A Couple of Days Until the End of the Year...An Update

Actually there isn't a lot to update but I wanted to drop in and say "hi".  Here's what's up:

• I told you last time that I was going to do the Whole 30 Challenge in January.  Towards that end, we went to the store today and made a haul of meat, fruit, and vegetables.  Hubby seems very supportive--he kept asking what other things we could get for me to eat during the upcoming week--but he doesn't want to join me in the challenge because he would miss his rice too much. BUT he said that if he could see a real difference over the month that I am doing the challenge, he would do it the following month which is probably the most inspiring thing I have heard from him (and an excellent motivator for me since I want him to be as healthy as possible).  Needless to say, I'm psyched!  Plus I keep reading these stories and want to be one of them eventually!
• My friends are moving to Las Vegas!  They are driving down from Seattle and should be here this evening.  Actually they had lived in Las Vegas before and liked it here so when my friend's husband got laid off, they sold everything in their small apartment and hit the road for Vegas.  Yeah!  Plus they are interested in starting some sort of business here and so am I so I think we will be able to do some collaboration that will benefit all of us!
• Speaking of the Whole 30 Challenge, I picked up my Baskin Robbins Blast today (believe it or not, they always have it waiting for me as soon as I walk into the place--I am there about every other day!) and told the owner that he probably wouldn't see me for at least a month because I am trying a diet challenge and he said they always notice a steep drop in customers around the beginning of the year for the same reason.  Originally I had changed to Baskin Robbins because I loved the Starbucks frappuccino and was having one every day but the price (over $5 at the Strip Starbucks) and the daily dose of caffeine, wasn't good for me.  So I found a Baskin Robbins close by the library I go to on an almost daily basis, found that the Blast which is similar to the Frappuccino was less than $4, and made it a habit to stop by every other day or every two days instead of daily.  Either way, this is an expensive and quite unhealthful habit so I hope with the Whole 30 challenge I won't see an ice creamy/caffeine-e drink for the next month or more!
• I may be getting a nice consulting gig.  During my money challenge back in November I told you about a friend who wanted me to do some work for her but I talked her out of it (and me out of the money) because I didn't think it was something they needed to do.  Anyway, she called me today and said her organization is moving forward with an even bigger project and she wants to fly down here to talk to me about it.  I would be doing some consulting work for her from afar and making more with this project than I would have with the last project.  I'm loving karma about now.
• Speaking of the money challenge, the funds continue to trickle in from things that I did that month (a common thing for freelance writers who don't get paid until their stuff is published).  Here is my most recently published article.
• I have a bunch of stuff to do tomorrow, the last day of the year, namely clean our place thoroughly (an old Jewish tradition, even though I am not Jewish), get the food prepped for the first week of my Whole 30 Challenge, and put some cash in my wallet (this is a Filipino tradition which states that if you start the year with money in your wallet you will increase it over the year but if you don't have any money in your wallet at the beginning of the year you will not have any over the course of the year either.  I'm not superstitious but still...makes sense to me.  Then tomorrow night we will venture onto the Strip (with hundreds of thousands of other people) to ring in the New Year.
• I am still not sure what I want to do on New Year's Day.  I like to do something interesting (previously I did a Volksmarch on New Year's Eve in Seattle, a "Run for the Heroes" 10k race in Gig Harbor on New Year's Day, and the Polar Bear Plunge in Olalla but it doesn't look like they have anything interesting to do here in Las Vegas on New Year's Day.  Maybe they anticipate most people to be hung over and sleeping after partying it up on New Year's Eve??).  So I may just try to walk the Strip or something.

I think that's about all.  Hope your New Year's Eve is festive and your New Year is lucrative!

A Couple of Challenges for January

Along with making some general resolutions for 2012, there are two challenges that I will be doing in January:

• The first is a no-spend challenge over at Carla's blog.  For the month of January, which, crossing my fingers, should be really quiet with not a lot going on, I will try to spend NO money for the month (except for food, see second challenge below).  Other than a few bills (cells, tithe, electricity, savings, grandson's school) I don't foresee anything coming up that I would NEED to spend money on (unlike this past month where there were all kinds of things popping up that required money).  If I can possibly get by without purchasing anything but food and paying my meager bills I will.  Even if something comes up (like I have been wanting a new pair of tennis shoes) I will try to put it off until February.  NO SPEND JANUARY!
• The second is a Whole 30 Challenge.  I have been wanting to "go paleo" for a while but with traveling and holidays and friends bearing yummy food and checking out restaurants in Las Vegas, I have failed miserably at past trials for this.  Anyway, I came across a Whole 30 challenge which is a strict paleo type of diet and for ONE MONTH, I am really going to buckle down and try my best to stay with this eating program.  I really want to see if it is as beneficial as they say and see how one month of concentrated effort and eating right impacts my body.  This is going to be way harder than not spending money because, well I LOVE food.  Ayayay   There is some more information on this challenge here and here.

