Payoff Student Loan

Superpoint Invites

2012-01-23T10:33:00.001-05:00

http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/a6dzd5

http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/4hhgx8

http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/bo68cx

http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/lxlfs9

http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/359q7f

BidHere - Why Buy when you can WIN! - BidHere.com

2010-11-01T23:27:00.000-04:00

I signed up for this service through Send Earnings and received one free bid along with $1 from Send Earnings placed my free bid on a $25 Amazon gift card and actually won. I ended up having to pay zero but was ready to pay the $.04 that it would have been.
BidHere - Why Buy when you can WIN! - BidHere.com

Free $20 Credit at Rue La La

2010-10-22T12:07:00.000-04:00

Have you snagged your FREE $20 credit from Rue la la yet? They’re offering FREE $20 credits to use on ANYTHING on the site! (Please note it can take up to 48 hours for your credit to post to your account.) Use your $20 credit for these HOT DEALS: 1) Go to Rue la la & click on the “Shop for Good Botique” sale. Scroll down to Philosophy Cake Duo ($15) & or Vincent Longo Lipstick & Pencil Duo ($15)! Use your $20 credit to get this $15 item FREE (you can apply credit towards shipping) & your total out of pocket cost is only $4.95 SHIPPED! 2) Click on the Puma sale to get shoes for $2 (look for ones priced $22 to get them for $2 + shipping after your $20 credit) Hot deals for these high quality products (great gift idea)!

Did you miss the FREE $20 credit earlier this week? Rue la la (a daily deal site that offers food, clothes, jewelry, kitchen items, etc.) is offering $20 free when you sign up through this link. The $20 free is only available through 10/25, so hurry! Your free $20 credit will post to your account within 48 hours and expires 12/31/10, so you can use it toward holiday presents! Get your FREE $20 with this link!

Need a lower car loan payment

2010-10-22T10:58:00.000-04:00

If you a lower car loan payment, why don't you check out this site.

Refinance

2010-09-22T09:06:00.002-04:00

Decided at the beginning of the month that we will more than likely be in our house for another 2-3 years so since the rates are so low we are going to refinance. We are choosing a 10 year mortgage, since I am an employee of the bank I will save nearly $800 on closing costs and my interest rate is 1/8% lower than the best quoted rate from time of application to close date. So as of right now we are getting a 3.5% mortgage, we have been paying our house like it was a 15 year mortgage so our payment will go up about $50 a month which we can easily handle but our principal will drop about $400 a month compared to $200. When we go to sell the house this will mean more money in our pocket to put towards our next house. Right now we are waiting for the appraisal to come back, hoping that the house value hasn't dropped below what we bought it for 9 years ago, which I don't think it has. Otherwise we would have to pay PMI or paydown the mortgage now so we don't have to pay that.

Get your free Spicy Chicken Sandwich

2010-06-02T13:12:00.001-04:00

Go to this site and see if there are any still available that you can get in your area.

Get Spicy Chicken

Survey Sites

2010-05-11T21:26:00.003-04:00

HCD Research

Survey Savvy

Opinion Outpost

Mindfield Online

Make some extra money by doing surveys

2010-05-04T10:39:00.002-04:00

I am trying to make some extra money using a program for the smartphones that logs WiFi access points and cell towers. If you would like to learn more about this program and possible sign up please visit.

http://my.navizon.com/Webapps/UserAdmin/register.aspx?referral_code=5E5F5B5F5F5D5D

I have been trying to do surveys like another fellow blogger to make some extra money which I will use to pay down the student loan. My wife is finally back to work this week so, starting next week with my first full paycheck in over 3 months I will try and start paying extra on the Student Loan. We also have to start saving for a new used minivan. The car we have is a '97 and is probably in its last year with us. We have had the car since 2001.

The Survey Sites will be listed on the next post, these have all been proven to payout.

Please help the people of Haiti

2010-01-13T09:03:00.002-05:00

I have mentioned a while ago that we are adopting from Haiti, so this earthquake hits us both very hard. Our children are safe but please go to the below link and help donate towards Haiti's disaster relief effort.

