingers, we should be able to bank about $2500 into the new car fund just from that. Here's hoping anyway.

I cashed out a $3 click-thru this morning. I am still trying to track down the missing payment of $5 from another one at the beginning of August. Still waiting on an $11 survey check.

Back on the 4th of July I had problems with a new scripto lighter not working, which really put a damper on our fireworks while we ran around trying to find some place open to buy a new one.

I wrote to the company, they sent me packaging to send it back in and I did. Well, yesterday I got two new better model lighters from them and they both lit right up so I'm happy with that result.

I won't have to buy any lighters for the woodstove this winter at all.

I also received a sample of dandruff shampoo from WalMart.