Do any of you have interesting challenges you will be trying in the new year?

2011: The Year in Review

Since today is kind of a quiet day, I thought I would take a little trip down memory lane and see how things went for us over the past year.  Here's the round up:

• We sold our house at a good price.  The market was on the downward slide at the beginning of the year but since we had bought so long ago, we were still able to sell for more than what was owed on it and pocket some equity.
• With the proceeds from our home sale we were able to finally pay off all of our debts. Yeah!
• We spent the last year basically homeless (by choice) traveling which had been one of our goals for ages.  We always thought that if we wanted to travel we would have to be millionaires but learned that without a huge house payment and other bills/debts that go along with owning a home we could actually have the money to travel. What a light bulb moment!
• We traveled around for the past year and so many great things happened while on the road that I was in a state of near constant amazement.  We visited Atlanta and the SIL who we were staying with needed some help with her grand kids (basically taking them to pre school every day) so we ended up staying there for three months with free room and board and car and all kinds of other nice extras.  We stopped by Las Vegas so hubby could do the World Series of Poker tournament and found that house prices were super low so we immediately made an offer to buy a house there, determining that it didn't matter where we lived in the world but that having a really low house payment would go a long way towards letting us continue to travel.  We spent a couple of months in Seattle enjoying the nice summer weather, then we spent nearly a month in the Philippines visiting friends and relatives and I got to hop over to Japan for a week to visit friends I hadn't seen in ages (all expenses paid...I love serendipity!).  We came back to Seattle after our foray into Asia and found that our offer on the house in Las Vegas had fallen though so we packed up our stuff which had been in storage in Seattle and carted it down to Las Vegas since we knew that eventually we would be moving there.  We made six more offers on homes in Las Vegas and all fell through (FYI--short sales are a horrible way to buy a house quickly and when you are buying the lowest priced homes in the area, the competition with cash buyers who are looking for rental property investments is fierce!).  We stayed with a cousin in Las Vegas for a couple of months while we got our bearings then decided to rent another cousin's condo for a couple months before looking to buy a house (and it's a good thing we did--we had made offers to buy a couple of condos but after living in one for a couple of months we have definitely decided to buy a house!).
• I haven't worked for an entire year (a first since I was 16!) and we have found that we can both live pretty well on the hubby's retirement income!  Prior to this we had always assumed that it took two fairly large incomes to live happily but that isn't true.  With no debt and watching our spending we are actually living much better than we had in previous years!
• We've taken frugality to new heights.  With our year of living out of our backpacks, we found that we really don't need too much stuff to actually survive--laptops, cell phones, and a few changes of clothes and that's all we need!  Previous to this we thought we needed closets full of clothes and huge purchases of Costco food "just in case".  Now we buy only what we need for the immediate future, only what we will wear in the immediate future, and only what we will eat within a few days; this works out really well and saves us a ton of money.
• Because we have such a limited income, we scrutinize every single purchase no matter how small.  First, we try not to buy things that we don't absolutely need (mostly because at the beginning of the year we sold nearly everything we owned via garage sales and Craigslist and found that everything that we had paid top dollar for had a resale value of literally pennies on the dollar--a sobering reminder of the REAL price of the things we buy).  Also, since we have downsized our living space considerably (another thing we learned from traveling is that we can live quite comfortably in about 500 square feet!) we don't have the need to buy stuff just to fill up our living space--this also saves a lot of money.  Finally, and again due to our limited income, shopping is no longer a hobby.  If we don't have a burning need for something--and the cold, hard cash to purchase it--we simple don't go shopping.  I haven't seen a mall in months!
• Finally, we have learned to look at things that people assume you "have to have" in a new light.  Since we hadn't really watched much TV over the past year, we didn't really miss cable, so when it came time to decide on TV service for our condo, we bought a $20 antenna from Walmart and now can watch TV for free over the air.  We have always owned cars--sometimes up to six for two drivers!--but now we have one car for the both of us and with neither of us working, there isn't a need for more than one car since all of our driving trips can be easily coordinated (before with both of us working, having two cars was basically a necessity).  Fortunately we have both aged past the "ego" part of owning new, shiny, "cool" cars and have one paid-for family van that we will probably drive until it literally dies (alas it has no "image" to speak of at all).

