Yay!! One more payment we don't have to make!! The IRS applied part of our 2008 refund to the 2006 back taxes we owed. And here I was being so good in setting up our payment plan and paying on-time every month. It's nice to know that we will have an extra $100 to apply towards our debt snowball every month!!

We just received our tax return and I've applied $800 of it towards our emergency fund. That brings our total to $1,047.59! Yay!!! It feels good to have it fully funded so now we can concentrate on paying down our debt instead of building up the fund. I'd be a little more comfortable if it were closer to $2,000, so I'm thinking that I'm going to apply 10% of our debt snowball to the EF every month to keep building it little by little.

Ok, I just spent the last hour exploring this site - Polyvore. I have no $$ to shop with (not to mention I have no fashion sense) but it was so much fun seeing what people had created! Oh, if I only had some $$. As soon as I can, I'm going to start budgeting a clothing allowance for myself!!

We did pretty good last week and should do even better this week! We're trying really hard to eat out of the freezer this week so as not to go over our grocery budget. I also earned a little extra money that is going straight into our Emergency Fund.

Started IDeals Online Offers

Reduced DirecTV bill $20.00 / month for 12 months

Listed 1 item on eBay

Signed up for YouData & made $4.06 this week. Not bad for just reading a few ads. Not a huge money maker, but every little bit helps!


Transferred $95.46 to Emergency Fund!

Made $2.81 on Half.com sales (net)

Bought 2 boxes of Easter Egg Decorations from Walgreens. 1 was on sale for $2.50 and the other was $.99. Used a $3 RR, and paid the remaining $.78 using a Walgreens GC. OOP = $0!

I've been menu planning off and on for a couple of years now. My weeks go so much easier when I have a menu plan than when I don't. I stress so much over what we are going to eat for dinner! Menu planning certainly helps my organization and my stress level! Here's our menu for this week, it is a relatively easy week for me for a change!

Sunday - Roasted Chicken, baked potatoes, frozen corn
Monday - YOYO - Kids have volleyball
Tuesday - Nani is cooking for St. Patrick's Day
Wednesday - YOYO - Kids have volleyball
Thursday - Fettuccine with Turkey Bolognese Sauce, garlic bread, green salad
Friday - Hot dogs, homemade fries, green beans
Saturday - Pork ribs, potato salad, frozen veggie of some kind

So I finally bit the bullet and called DirecTV to ask about lowering our monthly rates. I hear about people doing this all the time and finally got up the nerve to do the same. I started off by asking for the Cancellation Department. I told the guy I talked to that I didn't want to cancel, but wanted to find out if there would be a "cancellation fee" or anything. Which it turns out there is, a $220 cancellation fee. Apparently our current contract does not end until February 2010. But the nice man on the phone was able to give me a $20 / month (for one year) break on their fees, as well as remove the $5 protection plan. So we end up saving $300 this year on our DirecTV bills!! Yay! Thank you DirecTV!!

I've decided that I need to post a weekly recap of what went on financially for the week prior. This way I'll keep reminding myself how close we are to our budget, if we're over, etc. Anywho, on with the show!

I think overall, we are doing pretty good. Considering this is the second month I have ever actually "budgeted", we are not doing too bad sticking to it. We're a little over in a couple categories for the month:

Education / Other = <-$122.50>
Food / Restaurants = <-$13.52>
Medical / Doctor = <-$90.00>
Gifts <-$6.00>
Car Repairs =<-$488.70>
Phone / Internet = <$-2.68>


Not a whole lot I can do about any of these excess charges. I guess I should just be glad that we were able to pay for them in cash and not have to use credit for any of them. Unfortunately, I feel like we're never going to get our $1,000 emergency fund in place. I've only been able to send $79.00 this month towards it. I guess it is better than nothing, but not as much as I would have liked.

I totally love Walgreens and have been coupon shopping there for about a year or so. I always say I'm going to post my savings but never do. Since I'm trying really hard to stick to my grocery budget of $100/week, getting good deals at WAGS certainly helps out!

Here's what I got this week:

(3) Diet Pepsi 8-packs - $8.00
Received $3.00 RR

Fiber One Cereal Bars - $1.99
Used $0.60 coupon
= $1.39 ($0.28 each bar) - Great for lunch snacks!

Colgate Toothpaste - $3.29
Used $0.75 Coupon
Received $3.50 RR
= $0.96 Overage

Hot & Cold Pack - $2.19
I would have sworn this was marked as $10.00 something. On the WAGS website, it shows it for $7.99. Not complaining at all about this one!!

Axe Pomeade - $5.99
- $5.99 ES Rebate
= Free

(2) Revlon Eyeliners - $7.79 / B1G1
Used (2) $1.00 coupons
= $5.79 ($2.90 each)

Total = $24.45
Used $5.00 RR
Used $21.99 on giftcard
Total = $2.46 OOP

Received $6.50 on RR to use next time
Will get $5.99 on ESR
Yay me!

I know it's not much, but I just deposited $28.00 to our Emergency Fund. That brings the grand total to $73.01. Yeah, I know, whoopee....

Somehow though, that $28.00 makes me feel just a little better.

I'm going to try the "envelope" system this month for budgeting. That means paying "cash" for everything, instead of using my debit card. Which also means having to go to the bank and take out cash every week to replenish the envelopes since we don't have enough money in savings to cover the envelopes for the entire month. I'm going to do this with our oldest daughter too and put all her gas money for the month into one envelope. If she runs out half-way through the month, guess she'll need to dip into her savings.