Haiti Disaster Relief Donations

Christmas

2009-12-25T19:11:00.002-05:00

Well another christmas is down and we spent a little more this year compared to last year but I think both of us needed it. However we didn't go overboard and just bought ourselves some items instead of what we usually do, which is nothing. This year I am going to try and budget ahead of time for christmas so we have the money sitting around waiting and we aren't dipping into other saving funds.

Meal Time Makeover

2009-10-05T15:55:00.002-04:00

My wife and I heard about meal time makeover on the Dave Ramsey show and after thoroughly thinking it over. We decided that we would sign up for it, at first we signed up for the meal plan for 2 from any store. Next we decided to watch what we were eating a little better and we signed up for the low fat meal plan for 2 from any store, but we have found that lately we have been doing more grocery shopping at walmart. So today I stopped the auto renewal and signed up for the low fat meal plan for 2 from walmart. It is the exact same menu, but with products that are walmart.

The system costs $15 and it gives the approximate price for each item on the shopping list, yes it tells you exactly what to buy. But we have figured this saves more money than if we were to just go and buy items to eat each week, plus there is a huge variety of what we eat. When you break the cost down it equals about $1.25 each week plus about $30 to $40 in food. If you are interested in checking this out please click on the link below.

July Budget

2009-07-01T22:25:00.000-04:00

June Budget

2009-06-01T22:12:00.000-04:00

May Budget

2009-05-01T21:31:00.000-04:00

Wood Furniture

2009-04-14T23:25:00.000-04:00

I have always liked the way rustic furniture looks and hope to one day have a nice deck or house where I can put some nice rustic furniture in it. I have found this rustic furniture and have to say this looks like some really nice stuff. Even though the furniture is a little pricey for me right now but maybe sometime in the future after we payoff some loans we will be able to afford some of this beautiful furniture for our house. Some of the items that I really like the way they look are the cutting boards for the kitchen, these look so nice that it would almost be hard to actually cut anything on them. Please go to this site and check out some of this beautiful furniture.

Web Hosting

2009-04-14T22:42:00.002-04:00

If you are looking for a site to find the best price available to host your web site you should go to a site that reviews and prices the best hosting sites. If you are running your blog or thinking about starting a new blog you can go to check out website hosting that is available to you.

I enjoy go to their website hosting blog and reading the industry news, trends, products and discussions. There is a lot of talk on there right now about security and who is responsible for the security. If you would like to setup a business online you can read on how you can improve customer relations by using live chat support. There is also a discussion on the different types of shopping carts that are good to use in the blog.

By going to the website hosting blog you can read if you should use free or paid web site hosting, this is the most detailed that I have seen in quite some time on what the differences will be with paid and free website hosting.

A site that will probably interest most of you would be the best blog web hosting. When I go to that site I get a variety of prices and it looks like the one site they feature there is a lower price per month for the longer term that you sign up for.

Monthly Budget - April

2009-04-01T13:46:00.002-04:00

Well I consider this month a bonus month, because we budget on a 4 week pay per month and this month we get paid 5 times. So some of the money in the last week of the budget will actually go towards savings instead of sitting in the checking account. How does everyone else budget, do they consider the 5th paycheck of a month a bonus to them or is it just spent to pay some bills. See below for our what our budget looks like.

Refinance the Mortgage

2009-03-25T12:45:00.002-04:00

I just was trying to decide if it was worth it for me to refinance our mortgage to a 15 year mortgage. I have been paying like I have a 15 year mortgage for the past couple of months, so if I refinance we would have about $1000 in closing costs added back on the loan. The rates right now are about 4.75 and we have 5.875 right now, so after doing some calculations and finding out the break even point would be 26 months. Even if we did stay in our house for 4 years the savings is only $700; I know people will say that is $700 that you could use on something else. But is it worth the hassle of getting all the paperwork together, it could be but with the chance of us staying in our house for less than 4 years being about 60 - 80%, that is not a good enough deal. So after all this I think we are not going to do this refinance.