Overall, our entire year has centered around our new relationship to money.  Just a few years ago we were living paycheck to paycheck and deeply in debt and actually thought that was how we were supposed to be living because all 'normal' people lived that way.  Then we ran across the Dave Ramsey show on TV, caught the "debt free" bug, continued to watch Dave EVERY SINGLE DAY until his messages about money were burned into our memory, eventually got out of debt by shedding stuff we didn't need (cars, house, material goods), put our earnings toward paying off debt and living cash-only (which saved us a lot in spending even if the initial transition was semi-torturous), revelled in the freedom that came with literally not having a single debt, followed our dreams as far as our cash would take us (not super far but far enough from the daily grind that we had a wonderful year of travel), and have now landed on our feet in a new city, looking ahead to new goals for the coming year.  Whew!  What a lot of change we have had over the past year!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Before I keel over on the couch in a turkey coma, I just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!  We had a wonderful Christmas eve dinner with the cousins and about 20 of their relatives last night, then we were up early again this morning for a big Christmas lunch with the same group.  We get a couple hour;s break then we are off to play in the cousin's annual Christmas day bowling tournament (which should be fun because nearly none of them actually bowl but they make a big deal out of this tournament which comes complete with actual trophies and everything!).  I hope you all are having a wonderful day with your friends and family!

A Little Rave About the Hubby

I wanted to rave a little bit about the hubby today.  For the past year, I have not worked (a first, since I have always worked full time since I was 16) and we have been getting by on hubby's pensions.  I feel a bit bad about not working, like I am not contributing as I should be and as I always have during our entire marriage, but hubby seems fine with me not working and hasn't mentioned a thing about me getting a job.  Anyway, today I really needed to get my gifts bought and sent to Japan but I have very little money and I knew this was going to be an expensive proposition (and I was right, the gifts were $250 and the shipping was $100!) so I told hubby I needed $350 out of our spending money for gifts and he gave it to me, just like that.  No questions asked.  Although he knew it was for the gifts, he made no comment about how expensive this was going to be, just a "here is the money go get it done".  I felt so guilty taking such a big chunk of our spending money and I know we will have very little to spend until the 1st but this was really important to me (mostly because my friends were super generous to me when I was there in Japan this past fall).  So in short I am thankful for the hubby's generosity and how supportive he is of what is important to me.

A Pre-Christmas Update

It's kind of crazy around here...

• The cousin will have about 12-15 family members come to Las Vegas for Christmas so we volunteered to help her out by cooking a meal for them each day for the next week.  Actually hubby will cook and I will bake something each evening so tonight hubby will cook a beef stew type dish (in the Philippines it is called apritada and since everyone is Filipino they should like it) and I will bake brownies.  The cousins have helped us out a lot over the past couple months so this is a good way to give back.  Also, hubby loves to have people to cook for and I love to bake but don't want and entire giant batch of brownies or cookies just sitting on the counter where I will make a meal of them, plus this will save the cousin a considerable amount of money since in the past she would just take the whole group out for each meal(!).
• I am determined to get Christmas gifts sent off to my friends in Japan by tomorrow.  I feel so bad that they won't arrive until New Years but I have kept putting it off (mostly because of the cost but also because we have been busy), however I don't want them to arrive in spring so I better get busy!
• I was going to get hubby a smart phone for Christmas which would have cost $200 for the phone then an added $20 each month for the calling plan (his plan now is $30 but for phones that use a lot of data the plan costs $50), but he said he doesn't really want one so now I need to figure out something else to get him (but I am secretly breathing a sigh of relief that our monthly cell bill won't increase!).
• We seem to be chronically frugal now.  We needed a butter dish so we looked at one at Walmart and it was $4 and we both agreed that that was too expensive (!?) so we waited a couple of days and found one at the Dollar Store for, well, a dollar.  We have never been this frugal before but since we have been traveling and living on a really small income, we question each and every purchase no matter how small it is dollar-wise. Yikes.
• I have been listening to Dave Ramsey on the radio a lot lately, mostly because his show comes on about the time we cook dinner so it is something nice to listen to while we cook.  I can't recommend listening to his show enough for people who want to get out of debt--or even for those of us who are out of debt, so we don't go back to our old ways.

