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?

With Wednesday's deposit of the library refund of $5.45 and Thursday's automatic transfer of $10 to savings, my total is now $503.99 in long-term savings. So I have hit my latest savings goal. I have decided to make my next goal just be $250 more and not $500 more. I did like the idea of doubling my goal each time I hit one, but I do think I would feel discouraged if I had to wait that long, so I'll stick with the next goal being a total of $750.

One of my click-thrus made it to paypal and its in the process of being transferred to this account. The other one should hit paypal tomorrow.

Total earnings paid out so far this month is $22.

I didn't realize I went so many days without blogging, but there wasn't much of note going on, just a lot of swimming in the pool.

The click thru that had paid out $10 to paypal was transferred into my bank account yesterday, so it is now at a total of $467.34.

I cashed out on two more click-thrus today, one is one I haven't cashed out on before and the other one was my second time cashing out at one who has paid me before. Each of those will be $3, which will add another $6 to my savings, bringing meup to $473.34. Hopefully, I'll see it by Friday. I like building this acccountup, even if it is just little bit by little bit. I will reach my $500 goal this month.

Okay, so I've made it through 2 months of blogging and 2 months of saving money. So what is my plan for month 3? Well, I want to save $100. Because of the way the weeks fall, I will only have $40 automatically transferred into savings, so I will need to come up with an additional $60 from somewhere. I think I can handle that.

There are things I have been wavering on that I need to make sure I hold firm on. Like not giving into the kids and keeping cable when DH and I have decided it is an expense that needs to go.

Like not driving to town just because I am bored at home. When a round trip to town takes nearly 3 gallons of gas, this is extremely wasteful.

Like getting my library books, the kids's library books and DH's library books back on time so we don't pay fines. Our library actually has a one week grace period and this is on top of a 3 week check-out, and you can do one recheck for an additional 3 weeks online and have an additional grace period of one more week. I mean, please, if I can't get my stuff read in 8 weeks and go into fines, then the book is obviously too boring so why am I hanging onto it? Ditto the kids.

That's about all I can think of, but I think that will do for month 3.

I have been bugging my parents to make out their will and write down their wishes for end of life care and treatment for about five years now. I am so glad they are now in the process of doing it. I have known what they want to do these years, but I wanted it written down because I have a feeling one of my sisters would fight me to go against what my parents want.

They both want DNR's, organ donation, and burial by cremation. My father is in the early stages of dementia and has MS. If mom goes first, and he no longer can function on his own, he wants to be placed in a nursing home in eastern WA so he can be near his younger brothers and sisters. Of course, he wouldn't be near his kids or grandkids that way, but if its what he wants, than that is what I'll do. I don't really think he'll outlast my mother though. He's five years older than her and she's healthy as a horse.

Mom's mom had alzheimer's disease so she has been very specific in what she wants for herself, too. She's made me her medical and her financial power of attorney, and I would be Dad's but only if she dies before he does or becomes incompetent. Which is fine.

I am a little leary of the fact that she is also making me executor of the will, though. I'm not sure I should be doing both. But I'm also the only one of her daughters with any sense (her words), so she wouldn't trust the other two to do it. Which she's right on the one sister, but not the other one.

It seems like an awful lot of responsibility for me to take on, I am only 36, but my parents are older. Mom was 30 and dad was 35 when I was born. And someone has to do it, and I'd be the only one willing, I think.

I guess I should be grateful they are finally doing this and realize that I will find the reserves in myself to do this. My parents have always had more faith in me than my sisters because I never ran off and did anything stupid (Mom's words again). Ha! I just never got caught running off and doing something stupid. Okay, and that was only mildly stupid comparatively.

Okay, I'm rambling now, so I'll just end this here. I guess I'll put this under goals, since getting my parents to get their will and other stuff in order has been my goal for the last five years.

I've been really thinking about what I can do to get the savings ball rolling a little faster, but I'm kind of hiding from it at this point. I will be able to figure this out after keeping the spending journal all month. I see a little bit in just the four days I have tracked and its all in the areas I figured it would be in. This is of course, eating out. This is going to be the hardest thing for me.

I am a right fine cook but there are days when I just don't wanna (insert pentulent toddler's whine here). Even though I have everything prepped and ready to go and can be done in the kitchen in less than 15 minutes, I still go up against this resistance some days. I am a lazy cook, that is my biggest road block. I may be good at it, but that has been more by accident and good training than by any real effort on my part.