Getting rid of debt

2009-03-19T21:17:00.004-04:00

Have you ever thought of getting rid of your debt, what is the best way to get rid of your debt. There are many things that you could do, you could do the Dave Ramsey plan or you could also do debt consolidation. It is possible for you to live the debt free destiny like our grandparents used to live. I know that my wife and I are striving to pay off our debt as quickly as possible. If we could pay off my student loan and house we would be able to put an extra $600 in savings each month.

I have been looking for a way that can help in reducing debt, and so far it has just been by using the budget. We started by putting a $1000 in an emergency fund and from there I got an extra job and we paid off all the credit cards, car loans and medical debt. We have been in the process of using the baby steps to pay off our debt while saving for adoption, but we know we will get there when it is the right time. Because right now saving for adoption has taken the priority because we want to stay out of debt to pay for our adoption. We are willing to live weird to have the chance at a debt free dynasty.

Weather

2009-03-15T21:17:00.004-04:00

I don't know about where you live, but I know here the temperature is about forty - fifty degrees. If I was in Arizona right now the temperature is about eighty degrees and I would be able to do yard work and enjoy the weather all year long. What could you do with some new Scottsdale real estate and some beautiful weather. You should check out the opportunities to live in Scottsdale and enjoy the beautiful weather that is there also. They have foreclosures, lease back properties, condos, vacation clubs, new developments, and plenty of investment properties for you to check out in Scottsdale.

Monthly Budget

2009-03-01T21:43:00.000-05:00

Well after our trip to Haiti we are trying to save as much money as possible for our next trip there. So we have really beefed up the savings each week and I predict that we should be able to save about three to four thousand in just a few months. On average we can save about $250 - $300 each week. It is nice that we don't have to many bills that cost us too much each month. Below is our budget for the month of March.

Invisible IP Address

2009-02-22T00:38:00.005-05:00

If you would like to surf to sites without anyone being able to see your IP address. This could be useful to provide you full protection in wifi hot spots. For more information on this great product you can click on vpn, which will take you to the information that will need.

This post has been sponsored by PayPerPost

Spending Money

2009-02-21T16:43:00.002-05:00

We had to spend about $2,000 for a quick trip to Haiti to file some paperwork for our adoption. Well we didn't have to go down there but it really speeds up the process that the US does and we will be able to get a different visa for our child when we pick him up. We will be able to get an IR3 visa which means he will be a US citizen upon entering the states instead of us having to apply for his citizenship. I am sure that we will have a blast down there even though we will only be down there for 2 days.

Ebates

2009-02-20T21:28:00.003-05:00

If you do any sort of online shopping then you probably would like to earn some money back on your purchases. This can be accomplished very easily by using ebates, I have used this before and have earned and received money for shopping before. What is great about shopping through ebates is depending on which store you shop you can earn back up to 25 percent.

You can also earn up money back when you refer a friend to sign up for the free service provided by ebates. Have fun and earn some money along with me through ebates; you can start by going to enterprise coupon to save some money. Everyone loves to save money, just think of what you can do with the money you receive back.

Swagbucks

2009-02-19T23:12:00.002-05:00

I have been using swagbucks lately and so far I have 113 points just from searching and some days I don't search all the time with them. I try and search for one thing on multiple search engines each time. Right now I have enough to get 2 $5 amazon gift cards but for now I am going to keep saving up. I figure within a couple of months we will trade in our cell phones because it is almost time for our new every two on Verizon. When you trade in certain electronics you can get swagbucks which then can be used towards prizes. If you are not a member, please click on my link below and sign up under my name.

Thanks,
Brandon

Trip to Haiti

2009-02-19T22:49:00.002-05:00

Well we are making a trip to Haiti to file some paperwork and see are little baby boy. It costs a good deal of money to go down there but it is well worth the cost, one we get to file the paperwork to make the US part of the adoption go faster and the best part of this is that we get to see and play with our little boy. The plus is that we have done very well at saving that we are able to cover the cost by cash and should be able to save the rest that is needed for the remaining expenses of adoption in a fast enough time.

