money-saving-in-the-works

In a Work at Home Slump

phoenyxstarr — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:46:16 +0000

I’m in a slump. I know I need to work, but I just don’t have the energy or will to do it. I know I’m super lucky that Hubby’s job pays all our bills & then some. I want Hubby to come home & stay though, driving is getting harder for him. He’s got arthritis in his back & neck so sitting in the same position for 8+ hours everyday is killing him. So I have a very good reason to work, just no drive. I’ve tried everything I can think of - scheduling my day by the hour so that I can get everything done, using ‘focus’ software so that I don’t get distracted, etc - but nothing seems to work. Its so easy to skip work & play on Facebook all day instead. I guess I just need to buckle down & work, and pay attention to my PDA alerts instead of ignoring them all day. Ugh, I feel so lazy… I know I should work, but I don’t really want to.

I Hate Hackers!

phoenyxstarr — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:39:48 +0000

I don’t mean you white-hat hackers out there, I hate hackers that are malicious. My husband’s email was hacked yesterday, we don’t have any proof but I think it was this woman that he works with that he was talking to when we were having problems. The reason I think its her is because I got sent a very nasty email saying that Hubby is only with me for the kids, he really loves her (mentions her by name), & that he tells her that their love-making is the best he’s ever had. Obviously, whoever sent the email is trying to break me & him up. So it stands to reason whoever sent it has something to gain from that break-up. That’s the main reason for my suspicions.

She thinks she’s in love with him and that he loves her, but I know he’s told her that nothing will ever happen between them. She’s a stalker type though so she’s not giving up. She’s another reason I want him to quit driving. She works there, she has access to the spare keys for the trucks, and she’s desperate. Add all that up together & you get her swiping the spare key to Hubby’s truck & trying to seduce him when he’s taking a quick nap at the yard. I trust him… Its crazy Jezebels like her that I don’t trust.

Personal Growth

phoenyxstarr — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:35:31 +0000

For a long time, I’ve been just like my mom, constantly yelling at my girls whenever they did something wrong. I’m tired of that, I hate yelling! I decided that I’m going to start staying calm no matter what they do, no screaming at them for being kids or anything. Some days I do better than others, the past 3 days have been pretty bad because I’ve been feeling pretty cruddy. I’m going to figure out what’s wrong with me, then I’m getting right back on the no screaming.

I know alot of people are religious, in some way or another. They may not go to church but they believe. I’ve tried most normal religions and they’re not a good fit for me. But I discovered something when I was 17 that really struck home for me, Wicca. At the time, I couldn’t really pursue it like I wanted because I was living with my parents & they aren’t the most tolerant of people. But now I’ve got a Hubby who supports me in everything that I do, even if he’s a little misguided on the concept. I guess that means its my job to educate him on real Wicca. Whenever I start reading or studying a particular subject in Wicca, he gets all excited & tells me to buy everything for it. I’m still working on making him realize that I have to wait for the right thing to come to me. I’ve been reading about Wicca for almost a month now, but I just now found the right altar table. And its not even marketed as an altar! Its a normal circular end table, with a drawer and lower shelf. But when I saw it, I knew it was what I was going to use. It’ll be here tomorrow, and I get to spend the afternoon putting it together.

New Homepage & Another Update

phoenyxstarr — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:26:37 +0000

I found a new website that pays you to go to other websites. It is BeRuby.com & so far I like it. They don’t pay much for each click, but they have a lot of commonly used sites like FaceBook, MySpace, YahooMail, Gmail, and many others. Each click is worth half a penny and you only get credited for a visit every 24 hours, so you can’t click for credit every 5 minutes. They pay to your PayPal once you reach $10. I only signed up last Thursday I think, and I’ve gotten $1.10 already. Some of that is the sign-up bonus, $1.00. But I’ve gotten 1 to 2 pennies per day. Its not much, but when the only thing your doing is clicking to go to something you normally go to anyway, its good.

My birthday was last week & I got a new HD camera for it. I like it! Its much better than my old camera, now I just have to get me a webcam so that I can video chat with Hubby when he stops for the night while driving. I’ve already gotten some of my Christmas shopping done, 1 present for each of the girls, 2 for my mother-in-law, & 1 for Hubby. All that’s left is 3 more for each of the girls, and my sister-in-laws & their hubbys.