That's about all that is happening today.  I hope all of you are getting ready for a wonderful Christmas!

My New Year's Resolutions and My New Monthly Budget

I have been thinking about New Year's Resolutions lately.  Actually I was wondering if I should make any at all because I am notoriously bad at keeping them but there is something about a new, bright and shiny year that makes one want to throw themselves full force into self improvement.  So in the interest of improving myself (for however short a span it lasts), here's my new year's resolutions and my new monthly budget:

1. Earn a black belt in karate.  I have dabbled in karate off and on over the years but I really want to focus on earning a black belt.  There is a karate school that I will check out tomorrow and while the price is around $100 per month, I noticed that their website is really old looking so maybe I can trade a few months of lessons for an updated website.
2. Finish writing a book and get it published.  This has been on my list for ages but this is the year that I actually have time to focus on and complete this goal so I am going to give it a shot (and should it be successful, will add some funds to my meager savings).
3. Add $100 to my emergency fund each month.  My emergency fund is currently on life support so any amount I can add each month would be helpful; hopefully with some freelance writing gigs I can deposit at least $100 a month.
4. Go to Asia in the fall.  Last fall's trip to Japan and the Philippines was amazing and I realized that everyone we know there is getting older so it seems like it is better to go there as often as possible now while the people we know are still around.  This is going to take some major savings/work effort because we spent a boatload of money on our last trip!
5. Work on our family genealogy, going directly back as far as possible.  Genealogy has only recently peaked my interest but it is so fascinating that I want to make time to do a complete and thorough research job so this will definitely be something I focus on during the upcoming year.
6. Go to Europe next fall.  For some reason we always go to Asia but never to Europe.  The bit of genealogy research I have done has highlighted a couple of places in the UK where there is a heavy concentration of my ancestors so going there would have two benefits, the first, being to add some research to my family tree, and the second, to be able to enjoy traveling there while the hubby is still able to easily get around.
7. Be fluent in Japanese.  Although I barely got to practice what Japanese I learned over last summer when I went to Japan, I still have two college textbooks on basic Japanese that I want to complete in full--mostly because I love learning new languages.
8. Be fluent in Spanish.  Again, I would like to brush up on my Spanish language skills although I don't speak it here nearly as much as I used to when I was working in my non profit.  I would like to complete the entire "Practice Makes Perfect" Spanish series.
9. Do some sort of physical challenge.  I haven't quite decided what that will be but the options I have been considering include biking from Canada to Mexico, doing the Warrior Challenge or Tough Mudder, or something to that affect.  I am stating the goal this way because I usually just put "be healthy and fit" on my list and that is too generic a thing to accomplish so with a specific physical fitness goal, I am hoping that it will make me concentrate on physical fitness enough to actually reach this goal.
10. Take the family on a reunion cruise.  We used to have family reunions somewhere in the US at some family member's house but with an extended family of more than 100 people and growing, the logistics of this were just too overwhelming.  About five years ago we decided to hold the family reunion on a cruise ship and it was wonderful.  There were people to cook and clean for us, everyone was free to go do what they wanted yet we all met up for dinner each night, and most importantly, the family still talks about the cruise to this day so the memories made were pretty impressive.  The way we do this is that each "parent" in the family (meaning hubby and his brother and sisters) usually pays for all of their kids and grand kids to go on the trip because the kids and grand kids are at a point in their lives where they don't have the money to spare to pull this off.  This means that for just the hubby and I, we will need to pay for 17(!) people to go.  Without me working this is going to be a super difficult thing to do because we are talking about nearly $10,000(!).  So while this is on the list, it is probably the lowest priority just because it seems so out of reach yet I will still keep it on the list because for some odd reason, nearly everything I put on my "wish list" seem to work out some how.

So with these goals in mind, my monthly budget starting January 1st is...

• Tithe $50 (I tithe every month to Unity)
• Cell phones $80 ($50 for mine and $30 for hubby's)
• Savings $100 (this will go into my emergency fund)
• Grandson's school $40 (I have paid for his school since kindergarten and want to do this through college)
• Electric bill $50+/- (hubby pays all of the bills but I would like to be able to help him out by paying at least one of our bills so that would be the electric bill.  In the winter the bill is low but I am a little afraid to see what the summer bills will be when we have the AC going 24/7)
• Karate $100 (I hope to offset this by bartering if possible)

With this budget in mind, I need to some how earn around $500 a month.  It seems like such a piddly amount but as my last month's money challenge showed me, even earning this little bit takes a lot of effort!