Taxes

2009-02-19T22:34:00.002-05:00

Well we finally did are taxes a couple of weeks ago and I really prefer to not owe or receive a refund. In the past few years we always owed the federal around $1,000 because I was working a part time job also. But finally this year we were surprised that we received a federal and state refund of about $325 total. I figure this amount is okay because I am not loaning the government too much money each month. However I know some relatives that use this as a savings plan. They get about $2400 back from the feds each year, if they would just plan better they could have an extra $200 a month to help with their expenses. What does everyone else do, do you get a large refund each year or do you prefer to stay as close to zero as possible.

Love Drawer

2009-02-16T23:42:00.000-05:00

I took Dave Ramseys 30 day challenge for my wife and it was the Love Drawer. Since I do the majority of paying the bills and some are auto drafted, I looked and found a template that was on a website that is from the Dave Ramsey total money makeover. I urge everyone to take this challenge and get this done for their significant other. You don't realize how much stuff you have until you start working on this. I know now that I really need to get our will notarized and signed by three witnesses, in case anything were to happen to us. For the template click on the link below

Love Drawer Template

February Budget

2009-02-01T21:53:00.003-05:00

This is our budget for February, hopefully we can stick to a little better so we can have more money go into savings.

Valentines Day on a Budget

2009-01-31T23:32:00.000-05:00

Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching, and you may be on a rice-and-beans budget. So how do you celebrate this day of love without forking over a wad of your hard-earned cash? Check out our memorable, fun and inexpensive ideas.

Take A Hike
Get those hearts pumping by doing some physical activity. Hit the trails at a nearby park. Bring along water bottles, snacks and a camera to make your hike more enjoyable. Remember to stop and document your Valentine’s hike by taking pictures.

Breakfast In Bed
Surprise your sweetie with a scrumptious breakfast in bed. Most breakfasts can be made with basic ingredients found in your home. Do a little research the day before to find a recipe that your loved one will enjoy.

Community Concerts
Instead of paying a steep price for a professional concert, save some cash by going to a locally sponsored show. Many towns have community bands that do concerts throughout the year. Check out local theaters, schools and civic groups for a free concert.

Take A Class
The library offers various free classes. Check out the schedule, and sign up for one that sounds interesting. Consider one that neither of you would normally attend—you might just find a new hobby!

Write A Love Letter
Put your love into words. If you find that writing a letter is too daunting, create a list of things you love about your sweetheart. Or, make a timeline of your relationship, noting all the special, significant things that have happened to the two of you.
Get more creative date ideas.

Perhaps the best Valentine’s gift to give your sweetie is the sense of financial security. Financial Peace University (FPU) has helped strengthen thousands of marriages, as couples learn how to handle their money together. Ana from Illinois wrote to tell us how FPU has done just this in her marriage:

My husband and I have had issues with financial togetherness ever since we married six years ago. We went through FPU almost a year ago, and I have continued to fight against applying the principles. About three months ago, I finally realized the blessings I had of a wonderful husband and a financial blueprint. Together, we started our emergency fund, paid offour cars, and began saving for a vacation. I never imagined I would be looking forward to going to the mailbox instead of dreading it.

Whether your marriage is flourishing or struggling, FPU can help you make it even better! Learn more now.

"Budget" Is Not a Four-Letter Word

2009-01-29T13:37:00.003-05:00

So you're having trouble sticking to a budget? Don't get discouraged. Follow these simple tips to save some extra cash.

Go easy with the credit cards. Once you get in the habit of reaching for your credit card, it's hard to stop. If you don't have the funds, don't make the purchase.
Buy used. There's no need to buy all new textbooks. New textbooks cost on average 25% more than used. Unless it's a book you know you'll keep or it's only available new, stick with used.
Spread out your expenses. Most expenses come at the beginning of the semester - for example, instead of buying all your textbooks at once, buy them as you need them.
Brown bag your lunch. Although it may not be as exciting as eating at your favorite deli or pizza joint, packing your lunch can save on average $3 a day - or $60 a month.

