i didnt have enough money to pay my dsl bill so im at my folks useing the computer. its just an aggriveation to be here and have to drive 20 miles to get here and back home. but i come every day for feeding the horses and taking care of moms dogs. so its not that bad.

still trying to come up with the money and work on things. its getting to be a bit aggrivating..but il make it work. so i may not post much for a week or 2 till i get things figured out.

other thanthat..im still clipping coupons and doing thing like that. im trying to get my horse broke and get work things figured out. but things are still hectic. im hopeing to get the pilons pourd for my trailer tommrow. if they call back..im not holding my breath tho. so things will work out..just gotta take a while.

ook, i need to get my budget figured out. with joe not working, as much as id like or making money as much as he would durring the summer, i have to figure out how to pay the bills i have with what i have. not an easy task.

so what im goning to do is try to get the bills i have pared down to a manageable amount. it may take a while but i should be able to do it. right now..my budget is as follows...

1. house payment
2. cell phone ( i only have a cell, no landline)
3. car ins
4. satalite dish ( we live in an area where there is no picking up any channles without the dish)
5. truck payment
6. credit card payments
7. vet bill/ horses ( i have 2 horses that live at my folks house)
8. utility bill
9. propane payment
10. gas for my vehicles
11. walmart and misc ( cleaning, meds exct)
12. food

theres not alot of wiggle room, but the ways i think i can do the best to help myself is to cut back on the satalite payment, its at the top 180 and the showtime stations. if i cut back to just the 120, and my locals, i think id get it at like 30 less a month. a definate idea. i dont watch too much tv anyway excpt the regular chanles and food network.

when i move to the new trailer, there wont be a propane payment anymore as the whole house is elect. so that will save me there, however, my elect will probly go from between 140-150 to over 200 a month. wich as long as i keep it under 300, im still saving money on that. that is a goal on my part.

the vet/ horses isnt much, i spent about 50 a month average on my horses. but i dotn anticipate getting rid of them. they make me happy and i can cut out something else to keep them.

truck payment..wont go down. however, when hubby fell i did refinance and get it cut by 50 a month and the payments that were only for the next 17 months, went back to the next 2 yrs, but i can live with that.

what i need every month to live..bare bones..basic bills listed above..aprox 950. i get aprox 450 a month child support, and the rest, if i got that part tiem job would be coverd by the 800 id make part time there. however, id like to find a way to continute to be a stay at home mom and not have to work. but thats my idea. i need to find 500 a month. i think the best idea would be the working part time. if i did 3 days a week...preferably when my son was home to take care of my girls, it would be better, but then id have the expence of paying my son for sitting costs. everything has a reaction and an challenge. oh well, back to the paper to see what i can do.

have a good day

my husband owns a business, we sell scrap metal. till last week, a ton of steel has gone for $100 a ton. today its going for 80. and on top of that, we ran out of propane and acetalyne. thats gonna set us back 30 right there. adn we only made 50 today. so thats a bad thing. the worst thing about this is im needing 400 to pay the bills. and i only have 100 so far. the other 300 i guess ill have to put on the card. then if joe makes enough this month, i can send that back in to my credit card company. i hope to anyway. ive been looking for part time work. at a local nursing home i can make 10 an hour. that means if i work 3 days a week, ill bring home about 400 for the pay period of 2 weeks.

i cant really complain about that. i have about 900 in bills every month, id have less but i just bought a new trialier to put out at my folks house. so i have an extra 150 on that to pay a month. with the job, and my child support, i can pay all my bills, plus have some to pay twords my credit card bills. i only have about 800 on 3 cards. so thats not too bad. but id like to pay them down and use them only for emergenices.

the plans ive been making is to draw out my floor plan and decide where to put it all when i move in my trailer. its going out to the farm, my moms place, so i will tap into her well, and only be about 200 feet from her house if i need her or she needs me. she has 8 acers out there and my horses run on 6.5 of them. my best thought is when i wake up in the morning, i can look out my window and see my horses. ive never got to do that and it just makes me so happy.

along with thoes plans are a new household notebook to keep in my kitchen. this has all the chore lists, the phone numbers bills ect in it so i can keep track. im really trying to get things ready for this. i wont be able to move till june. and the goal is to get rid of 70% of my stuff. the reason is when i left my ex husband, i took what i could grab. i didnt pack or do anything. just stored it all. and for 2 yrs paid storage costs. bad idea i know, but i did. and now i have so much to go thru and get rid of. not just mine, but things my kids have and the things dh joe brought into the marriage that we really dont need. lots of plans, lots of ideas. lots of time thank goodness.

tommrow my plans are

1. dr apt for dd on adhd meds check up
2. dr apt for dh 30 mins after hers
3. run by folks house and feed my babies
4. more lists
5. get dh oxygen and actelyen for work
6. see if i can find more boxes
7. the huge mountian of laundry needs folded and put up

full day ahead of me. hope tommrow is better.

i went and paid my cell bill in a town about 20 minuts from where my new trailer will be. i like to pay that there, because the horse feed in that town is $2 cheaper there than here. i got 7 bags for uner $30 today. the bad of that is only 6 will fit in my barrels in the barn. i had to lay one on top of the barrels. i have 3 horses, and it will last them about 3 weeks. i also have a place i can get hay for them at 1.25 a bale. its not as good as having a huge round bale, but it will have to do i guess. i just got them 3 huge bales just 3 weeks ago. i will have to restak this in the barn, and it will last about 1 small bale a day. sooo i can get abou 20 bales for 25. that will last me into the middle of march. by that time i need to start looking at getting next years bales ready for them too. i need in about 150 bales each of hay and straw.

other than that, i need to give my husband 11 for another bottle of oxygen for our business. so that will help too. i also have a job intrview tommrow for a part time job at a local nursing home. i only want to work 2 or 3 days a week. that will be enough to covet the bills when my dh cant work on our business.