Yesterday I Gave Myself and Early Christmas Present...Oh, And Here's Some Penguins

First, the penguins.  We went to the Bellagio today because I had heard that their new Christmas display was up and this always makes a nice, free photo op.

And my Christmas present....  These past few days, as I have been lamenting how far behind I am this holiday season (like I haven't even STARTED Christmas shopping yet!), I was thinking about how I can simplify my life even more so that in 2012, I will have time to work on some big projects I have been thinking about doing.  Then it hit me that at this time, when I have absolutely nothing pressing to do since I currently don't need to work (and if we can stay super frugal I can continue this way until something I just can't resist comes along), I need to stop doing "day filler" stuff and actually focus on things with some long term benefits (I should have these things together in list form by tomorrow).
The first thing I did was make me a new website which you can find here, then I decided to stop "blogging for dollars" so to speak and focus more on freelance writing to bring in a bit of funds on the side.  At first, since I love to write, I thought that setting up some "niche" blogs would be a good way to earn some Adsense revenue but it really isn't and keeping up seven blogs takes A LOT of time.  So as you can see, down in the right corner of this page, I am signing off from all of the newer blogs I have started and will only have three to update each day--this one (which is my most personal blog), another blog which I am just putting together that I will use as a "grab bag" for business and tech and travel stuff (less personal; the one I direct my friends, family, and clients to), and a third blog which I ghost write (a long story).
I feel more relaxed already!

One Year Into Our New Lifestyle and Here's What I Have Learned

It just dawned on me that in a couple of weeks it will be exactly one year since I quit working (actually I am still doing some freelance stuff but on December 31st of last year I "fired" my biggest client which basically left me jobless).  Here's what I have learned:

• You can drop from an income of $6000-$8000 a month to $2000 a month (for two people!) and still be extremely happy.  We are at least.
• The biggest change you need to make is in your attitude.  I am a bit embarrassed to say that around five years ago I was one of those snooty people who would look down on people who took the bus, drove clattering cars, and wore last season anything.  Now I take the bus, drive a car that is more than ten years old, and wear clothes from the Goodwill.  What a difference a few years (and a growth in maturity) makes!
• If you look at a financial challenge like a shot to your ego and try to get things back "to the way they used to be" then you will miss the lesson (and the adventure) that comes from massive change.  Instead, if you look at a financial challenge like a riddle or a game, you can be creative and audacious and turn the problem into a fun experiment then come out on the other end with something really amazing that in your "old life" would have never even been a possibility.
• There are only a few things that you really NEED to have a happy life (and none of these needs have a designer label on them).  Prior to our year of travel, I thought that I NEEDED a big house, a nice car, designer clothes/shoes/purses, lots of cash to give gifts to people with, shopping and lunching with the girls, etc.  During our year of travel, the only things that we really NEEDED were: a clean, dry, safe place to sleep (thanks to generous friends and relatives we got this FREE for an entire year); a few changes of clothes (we wore the same clothes--and only what would fit in our backpacks--for a year and no one even noticed that we only had about five changes of clothes each); food (yes, you can survive on $1 tacos and burgers for an extended period but I don't recommend it.  When it comes to food, the 99 cents store rocks!); and a bit of socialization (the hubby and the internet--you guys who comment on this blog--and friends on FaceBook and Twitter took care of that).  Everything else is free--sunshine, fresh air, a nice walk, the library, etc.
• There is always a cheaper way to do things.  Again, a few years back, I thought that having a lifestyle where we would spend nearly $8000 a month (!) on everything from big house and car payments to 150+ cable channels, the highest speed internet, restaurant meals a couple of times a day, magazine subscriptions...et al. was how everyone lived.  I've since learned that it's not.  Cell phone--$30 prepaid plan. Transportation--$50 a month bus pass.  TV--$20 for a one time purchase of a TV antenna.  Car insurance--liability only because the car is so old.  You get the idea...
• And the very best thing: once you set yourself on a changing path, people from your past who were part of "that other" lifestyle kind of disappear and new people, amazing people, people who are on the same journey as you start to appear.  Like you all who are reading this.  Again, it suddenly dawned on me that the people who filled my life a few short years ago (the ones who got together to talk about their new cars and their latest purchases) have all but disappeared.  Now most of our friends are kind of like us.  Many are retired or working only part time so they have a lot of free time to have potlucks and volunteer and meet for coffee.  When we get together we talk about how to save money on various things and where the best deals are to be found.  It doesn't matter what a persons' job title is or what kind of car they drive because they are there for you when you need them and they are genuinely nice people.