Sensible Steps Before, During Layoff Make It Easier to Cope

2009-01-29T13:32:00.000-05:00

Companies trying to make it through tough economic times sometimes cut jobs. If you think a pink slip may be on its way, there are things you can do while you still have a job and within the first few days of a layoff to make a period of unemployment more manageable.

If you're still working, beef up your emergency fund so that it carries you through several months of missed paychecks. Pay off debt, if possible.

If you lose your job and you can see your resources will not be enough to cover all your essential expenses, you need to set priorities. Keeping up with your rent or mortgage payments should be your top priority. Car payments, basic utilities, food and essential insurance coverage come next. Make at least the minimum monthly payments on credit cards, if possible.

As soon as you get laid off, file for unemployment benefits; it can take a few weeks before your first check arrives.

Review your severance or separation package, making sure you understand what's being offered and what paperwork you might have to fill out. You also should determine if you believe the package is fair and gauge if there's room for negotiation.

While you may not have control over what happens to your job, you do have control over how you prepare for and manage a layoff.

Searching to win or donate

2009-01-27T13:37:00.002-05:00

Is this bad of me, I have signed up for Swagbucks, Winzy, Blingo, PCH Search & Win, ISearchIGive, and IRazoo in order to try and win prizes. But I want to search all, I don't want to search one per day as that would be difficult for me to remember. So what I have done and I am wondering if anyone else is doing the same, I have added all the search engines in my quick search bar in IE7 at work and firefox at home. I type my search in and search on each search engine then I try and vary the search engine that I click the link on each time. I thought that maybe some had been thinking on how to search all these engines in order to win, I hope this works. Let me know your solutions to this too. By the way the ISearchIGive is so at least a penny of my search goes to a charity of my choice in my name. Click on any link below to sign up for these search & win or donate.

Update on resolutions

2009-01-26T22:24:00.002-05:00

Just to let you know on how my resolutions are going, I have not had a drink of alcohol since December 28th. My second resolution which started on January 6th was to not drink any pop this year. So far to date I have not drank a single pop, seem to drink a lot of tea when we go out. Whether it be sweet tea, flavored tea, or regular tea. I think that I have kicked the small caffeine addiction that I had, but it sure is nice to not spend the money on pop at work.

Dave Ramsey - Superhero article

2009-01-22T21:58:00.002-05:00

From today now this guy that called in is a true hero to his family. There are not a lot of people that when they lose their job would start delivering pizzas to help pay off some medical debt. You can hear the call here Superhero Call. I wish everyone could be like this guy, I know that there aren't a lot of jobs out there, but after I was on unemployment for 6 months I know that I would not be able to do that again. I would find anything that I could do to help earn money, be it deliver pizza, work multiple jobs just to help pay the bills.

Tough Week

2009-01-21T21:45:00.000-05:00

My wife and I are having a tough week, we went out to dinner last Friday but only spent $5 since we had a gift card. Then on Saturday we went to lunch at Chick-Fil-A since we had a holiday party that night but I stayed true to my resolution and did not drink soda or alcohol, so free dinner. Sunday we went to McDonald's on the way to my Grandpas and had two sweet teas and two large fries. Tuesday we had to unfortunately put our dog of 9 1/2 years down since he had bone cancer and broke his leg on Monday, we wanted to make sure he wouldn't have anymore pain. Then yesterday my wife finishes work early so I offered to take her to lunch since she is really having a tough week with the passing of our dog, he has been by her side at every chance he could since we have owned him. But I believe we will be better with money starting next week.