We have planned one meal out this week and that is an 11:00 lunch tomorrow at our favorite Mexican place. We are going early because it is Cinco de Mayo and because lunch portions are cheaper than dinner portions and to avoid the crowds. It will be just DH and me as the kids are in school all day, so it won't be quite as expensive.

This one meal out was the only one we had planned for this two week period and we went out yesterday when we shouldn't have because we both had a case of lazy cook's disease. And DS was not in school yesterday so he came, too, which was more expensive.

I've got to keep this under control, so I am making a goal that after tomorrow there will be no more unplanned restaurant meals. I am going to do my level best to stick to that and report in on how I did with this goal every day.

So April is over and I finally feel like I am one step beyond chaos. I started this blog on April 9th with $105 in my long term savings account, and today there is $185 in it. My only goal was to add $10 a week to it, but somewhere along the way I put in $50 that I didn't need. Maybe that won't happen every month, but I at least know that its a possibility. It all seems very strange.

I feel like the dream of finacial stability is reachable. Seems odd with such a small amount in savings, but it will get better and I will get better at putting money in. I don't feel helpless. I know its still a pretty steep hill I'm climbing, but at least I'm climbing.

I had to talk to my daughter tonight about using electricity. She had got it into her head that she couldn't turn the lights on at all, so she and her brother were sitting in the dark playing games from the light of the tv. I told her that we were trying to turn lights off in rooms we weren't using, not the ones we were in and that they didn't have to sit in the dark. I think she understands now. At least she turned on the light.

Maybe I've been a little overzealous about saving money, but I don't think I ever said she coudn't turn the lights on in a room she was in. Well, we'll see how it goes now that she understands the difference between wasting electricity and using electricity.

Frugal things I did today:
Hung 2 loads of laundry on the clothesline.
Baked a loaf of bread while the potroast was in the oven.
Cooked from my pantry and freezer.
Earned $8 for signing up for a free trial with gamefly, and 50 cents for signing up for another survey company, this one supposedly pays a minimum of $4 per survey, but we will see.

I did turn down one survey invitation today. It was paying $34.95 to evaluate and survey a dating site. Now I filled out a big profile on this survey site and one of the things it asks is marital status, so I don't know why the heck they are sending that offer to a married woman. I talked to DH about it and he said sign up for it, you don't have to do anything about it, but I just don't think it is ethical to do that. So I didn't. Sure wish I could have done it if I'd been single, though.

I've been thinking about what kind of goals I should have for May. Not quite sure exactly, but I probably should try to keep a complete accounting of all spending for a month. I have a pretty good idea of where we waste money, but I'm sure there are things that just slip by, as well. So I'll keep a little notebook in my purse and jot down everything I spend and for what and see where I might improve things.

Tomorrow I will have to buy some pole bean seeds. I don't know where they got to, and I know I had 2 packages of them but they aren't with my other seeds, so bummer. I did manage to weed the strawberry bed and cut down and weed half the herb bed. Managed to dig up a few starts of oregano, it likes to make babies in the walkways so I always dig them out and offer them on freecycle. We are going to have a garage sale this summer though, so maybe I'll sell them for a quarter each. Way cheaper than at a nursery, and not too expensive for garage sale pricing.

I like these no spend days. Not that I wasn't challenged to spend. The kids had early dismissal from school and of course, they wanted to go somewhere and do something. Not going to happen. I have exactly 2 gallons of gas in the car and $12 to buy gas until Friday and I have to go to town tomorrow so Tobias can meet with his dance teacher, he has a solo in the recital and she wants some extra time with him, and then soccer practice tomorrow night. I will have enough gas for the trip, the half trip and then to get to town on Friday which is payday and I can fill it up again.

I do have a roll of quarters for back up but I do not want to touch that, its supposed to go into my freezer money account on Friday. But I will have it just in case. I already owe the freezer money account the $35 I was supposed to put in and ended up using for gas money. I've tweaked my budget around again so I don't think I'll run out of gas money next time.

I have to pay property tax on Friday, yuck. It is so inconvenient right now to go to the courthouse, there is a big case and there is no parking, but at least I'll be making a town run anyway, so it won't be extra gas wasted.