Overall I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.  Now I get to sleep in as late as I want, there is absolutely no stress in my life, the is no office politics in my life (truly a welcome relief), we won't be having a fancy restaurant meal any time soon but cooking at home is so enjoyable that I don't care, finding a super bargain (like my J Jill jeans!) at the Goodwill is cause for celebration, saying hi to the regulars at the library where I do all of my online work is one of the highlights of my day, and spending a lot of time with the hubby is wonderful (because he is my best friend and who doesn't want to spend time with their best friend?).  Yes, we have to be careful with every dollar we spend and yes there are occasions when I wish we had a lot of money coming in (like now around Christmas time) but overall, having a life of freedom instead of debt payments and a job reminiscent of indentured servitude is sooooo much better.

Home Sweet One Bedroom Condo

We are finally settled into our new place and EVERYTHING has been put away!  Here's a picture of the living room.  It's a small, one bedroom, one bath place but it is the perfect size for us.  In fact, we have decided to buy a two bedroom house instead of a three or four bedroom house as we had planned (actually that was our initial plan when we sold our last house--downsize and minimize so that we would save money on not only heating a cooling but also on decorating and furniture). 
Like many times before, when we were making offers on houses here in Las Vegas we kind of got carried away with the "if two bedrooms are good than three or four would be better" thing so I am glad we put our home buying on hold for a few months so we could have a bit of time to realize that we want to spend a lot less money and time on a house so that we will have a lot more money and time to do the things we want to do like travel. 
Anyway, I am really happy with this little place (except for the part about sharing a bathroom and closet with the hubby--definitely need two bathrooms and two separate closets in the new place!), the price is super reasonable, and it will be "home" for a few months for us!  Also, I have been cooking up a storm for the first time in nearly a year.  So far I have made pizza, banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, granola, yogurt, and curried shrimp with rice.
The only thing that is missing is a Christmas tree but real trees are SO expensive here!!!  So we will hang up some Christmas cards and call it good for this year.  Now I need to get my Christmas shopping done!!!

Finally All Moved In...I Love the 99 Cent Store...and My Articles...In Other Words, A Rambling Update

Here's kind of a rambling update (mostly because of the copious amounts of caffeine I've had today thanks to a big Basking Robbins Cappuccino Blast--my favorite!)...

We are finally all moved into our condo, furniture is moved, boxes are unpacked, and it really is home now (I'll post some pictures of it tomorrow, it was kind of still messy today so I didn't want to take pictures).  The exercise from moving furniture and boxes was great (after the first day or so of feeling like I had been run over by a truck).  I'm trying to think of a way to keep up that kind of walking/lifting type of exercise in the future...

I've gotta say, I absolutely LOVE the 99 Cent stores here.  They are kind of like Dollar Stores but have way more stuff like food and fresh fruits and vegetables and are as big as a supermarket.  Every time we make a list of things we need for our new place (aluminum foil, bath mat, spices, etc) we hit this store first before all others and so far have mostly been able to stock our new place with the things we have found there (which saves us a LOT of money over buying these things at other places such as Walmart).

A couple of my articles from last month's money challenge have been published (which...yeah!...means I can now invoice for them).  You can check them out here and here.

Finally, I caught just a short segment on talk radio today which was really interesting (and scary).  There was a guy on (didn't catch his name) who was talking about the federal budget and federal deficit and simplified the numbers by knocking off six zeros from all figures because, as he said, when you talk about trillions and billions of dollars people's eyes glaze over. Any way, he noted that the government is like a person who earns $21,000 a year yet spends $36,000 a year.  Every year.  Which is why the US is in so much debt.  Can you image if you earned $21,000 a year but spent $36,000 a year by going into debt what kind of shape your finances would be in after a decade? Yep.  Scary.  That's the kind of shape the US is in financially now.

Also, I am updating ChimeIn a lot now.  You can find me there at http://chime.in/user/aprilborbon

And finally (again), while we haven't decorated at all for Christmas this year, I thought I would post a picture of our Christmas tree from a couple of years ago just because my blog seriously lacks pictures and it is the holiday season and for some reason I am so not in the holiday spirit this year--I think because it is so sunny and warm here while all of our Christmases in the past have featured gloomy, overcast Seattle skies, cold weather, and occasionally snow.  I just don't equate Christmas time with sun yet.

Note to self--CUT BACK ON THE CAFFEINE!