General Update

phoenyxstarr — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:48:03 +0000

Well, after my post about Medical Insurance yesterday, I spent the afternoon reasearching & looking at different plans. I found one that I like, its going to cost about half what it would have through Hubby’s work. The deductible is still $15,000 but there are no charges for annual physicals (even yearlies for women) or well baby visits. It even has a 0% co-insurance once we meet the deductible! Which is pretty good, in my opinion.

I’ve been working on getting the house all cleaned, our lease is going to be up at the end of the month & we’ve decided that we’re going to find a rent-to-own house. So I’ve got to go through & get rid of the clutter, box up stuff that we won’t need before next month, & clean the house so we can at least get most of the deposit back. But I’m not going to count on it, we’ve been burned too many times on that front.

I’ve been number-crunching again & realized that if I work every day, I only have to earn $125 a day. Of course, that covers all the fun stuff too not just basics. Basic only budget would make it $95 a day. I’ve got 5 work at home gigs that I’m going tobe using to meet that goal. Its going to be hard work at first, but 2 of my gigs are the long-term type of income. I’m not talking about investing either, but affliate marketing… I just have to figure it all out first! LOL

My View on Medical Insurance

phoenyxstarr — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:06:50 +0000

I have a love/hate relationship with medical insurance. I love having it because I’ve got 3 kids that have to go to the doctor on a regular basis, along with the dentist & the optometrist (bad eyes run in my family). I hate the cost of it though! We usually go through my husband’s work because that’s always been our cheapest/best choice. And with me not working, sometimes it was our only choice. Hubby has finally been at this company long enough to qualify for their insurance. It’s going to cost us $163/paycheck & he gets paid weekly! That means we are paying over $700/month for insurance. And it has a high deductible, $15,000 for the whole family. I’m not 100% sure on all the insurance lingo yet but my friend says that’s a very high deductible, especially for how much we pay. Everytime I’ve looked at insurance though, its always had deductibles in the thousands. I should be getting the insurance information soon, probably this weekend when he comes home, & I’ll be reading that next week. I’m hoping to find something comparable online that doesn’t cost so much! The insurance is going to knock his checks from over $800-1000/week to $600-800/week. There has to be something out there that is cheaper for us!

Work At Home Update - 10/29

phoenyxstarr — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:34:58 +0000

Last week, I posted about my new work at home gigs. Just a little update here. I’ve been paid twice by Demand Studios, last Friday and again on Tuesday. So that’s good. I’m still waiting on another project from Delegate2 but I knew going in that they had dry spells when it came to work. WordGigs has been great! Up until this past weekend, there was always plenty of work, but I expected the work would slow down at the end of the month. I figure it’s because advertising budgets tend to run dry a few days before the end of the month. I haven’t really wrote anything for TextBroker yet, still trying to get into the habit with working from home.

I still haven’t found a schedule that works great for us, but I’m working on it. I know how much I want to earn a day, but there’s no way I can earn over $100/day right now. I’m trying though. I have to get back in the ‘time for work’ mentality first. What I earn from now till Dec 11 will be used for Christmas shopping. After that, everything is going to be saved. I’m trying to get Hubby home for good, he’s tired of driving again. Actually, he’s tired of being away from me and the girls.

I’m trying to set realistic goals for each day. Right now, they aren’t very impressive. Just $10/day for Demand Studios, 2 projects with WordGigs, and 2-3 articles with TextBroker. The TextBroker is a recent addition to my goal list, so I don’t know how well that will work. I actually don’t even know if I’ll meet any of my goals. Things are still a bit unsettled for me. I think I need to split up my sleep & work schedules. I usually stay up late, which means I sleep late… What I’m thinking is start taking an afternoon nap so I don’t need to sleep so late in the morning. That way I can get more work done while the girls are sleeping. I don’t know though, I’ll just have to go through a trial and error deal until I find what works.

New Work at Home Gigs

phoenyxstarr — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:46:48 +0000

Last month, I redid my resume & started putting in applications for WAH gigs. I have little ones that like to have my attention during the day, so I needed something that I could do around there schedule. I don’t have a landline phone either & have no plans on getting one, so that puts a whole different set of limits on my search.

I thought about transcription at first. I took an Administrative Assistant course at the local vo-tech when I was in high school so I know how to do it. But its been 10 years since I did any of that so I changed my mind about that. I’m not at all confident in my abilities with that anymore. So I looked at writing jobs.