Last night the weatherman claimed it would just be overcast until early afternoon and then there would be sun, so I hung laundry out this morning and of course, it rained. So I had stuff on my drying rack, stuff on hangers hanging from my shower curtain rod, stuff hanging from the treadmill, stuff on the gazelle and shirts on the backs of all the kitchen chairs. Well, it is drying. I got spoiled by 3 beautiful, sunny days. There's actually still a load of towels hanging on the clothesline but since there is nowhere to dry them, they are staying there until tomorrow and then I will spin them in the washer and hang them in the house. My goal of not using the dryer for the rest of the month has almost made it and I don't want to give in on it yet.

Tomorrow there will be an electronic funds transfer to my long-term savings account of $10, bringing my total to $185. $65 more to go and I can open an ING account and get the free $25 for doing so. I know it seems like such a small amount compared to what some people are saving, but this is still so new for me, and I am proud of myself for doing this much.

I earned $2 for a survey I took today. I am going to sign up for a couple more trial offers tonight after the kids have gone to sleep. One pays $20 and the other $10, so my nice little balance is growing and I will be able to request a check once it hits $40. Unfortunatey its a net30 payoff, so I'll have to wait a bit over a month to get it, but that's okay, it'll be coming and when it does it goes straight into short term savings, which I haven't created yet, but will.

I am actually starting to enjoy this whole saving money thing. I feel like I've gone from passive acceptance to proactive fighting to save and get out of debt.

Some Saturdays it feels like we live at the soccer park, this one wasn't too bad. Had a mid-morning game for Rose so spent .50 for popcorn and $1.00 for hot chocolate for my son and $1.50 for an Aquafina for me. It is very cold there and windy in the mornings, so I usually get Tobias a hot chocolate and it will keep his hands warm during his sister's game. He's a slow drinker.

After the game we went to Round Table and got takeout pizza, spent $22.47 after the $3.00 coupon and there is enough left over for 2 more meals. We took it over to my mother's house and she had plenty of stuff to drink, so no cost on that.

Then after lunch it was time to go back to the soccer park for Tobias's game and I bought 2 more Aquafinas at $3.00. Sigh. I really need to start pitching water into a cooler first thing in the morning on game days. My daughter always remembers to grab her water bottle, but I never do. So total spent was $28.47.

My goal for next Saturday is to remember to bring water bottles from home and to see if I can find my thermos so I can fill it with hot chocolate. I don't mind the .50 for popcorn, its a really big bag and keeps Tobias from getting totally bored. If I do that I will save $6.00. We don't do pizza every week either, but that was a planned expense.

My first freebie came in the mail today. It was just the RV travel DVD I sent for, not anything I can really use, except for information. But it was neat to have something show up already. That means the good stuff should start showing up soon.

It's very windy and sunny and 62 degrees F, so I should go hang another load on the clothesline, it might actually get dry or most of the way dry by tonight. Then I have to do some more garden work. I bought some herbs yesterday, strawberries, and blackberries that I want to get planted. There's a good 3 to 4 hours of sun left today so I should be able to get a lot done. Especially since my mother borrowed my kids for overnight, so they won't be in the way and asking for stuff every five minutes.

Well, gas prices have hit over $3.00 a gallon here so I will not be making any extra trips to town. I wanted to go in today, but I cannot justify it when I have to make a half trip today for soccer practice, a trip tomorrow and one on Saturday. Used to be I would make two runs on the first Friday of DH's pay cycle, one in the morning to do all the banking and a Costco run while the kids are in school, and then back in again in the evening for Rose's dance class.

I have set up an automatic funds transfer to send $10 to my long term savings account every Thursday, so that brings that account up to $125 as of today. I will have to pick the kids up from school tomorrow instead of waiting for the school bus to come so I can get into town early enough to do the banking. So I won't be able to deposit the $50 in my wallet into long term savings until tomorrow, or the $19 into the freezer money until Monday. These credit unions are on opposite sides of town and both close at 5. I can only get there as soon as 4:30. At least my checking account CU has a drive-thru that stays open until 7, so no worries there.

Fortunately the school is on the route between my house and town so there is no backtracking or wasting of gas. And on Monday the freezer money CU is on the way to Tobias's dance class, so again, no backtracking or wasting of gas.

I will save my Costco run for Saturday after the soccer games. I hate, hate, hate going to Costco on Saturday. On Friday I can do all my shopping, wait in line, and get out to the parking lot in the same amount of time it takes me just to wait in line for the cash register on Saturday.