It Works!

That's what hubby and I both said as soon as we plugged our TV into the digital antenna.  We couldn't believe we could have TV without paying for cable but we figured out that it was actually possible...
Well, first we moved our stuff in to our new rental condo.  Hubby HATES moving so I am betting that we will live in our next house until we die or something because we are too cheap to hire someone to move our stuff and too weak to easily move our stuff ourselves (but we do it anyway and it takes forever and we both feel like we have gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson...).
Then we set up our TVs and debated our TV options.  Cable was expensive ($90 a month intro fee for cable TV, phone, and internet then after six months it jumps up to $150+) and even getting just cable TV and internet would set us back over $80 a month so I did a bit of research and found that if you buy a digital TV antenna, you can catch over the air HDTV signals so we bought the antenna ($20 at Walmart) and plugged it into the TV and we were able to pick up about 40 stations.  It's kind of an odd array of stations but it is TV and it covers most of what we usually watch (ABC, CBS, NBC).  Then, just as I was going to call the cable company and order internet only, the manager of the complex pointed out that there was free wifi there so needless to say hubby and I were elated.  Which makes our bills now:

• Rent $600
• Electricity $50+/- (unsure because we haven't received our first bill yet)
• Cell phones $80
• Storage $75 (the condo was furnished so we switched out our furniture and are now paying to store the cousins furniture in our storage unit)
• Tithe $50
• Medical insurance $35
• Car insurance $35
• Grandson's school and help for son's family in Philippines $100

Of course we also have gas, food, clothing, misc. but we try to keep these expenses as low as possible.  I am just happy that we can now finally eat all of our meals "at home" now. Yeah!
p.s. I officially got my Las Vegas driver's license today which was a whole experience in itself.  I have never seen a DMV as big as the one in Las Vegas with 35 service stations and a two hour wait.  People everywhere, lines everywhere, and the lady that helped me said they weren't even busy that day!!!

A Quick Update: The Moving Edition!

First, I have done nothing to earn money yet this month.  I was hoping to keep my project from last month going by at least making an effort to try and make money every day or every other day but like most good intentions, life stepped in and we have been busy with other stuff...like moving...
We just signed the rental agreement for the cousin's condo this morning and she will be leaving on Sunday so we will start moving in Sunday afternoon.  We got a really good deal from the cousin--cheap rent (much less than she is actually paying for the mortgage and condo fees and even less than the market value....nice cousin!), no first last and deposit so we don't have to come up with a chunk of money right now (in fact she gave us the month of December free so we don't actually start paying rent until January...like I said, very nice cousin).
So now that we have the rental agreement I was so excited to go and get a Las Vegas driver's license but no one warned me that the DMV in Las Vegas looks like Disney Land on Spring Break!  A two hour wait time, hundreds of people everywhere, and lines everywhere. Yikes!  I promptly left and next week, since we were going to go up north to the military base, we will try to find a smaller DMV from which to procure our licenses.
Then I called to get the electricity in our name.  I had to wait on hold for twenty minutes just to talk to someone.  I asked if there is a better time to call if I need to talk to them and she said waiting only 20 minutes was a very quick hold time (?!).
Then I called the cable company to find out about internet and cable TV.  They have a deal of $90 a month for six months for phone, internet and cable TV but we don't want a phone as we both have cell phones and we really don't need a million cable channels either.  What we want is cheap and they don't seem to have cheap so it looks like we will get cable only then buy an antenna and see what over-the-air digital stations we can get on our TV since we don't really watch much TV and when we feel like a movie we can just get them for free from the library.
Finally...I can't wait to start cooking meals at home.  I am so tired of eating out--which we have been doing for about the last six months--that it wouldn't bother me if I don't see another restaurant for a year!  Guess I am just craving home cooked food!