Our Debt Snowball

2009-01-20T21:09:00.000-05:00

When we first started the debt snowball back in April '04 when we found out that we would be adopting. Luckily when we started the process it was a big mortgage boom and I was working in a mortgage servicing department, we seemed to get really nice size bonuses every month that helped to pay down the debt really quickly. Since we started the debt snowball we have paid off a total of $40,969.98 and we have also saved quite a bit towards adoption and spent it towards adoption. Right now are main focus is on getting our adoption fund up and to do a few things in the house before our little boy comes home. We need get carpet in all the rooms before we bring him home, but hopefully we will be able to do that pretty cheap.

Financial Health Debt to Income Check

2009-01-19T23:18:00.004-05:00

I would prefer to have the 0% Debt to Income ratio but this is a tip for everyone to use to figure out what their ratio is. Ours is 17% based on our net income.

A debt-to-income ratio is a measure of financial stability calculated by dividing monthly minimum debt payments by monthly gross income. This calculation gives a straightforward depiction of your financial position. Typically, the lower your ratio, the better handle you have on debt.
Determining your debt

* Collect your most recent credit billing statements for current balances.
* Outline your total monthly bills using two columns: bill type (such as car loan, mortgage/rent payments, and so on) and monthly payment. Do not include bills such as taxes and utilities in this list.
* Add up the total for all of the monthly payments listed.
* Calculate your monthly before-tax income. If you receive a paycheck every other week, as opposed to twice a month, your monthly gross income is your before-tax income from one paycheck times 2.17.
* Your monthly debt-to-income ratio is calculated by dividing your monthly debt payments by your monthly income. For example, someone with a monthly income of $2,000 who is making monthly payments of $500 on loans and credit cards has a debt-to-income ratio of 25% ($500 / $2,000 = .25 or 25%).

Staying aware of your ratio can help avoid debt reaching a problematic stage.

Great sites to use.

2009-01-19T00:24:00.003-05:00

I have been visiting and using Swagbucks and IRazoo within the past couple of weeks. Anyway that I can do something to try and get some gift certificates or win some prizes just by doing the searching that I do a lot of each day. Swagbucks you can earn some swagbucks when they either give a code to use, shop, turn in old cell phones or when you search they are very random. IRazoo you earn points for searching and have the chance to win an amazon gift card with every search. If you are interested in checking these services out please click on the links below.

Stupid Customers

2009-01-18T03:31:00.002-05:00

I have seen some stupid reasons for loans in the pas but this one this past week takes the cake. This customer took a loan secured by their cd of $33,000 which is paying a rate of 5.25% and they are paying on this loan at 8% and payments of near $700 just to pay off their credit card debt. Their better choice would be to cash out the cd and pay off as much debt as possible then use the $700 a month they can afford as a payment and pay off the remaining debt as quick as possible. Finally get rid of those credit cards and don't go into debt again. I just don't understand what people are thinking when they are dealing with money.

Five Steps to Organizing your Finances

2009-01-15T23:27:00.000-05:00

Do you know your net worth? Or how much you spend each month, and on what? Or how much you can expect from your pension plan or Social Security in retirement?

A no to most of these questions puts you with the majority of the population who have been too busy with life to get a handle on their finances.

Fortunately, there's a five-step action plan to help you take control of your money.
Step One

Set up a financial filing system. Create a personalized filing system by labeling accordion file pockets with broad financial categories. Then label regular file folders with subcategories that fit your situation and file them into the accordion pockets. For example, create a Property & Casualty Insurance accordion file and fill it with a Vehicle Insurance regular file folder.
Step Two

Gather records. Look through your records to identify missing information. For example, you need an estimate of your Social Security retirement benefits. To request one, contact the Social Security Administration at 800-772-1213. Gather copies of your health, disability, life, homeowners, and vehicle insurance policies, and get a copy of your credit report. To order your credit report for free go to http://www.annualcreditreport.com. You can order one free credit report a year from each of the three credit reporting bureaus.
Step Three

Size up your situation. Add the estimated current value of all assets, including your home, car, personal property, savings, investments, and retirement accounts.

Next, add all liabilities, including mortgage, credit card balances, and any other outstanding debt. Then subtract liabilities from assets to figure net worth.