Come to think of it, though, I'm not really out of anything I need from Costco. Maybe I can just skip the run this month. I think it has just gotten to be a habit to go once a month. My freezer is full, now that the produce market is open it beats Costco prices, and I'm trying to eat down my pantry, and I still have plenty of Omega 3 eggs, Kleenex tissue or T.P., so there isn't a real reason for me to go, other than entertainment value (which can get expensive).

Hmm, maybe I should challenge myself to get through this pay cycle without going to Costco at all. That could definitely save me some money. Okay, so that will be my goal for this pay cycle, along with cutting out extra town runs to save gas.

Today my mother paid me back some money that she owed me for picking up a flat of flowers she wanted from a nursery that is on the way from my house to town. I did it a couple of weeks ago and between one thing and another, we both forgot about it. But today she gave me $50. The purchase was $48.69 and I was going to make change and she said not to be silly, and to keep it.

So the first thing that comes into my head is, "Cool, I can deposit $1.31 into one of my savings accounts." But then, and this is the big step in how this last little while has turned me around, I thought, "Why not put in the whole $50?" Because it wasn't something I needed to just stick back into my spending. I have enough to get me through until payday Friday. I shouldn't just blow this $50. I should save it.

Wow, where'd that come from? I remember thinking when I posted my goal of saving $10 a week how huge that seemed to me. Then someone said, just wait until you can scrape up $20. Well, rather uncharitably I thought, "Yeah, right. I'm not even sure about making the $10." But you know what? They were right. All of a sudden I have this found money. And I want to save it. Want to. Weird.

So when I deposit my $10 on Thursday, I will also deposit the $50. I had to think about which savings I wanted to put it in, the regular one or the freezer money one. Well, I have decided that one of my goals wil be that as soon as I can save up enough in the regular account to equal $250, then I will open this ING account that everyone is talking about, and get the free $25.

If I put it in the freezer money fund it will take 13 weeks after this one for me of deposting $10 to the regular account before I can open an ING. If I put the $50 in there, it will take me eight more weeks to have enough to open an ING. Plus, I may run into more found money that I can put in there and make it faster.

2 weeks ago, this wouldn't even have occurred to me. Now, it already feels like second nature. It is still hard for me to believe this is me making these decisions and liking them!

I signed up for my first trial membership today through MyPoints and should get $40 in gas gift certificates. Gas is my biggest non-fixed expense so this should help a great deal. I've been a member of MyPoints for years, back when it was Bonus Mail and you got 50 points for each offer instead of 5. But I've never worked it the way you folks do around here, so this should be an interesting adventure.

My goal for my MyPoints points (ugh, that's a mouthful) is to get enough saved up to eventually be able to get gift cards to Office Depot to use to buy a new laptop. Mine is falling apart on the outside and I feel like its held together with rubberbands and bubble gum.

I was able to get into the toothpaste freebies last night, yay! And signed up for a couple more today.

Woke up to more snow but its gone now. Went to Rose's soccer game and very unfrugally purchased 2 hot chocolates for a total of $3.00. Justified it because it was 39 degrees and I needed it to warm my hands up, and so did Rose. Tobias didn't play in his game today as he decided this morning was a good time to upchuck all over the back of the car, so he got dropped off with grandma. Thankfully I had plenty of time to clean up the car and get Rose to her game on time.

My mother decided to have both kids spend the night so I am getting some much needed rest, not having slept well two nights running. Of course, if I didn't stay up late reading old blogs...

Oh, I finished knitting my Dad a chenille scarf that he wanted for his birthday and gave it to him this morning and this afternoon picked up some new Chenille yarn (on coupon) in a rust/orange (more rust than orange) and then some black with multi-colored flecks. So far I only know how to make scarves and hats, but I enjoy that. It is very soothing after a stressful day. It's either that or play solitaire and at least knitting has a useful end product.

I went shopping today after leaving the kids off. I went to Terra Organica, our local organic food store and bought veggies (but not the horribly overpriced ones), sliced turkey breast ($10), honey spelt bread loaf ($5) for Rose's school lunch (I bake for everyone else, Rose has allergies) and chicken broth. I spent a total of $30.98 there, but had two full bags of veggies.

Then I went to a covered farm stand. Or open air produce market? It's state products only and tends to be cheaper than the grocery store. It's only been open for a week or so, it closes down right after Christmas. So I picked up the rest of the veggies I wouldn't pay for at the organic foods store. Spent $14.12 there, but $1.29 of that was for a pineapple sage start for my garden. It smells wonderful. Then I stopped at the fish shop (pescaderio? I think, it's Spanish) and got some salmon, so spent $8.02 there. I won't go shopping again for at least a week.