Once Again Google Saved Me a Bunch of Money

Here's a picture of hubby's computer looking hale and hearty.  Yesterday it was doing the death rattle.
His computer has had viruses a couple of times before and with Google's help I was able to fix the problem (really simple actually...just restart the computer in safe mode then restore the computer to an earlier time).  This latest virus, however, was pretty tough. It wouldn't let me do anything to the computer--no clicking on icons, no restarting in safe mode...I basically thought the computer was dead OR that I would have to take it in to a computer shop to get it fixed.
Then I did what I always do when I am having a crisis--I Googled the problem.  I Googled a rambling description of the problem (windows 2012 virus screen locked blah blah blah) and it quickly gave me a list of results about the virus and how to fix it.  I tried a recommendation from the first link and it didn't work so I did a bit more research and found that you can download a windows virus scanner onto a USB drive via another computer then put the USB drive into the sick computer and make it boot from the USB drive instead of the hard drive thus bypassing the virus.  After an hour and a half of scanning the computer then coming up with the virus which it allowed me to "kill", the computer came back to life.  I then did a Windows update, uninstalled the old virus software, then installed new, free virus software (Avast) and now all is well and hubby is happy to get his computer back!  I'm just happy we didn't have to spend the money to have a professional fix it.
tl;dr  If you have any kind of problem, Google first before you panic.  With the millions and millions and millions of people in the world it is a good bet someone has had a similar problem and posted a way to fix the problem online.  Yeah Google!

Whew! We spent Exactly $0 on our Trip!

The hubby and I were kind of stressing out about our recent trip to Tennessee for the SIL's wedding.  Usually any travel results in us spending a goodly amount of money.  Fortunately, after we paid for our tickets to get there (around $550) we ended up not having to spend a penny more on the trip!
We got a ride to the airport from the cousin so that was free.  When we got to Tennessee, we were picked up from the airport by my husband's daughter who had arrived before us so we didn't have to rent a car.  We stayed in a huge, beautiful cabin that the SIL rented to house everyone (there were about 25 people there total and the cabin could sleep 30 people--it was huge and beautiful and perched right on top of a mountain looking out over the Smoky Mountains).  The wedding couple also brought a ton of snacks and beverages and for the evening of everyone's arrival they bought pizza for dinner.  We didn't need to buy special clothes for the wedding because it was casual (it was an outdoor wedding at a mountain top chapel--the view was AMAZING!).  After the wedding, they had a huge barbecue lunch catered and it was brought right up to the cabin.  We ended up eating this huge spread for the rest of the day (BTW the people in Tennessee can REALLY cook!).  The rest of the day everyone hung out at the cabin (the closest town was miles and miles away so there was no temptation to go hang out in town and spend money).  Then the next day we left--again a ride to the airport with the step daughter and we took some of the snacks with us to eat on the plane.  Pick up at the airport was free from the cousin, and we ended up back home having spent exactly 0 for the entire long weekend!  Color me shocked...yet happy.

A Reminder to Not Base All of Your Decisions on Finances Alone

Over the past couple of years we have been so focused on paying off debt and saving money that there have been many things that we have passed on, purely based on financial considerations.
This weekend we are in Gatlinbug, TN for the SIL's wedding.  Initially we had told her we would not be able to go to her wedding because it was yet another expense in the already expensive holiday season (plus we will be moving, plus we have other things--a whole list in fact--that we have planned to spend our money on). But another SIL called and basically insisted that we went so we did (hubby has a very persuasive family!).
I am really glad we came.  If we hadn't, we would have missed this beautiful sunset, we would have missed a beautiful wedding, and we would have missed the opportunity to meet up with some great people! So the moral of the story is that while it is a good thing to control your spending, don't pass up once in a lifetime opportunities just because you want to hold tight to your money.

My November Money Challenge...The Recap

I can't believe the month is over!  I actually did make some money this month and the most important thing that I learned is that if I want to make money and/or be a successful writer, I need to do something EVERY DAY towards these goals.  Sitting around and thinking about making money or thinking about becoming a real writer doesn't make it happen.  It takes concentrated effort--daily effort--in order to realize a good outcome.  So that's what I intend to do--work everyday on both my writing and making money.
There were quite a few times during this challenge that I longed for my cushy, high paying job (easy work, big paychecks) but now, whenever I contemplate applying for a job or starting my own business again, I cringe.  I just want to be a writer so I can enjoy a flexible schedule, rampant creativity, and who knows, one of these days maybe even success!
Here's how much money I made this month:

• $125 sold netbook
• $50 sold Freelance Switch article
• $3 for doing two surveys on Opinion Outpost
• $50 billed a client for her website which I had previously given her for free
• $150 for remaking a website for a client
• $20 a percentage of hubby's poker winnings
• $10 won playing pai gow (gambling)
• $210 sold old laptop
• $50 sold another Freelance Switch article
• $25 a percentage of hubby's poker winnings
• $70 sold an article to Dollar Stretcher
• $32.27 in AdSense for November

For a grand total of....$795.27   Which makes me $204.73 short of my goal of $1000.  Not bad...

p.s. Thank you all for being so supportive of me and my challenge!!!!!!!