I love writing, in fact that’s why I started this blog. I applied at several places, but the first to accept me was WorgGigs . I do some easy work for them, writing short little comments. They pay once a month, on the 1st or 2nd of the month, maybe the 3rd if the 1st is on a Saturday. I haven’t been with them long enough to get paid, but several of the people on the WorkPlaceLikeHome forums have been paid by them. So I’m betting its a good gig.

The second I got accepted to was Delegate2 /Purecontent. They are based in the UK, but pay in US dollars. I’ve only just completed my first assignment with them. I’m waiting to hear back about a second project. They pay a month in arrears. So the work I do this month, I’ll prepare an invoice for & submit it on Nov. 20th. I’ll get paid around Nov. 30th for October’s work. Like WordGigs, I haven’t been here long enough to get paid, but I know several posters on WPLH have been.

The third place that accepted me was Demand Studios . They have several different roles for you to choose from. I applied to be a writer, but didn’t get that role. I got another role instead. This gig pays twice a week, straight to PayPal, on Wednesday and Fridays. I worked less than an hour before the cut off for Friday’s pay, so I won’t get much pay tomorrow.

The 4th and last place (so far) that accepted me was TextBroker . I always want to add an ’s’ to the end of their name, don’t know why. This gig pays from 0.7 cents/word to 5 cents/word, depending on your rating. I have a 3 star rating, so I get 1 cent/word. I’ve heard that you can increase your rating with them by providing great work, but I don’t know about that yet because I was only accepted last night. They pay twice a month if you have at least $10 in your account and you have to request it. Requests in by the 5th are paid on the 10th, and if you request between the 5th and the 20th, you’ll get paid on the 25th. I’ve marked my calendar to request on the 4th and 19th of every month. That is assuming I have $10 of course.

Now I can’t guarantee that any of these places are still hiring, but you can put in your application & sample (if required) so you’re on their waiting list. Most companies hire from their wait list first, so its always good to apply as soon as you can.

United Deals week of 10/16

phoenyxstarr — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:44:19 +0000

There’s not many deals in this week’s ad. Hopefully, they have lots of unadvertised deals instead.

Pg1

Red River Farms Extra Large Eggs - 99¢
Green Giant Canned Vegetables - 50¢

Pg2

Food Club Beans or Hominy - 50¢
Hunt’s Spaghetti Sauce - 99¢
Pop-Tarts - $1.50 (55¢/1 Pop-Tarts 8ct+, exp 11/8/09)
Jolly Time Popcorn - $1.67 (50¢/1 any Jolly Time Popcorn, exp 11/30/09)
La Moderna Pasta - 25¢

Pg3

Energizer Batteries - $2.50 (50¢ to $1.25 off any 1 Energizer Batteries, exp 11/14/09) amount varies regionally

Pg4

Pilgrim’s Pride Whole Cut Up Fryers - 99¢/lb

Like I said, not many good deals this week.

United Deals week of 10/2

phoenyxstarr — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:38:47 +0000

I have no idea what happened to last week’s deals post. I tried posting it, but it was about the time my internet provider decided to do a system wide update & I lost my connection. Oh well, its a new week so there are new deals!

Pg1

Farmland Country Style Pork Ribs - 89¢ a pound
Pink Lady Apples - 99¢ a pound
Hearth of Texas White Bread - 79¢
Food Club Ketchup - 79¢
Food Club Pizza - 4 for $10

Pg 2

Food Club Chicken Noodle or Tomato Condensed Soup - 2 for $1
Food Club Saltines - 99¢
Food Club Seasoning Packets - 3 for $1

No good deals on Pg 3

Pg 4

Green D’Anjou Pears - 79¢ a pound
Food Club Shredded Cheese - 2 for $3

Monthly Deals Pg 1

Fuze - 10 for $10
Betty Crockers Helpers (Hamburger, Chicken, Tuna) - 4 for $5
Yoplait Yogurt - 2 for $1
- Yoplait Yogurt cups (Includes Original, Light, Thick & Creamy, OR Whips!) OR any flavor Yoplait Original OR Light Smoothie - 09-13-09 GM - 40¢ on 6
- Printable here and here and here - 50¢ on 6
M&M’s - 2 for $3
GladWare - 2 for $4

Nothing really good on Monthly Deals Pg2

Most of this weeks good buys are store brand. But I’ve tried many of the Food Club brand items & they taste pretty good, not exactly the same as name brand but not revolting like some store brands.