I made out 2 weeks of menu plans to use the veggies I got and the fruit I had on hand and the meat I have in the freezer. So all should turn out pretty well this week. Grocery budget is on track. Budget is $70 and that puts me around $56, so there is wiggle room if we run out of milk.

I guess that's about it for today.

Well, I did it. I made my first on purpose deposit of a predetermined weekly amount into my savings account. Ten dollars. For a grand total of $115. I think there is some odd amount of cents in there as well, but its little and I left the deposit receipt in the car. Since it is pouring sleet it will just have to remain there until it stops, hopefully sometime tomorrow. The money in this account is at a different credit union from where I do my actual banking from. That makes it harder for me to get at it. I have to really think about what I'm doing to go take it out.

I signed up for two more freebies and tried the two toothpaste ones again today but they still don't like me, so no go on those. Oh, well.

We had to go to town today as DH had to fly to work, so I drove him to the airport. I won't see him again for a couple of weeks, but on the plus side all his meals are free and he won't be eating up our grocery budget until he gets back. Oh, I don't think I've mentioned, he works 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off up in Kuparuk, Alaska, so he comes and goes all the time.

Since we were in town I also paid the credit card bill and stopped at the grocery store. All I needed was a gallon of organic milk (Rose needs hormone free milk, the rest of us just like it better), six pounds of apples, 4 oranges, parmesan cheese (hard block instead of preshredded, Rose can't handle the silicon dioxide in the canned or preshredded, the rest of us just like it better) and a picnic ham for Sunday. And that is all I bought, too. That took some doing, being confronted with the Easter stuff. But I already have Easter stuff, so I just had to firmly remind myself of that.

16 of the 22 small apples will go for soccer snack on Saturday for Rose's team, along with granola bars from the pantry and juice pouches, also from the pantry.

DH and I have decided to save up for a new freezer, but this is going to be a different account in a 3rd credit union that is also in a place I would really have to think about going to to take the money out. That account has $21 in it. We have decided to use our coin jar money and our aluminum can recycling money to save up for the new freezer. The one we have used to belong to my parents and I remember having it as far back as age 4, so I'm sure its no energy saver. We have room to get one that is a foot taller and the one I want is $534 + 8.3% sales tax + $35 delivery fee. So our goal is to save $620 for it.

We also stopped by the library on the way home and picked up some books and movies we had on hold. Tobias has his favorite Thomas the Tank Engine out again, I swear he will wear a hole in that dvd (besides the one in the middle already), he gets it so often. But MIL has it on her to buy for Christmas list, so if he does wear out their copy, he'll eventually have one of his own. I got a cookbook and a cooking magazine, looking for some good, cheap, new to us meals.

I think that covers it all. Didn't call the two auto ship memberships I need to call. I'll try to do that tomorrow.

DH and I made a decision last night. We are going to try, no we are going to start, saving $10 a week. We have a small savings account of $105. So the goal is to deposit $10 a week into this account for the rest of the year. Is that too ambitious? Maybe I should just set it for the end of the month? No, that seems like giving us an outlet to stop saving, which is kind of what got us here to begin with. Well, that and a bad health insurance.

It's just $10, that isn't so much. We spend about that on pop each week and we have both been drinking more than we think it is healthy to be drinking. Although, there really is no health benefit to soda pop, now is there? The kids really don't care for it all that much, well, Rose can't drink anything with caramel coloring or caffeine in it anyway, and Tobias would just as soon drink milk or water, usually water.

It seems a manageable enough goal. So for the rest of the year, it is our goal. And writing it down makes it real, putting it out there makes it harder to go back on. Accountability, as some of you have mentioned, should make this easier. Although, sometimes it seems nothing about money ever really is.

My day for depositing will not be set as it will depend on which days I drive to town. I don't want to make an extra trip as it takes about 2.8 gallons of gas to get to town and back. We go to town at least 3 days a week for lessons and soccer games so as long as it gets done before the next banking week, I'll call it good.

$10 doesn't seem like much, but at this point its the habit I'm trying to establish. If I don't start at ten, then where? So $10 it is. And that's $520 a year, still small, but something.

Thanks again, for all the support you have thrown my way since starting this blog. I can't begin to say how much I appreciate it.

Robin