Did you watch?

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A little wedding humor today. The ceremony was beautiful and

I do wish William and Catherine all the best.

We are okay

Last night was pretty scary but we were blessed that the worst of the storms missed us. I am investing in a weather radio because I felt very unprepared without it yesterday.

Words can not describe the footage from Alabama as it still gives me chills.

My thoughts and prayers are to everyone that is dealing with this tragedy.

Say a Prayer

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For Mr.M and myself tonight. The storm system that has ravaged Arkansas and Alabama looks to be heading our way tonight.  Our Fire Chief told me that it would hit between 11 pm and 4 am and since we lost power a few weeks ago, I'd really like us to stay safe with power.

We did it!

There are no true words to explain how excited I am at this moment
but this morning we paid off credit card #2!

Soon we'll be yelling like this kid.

A Double Sale!

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This week was a big day in my Amazon book shop - a double sale day.  Last Saturday, I stopped by the annual Junior League yard sale and scored some brand new books for only $.50 each.  That night, I turned around and sold them for much more.

I think Mr. M questioned my insanity when I brought home 2 bags of books (I only spent $5) as he wondered if I would really get an return on my investment. Within 24 hours of posting the new batch of books, I already sold two of them and more than tripled my "investment" in a short period of time.  It may not be hundreds of dollars but it's little successes that will help us with our debt snowball.

Hosed By The Gas Station

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Yesterday, I went to the gas station to put a little gas {ie. less than $10}in my car hoping that it would be enough until payday. I used my debt card instead of cash because I was in a shady area of town as well as in a hurry. This morning, I got slapped with an overdraft fee because the gas company now places a $100 hold on your debit card. This "hold" can last up to three days so I'm now unable to use my debit card or write a check until Friday...which is when I get paid. A seriouse WTH moment and now I'm living completly off the cash that's in my wallet.

I called the bank and they removed the overdraft fee but I'm still angered over the fact that gas stations are doing this to their customers. Does the company have the right to see if my card has money on it? Sure, I guess but to have a $100 hold on a gas station transaction is ridicuolous. 

My goal is now to only pay cash for gas fill ups. As a woman, this makes me nervous so I'm plan to drag Mr. M along.

To read more about this lack-of-customer-service tactic that the gas stations are using, I suggestion you read this great article I found.

I could use a nice sweater...

Let's get rich. :)

Grad School - Part III

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My HR manger has agreed to speed track my check! WHOO! Now I can go to summer school and still pay down my debt.  We also talked about that must be done in 5 years theory

and she said it was a rumor.

Whew…

So now I can continue school and a reasonable financial pace. Thank the Lord!

Grad School Part II

Part II



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The easy answer is to tell me to stop going. Unfortunately, if I stop attending school I then own my employer the $5K that I received in payment.  I also have to finish my degree in 5 years. If I quit my job, I owe them the money so quitting to complete school faster isn’t in the cards. However, if they fire me/lay me off {which I really hope they don’t} then I owe them nothing.

I’m seven classes away from graduation and each class is 1,919 not counting books resulting in $13,433 left. {Sweet Moses!?!} My work owes me $2,000 in reimbursement so I have 11, 433 by the end of 2012.

Not going to lie – I really feel overwhelmed and stupid.  I have applied for scholarships and because of our incomes; I don’t receive any state funding. The school does allow me to pay on a payment program except for the summer session.

They recently created a “Long Summer” session which means that class is the same length as the fall and spring session.  So you would think that paying for this session would be the same right. Nope.

I found out this week that I owe the school $1,919 by May 17^th.  On a positive note, May is when I should receive my reimbursement from work.  The only problem is that my work needs to see my grades from this semester to ensure that I didn’t just flunk the class.  Grades come out on May 11^th which would require me to beg for HR to speed up this process. I have e-mailed the head of the finance department at my school to see if I could pay half by the 17^th and the rest at the end of the month.  Say a prayer for me that they both say yes.

More to come...

Grad School - Part I

Part I

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I’m not sure how many of you know this but I’m also in graduate school while working full time and trying to pay down all of my consumer debt.  A wise person may say – ummm…stop going to school fool so you’ll have more money {I’m sure in a more eloquent way} but I somehow got us in a bind.  Many years ago {2008} I decided that I was going to get my Masters because I realized that in order to move up, I needed a degree no matter how well I did at my job.

So I signed up for the GRE {stupidly paid by Credit Card #1} in March and took the test in April and applied for schools over the summer. That August, I began my Masters program and decide from the start that I would pay for school completely in cash.  Even if it meant that I would be in school forever. My work did reimburse students $1,000 per year up to five years so I totally took advantage of that plan.

You may remember that 2008 was the summer of a gas shortage, the market crash and everything bad with business. It was also the year that my employer STOPPED allowing any more employees to take advantage of the payment reimbursement plan so I am now the only employee receiving this perk.  Thank goodness I was young, stupid and impulsive because every dollar counts.

Fast forward to present day.  I would like to get out of school as the work money will run out next year.  We are moving on our debt snowball at a great pace. I rarely go shopping; cry over food that is wasted {literally}, forgot what a restaurant looked like and will sell anything that isn’t nailed down in my house if Mr. M would let me.  My dilemma now is how am I going to make the rest of my academic degree work financially?

More to come…

Whoo!

We have power!

Those words are music to my ears. We also were able to stick to our NDO plan in the last two days as our meals were covered either by work or friends.  Tonight would have been the first night of eating out and breaking the NDO plan but our electricity came on right at lunch time. So excited to cook dinner in our own home tonight!

Living Like Pioneers...



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So apparently our electric company meant 5pm FRIDAY not Tuesday.  This was a serious WTH moment as Mr. M and I scrabbled to find a place to stay last night.  Our refrigerator is toast as everything that we did not get out yesterday is now spoiled. My dear neighbor was kind enought to let me place a few things in her freezer but our NDO plan is not on hold for a few days.

I'm trying to stay optomistic.  Trying.

Getting Ready Like It's 1789.

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Last night, we experienced a pretty bad storm that knocked our power out completely which forced us to get creative with candles and flashlights to see our way around this morning. Now I know people waited for the sun to rise before starting their day when they didn't have electricitly - less opportunity to hurt yourself. For once, I had planned our dinner in advance and made crock pot lasagnas last night so we don't have to break our NDO plan. The house is okay but others in our city were pretty damaged from the storm.

This storm does make me want to buy a weather radio since we've had more and more bad weather this spring. Mr. M told me that we should have our power on by this evening which is good because I would hate to loose a refrigerator and freezer full of food. That would not help the Debt Snowball at all.

The 3rd NDO

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I forgot to mention earlier that we decide to do another No-Dining-Out month again starting with our trip to Denver. Since his work covered our meals, it made the first week pretty easy.  We're now on our 3 week and we have 12 days to go.  The best part of this NDO time is that it was Mr.M's idea - not mine. 

The "Richer" Feeling

I've had days like this.