Then, make a list of income and expenses by reviewing paycheck stubs, checkbook register, and credit card statements from the past year. Finally, track spending for a month by saving all receipts or recording cash purchases in a notebook. A spending plan form or money management software program helps organize spending by category.
Step Four

Chart a course. Set financial goals - long-term and short-term - and figure how much money you'll need for each. Create a target saving and spending plan that meets needs using your list of income expenses. For a month or more, track actual spending to see how you're doing, making changes as necessary.
Step Five

Brush up on money management basics. Contact or visit TCU for more information about how to save and spend finances wisely.

Meal Time Makeovers

2009-01-14T22:00:00.003-05:00

One more resolution

2009-01-07T10:44:00.003-05:00

After reading another blog and knowing that I have needed to do this for a while. I am definitely going to try and cut out all the pop drinking starting today. I know this will save me a little bit of money and also help me when I start trying to get into shape. I may have to get some water bottles and fill them up each day to make sure I drink the water instead of pop.

Resolution in order to save money

2009-01-01T22:06:00.001-05:00

I have decided this year as my resolution in order to save money and help get in better shape to give up alcohol. A few years ago I went without drinking for 3 months, so it will take a lot of will power not to have a beer. I really do enjoy some quality beers, but not drinking will help save some money to put towards the adoption.

January Budget

2008-12-31T22:22:00.004-05:00

Well I have done the budget for January and it looks like this, hopefully we can stick to it. I try to follow these every month, but as everyone knows some things can come up that cause the budget to be changed a bit.

Christmas

2008-12-29T13:49:00.002-05:00

Christmas is finally over, we have not been setting too much money aside each week in order to buy presents. Now that the holidays are over we can start putting some extra money into the savings account and with this next month being a 5 Friday month this will just mean that we will be able to put even more money into savings. We always budget on a 4 week month so when we get the 5th week it really helps out for saving or if there is nothing to save for we could pay down something or buy something small and paydown. I highly recommend budgeting on a 4 week month or if it is just a single income and you got paid biweekly you could budget using two weeks and divide the average of your bills by 2.

Donations

2008-12-06T23:04:00.000-05:00

I know we could save more money and payoff loans faster if we didn't donate as much money to the orphanage. But I feel that we are being called to donate at least 5% of our money, in fact I would much rather have people donate to the orphanage than I would want them to give to us. By starting the international adoption process in Haiti I have learned that there are people that could use as much help as possible. I would have to say that since we started this process to adopt from Haiti, we have donated a lot more each year with either time or money. I try and give as much help as I can to other people, whether it is spending time with them or sending money or doing something for them.

Budgets

2008-12-01T21:16:00.000-05:00

Ever since first listening to Dave Ramsey, I have been doing a budget every month on paper before the month begins. By doing a budget we have been able to payoff multiple credit cards, medical debt, and our vehicles. We were also in the process of paying an extra $300 on the student loans per month but in October we received our referral which means we have from 12 -18 months until we have to travel. Of course the time could be less and it could be more, so since we received the referral we have had to go back to making the minimum payment on the student loan. This will not pay it off in the 3 years I was hoping for.

I truly do believe that when you write down where your money will go each month it is like getting a raise. Now I will say my wife and I are never perfect, sometimes we do stray on the spending but I always make sure to donate at least 5% of our pay to the orphanage that we adopting through.

In what creative ways are people saving money on a day to day basis.

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2008-11-16T23:25:00.000-05:00

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What I am trying to do

2008-11-15T21:07:00.000-05:00

My wife and I are in the process of adopting and I have been able to payoff all of my debt except for my house and my student loan. I figured I would start this blog to help with budgets and to try to make some money to payoff my debt. The faster I can payoff my debt the faster we will be able to adopt. I am looking for any help you can offer, at the right is a little chip in. If you are willing I will take any amount you are willing to contribute to my debt payoff campaign. If you click on the ads to the left, right and bottom this will help me payoff debt. If I can get about 40000 people to give at least 50 cents a piece my student loan will be paid off.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.