Ive been trying to find a way to keep track of our business expences, and to keep track of the money we put out in bills also. but i cant find a free account page to use. so that aggrivates me. i do keep lists on paper and things in my purse, but id like to find a way to do it on line and keep a running total of everything. im bad in math.

yesterday i had added expences, i had to put out $32 for acetelene and oxygen for the business, and i put out anther 10 in gas. id made $40 from selling some veido tapes , so i had the money for it, but it aggravets me when joe dont want to try to get ahead and work on things. he acts like its ok when we dotn have money, but that its my fault.

im trying to get my bills figured out too. and i have to get the budget down so i can pay what i can pay with what i have. its hard sometimes to get thing the way i want them. i just want to pay all the bills and get things figured out. its so hard.

maybe tommrow will be better. i sure hope so.

the school just called. my youngest dd busted her glasses at school. wonderful. there goes another 40 for frames. i cant afford that right now. dh is working on a few tanks to scrap out. thats what we do. we take metal scrap and sell it for profit. one fo the things we do is take the metal free from the clients house, and then we sell it. right now he is working on about 4 twenty foot tall round tanks and takeing them down to get the cash from them. the only big problem with our business is that if it rains, we cant work. it gets muddy and the pickup wont go thru the mud. i hate it. but when it does work, we make decent money. just we havent worked from dec till yesterday. its a huge strech to make the money work that far that i get for support, or by selling on ebay.
so now im trying to catch up, and brit breaks her glasses. wonderful.

Its been forever since i wrote in here, one of my goals for this month is to keep better track of my finances and my budgeting. ive been stocking up on alot of things. but my biggest accomplishment was buying a new to me trailer.

its 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and its so much bigger than what i have now. its a 1990 14x80. i live in a 1970 10x60. we have the 3 bedroom, but its only one bath and with 2 girls and a teenage boy..i never see the bathroom in the evenings. the biggest thing about a new trailer is we are putting it on my folks land. my mom has 8 acers at her place, where my horses live and i took over part of the barn lot for my house. i have aprox 1/2 acer for the kids to play on behind our trailer, plus moms yard and the barn lot too if they want to run around out there and mess with our horses. its going to be great.
the draw back is that its not frozen over enough now to move it in. so i can visit it at the place i got it, and see it, but its still 30 miles away. ive been trying to get things gone thru now to move. when we move to my parents house it will save me alot on gas. we live 15 miles thru the country, and 23 on the main roads from my moms one way. i go see my horses every day, so it costs me alot to drive that far everyday to take care of them. plus i miss my horses beign this far away. i cant mess with them as id like. were we sit the trailer, you can look out any window of the trailer (excpt the kitchen dineing area) and see the horses. in fact my daughters room window is only 3 feet from a corner of the lot, so as they get up in the mornings they can see the horses and even talk to them on warm enough days to have the window open. that is very excting to my girls.
so now the only thing im doing is hopeing for freezing for my trialer to move in.

the cost of my new trailer is $10000. i put down 1000 on it wiht tax money. i traded my ski boat to the guy also and now im down to 8000. my payments are $150 a month and the interst is 6% yearly. my goal is to pay it off by 2007. thats my goal.
thanks for reading
ericka

i have decided that i will give up some of my things that i do alot. just to have the extra money for our debt payment and our savings jar. we make enough for the bills..the regualr ones so i need to come up with creative finaceing for the others. i can get things to work out on that. i will give up my daily 2lt of soda, and keep from buying some things i usually do. i can do this. i can keep it down.

im hopeing that i can get my truck back soon and have it to. its been in the shop for the last 2 months. i miss my truck.


i also plan tostart my xmas list and get an idea of what im needing to buy for everyone. i plan to get it all befor i have to if i can. luckily we have xmas club for part of it. that will give us 800 towrds the gifts. i want to get some things for our kids, and everyone else in our family. it will take some shoping but i think i can do it for under the 500 i think we can use.

i hope anyway.

im back from the store. its double coupon week here. we dont get doubles or triples very often.

so heres what i got...

1 gal milk
4 boxes of pizza rolls
4 suave professionals shampoos conditiner
2 bisquick compleate biscut mixes
2 cans caration milk
3 betty crocker mashed potatos
3 frostings
12 cans of soup
3 soup at hand
2 rice a roinis
ragu spag sauce
loaf bread

total spent 22.15
total saved 28.90

wish i could have gotten more, but i ran out of money. and the coupons werent very good. i wont spend alot on alot of things. i use the coupons to spend on things i like, but wont normally buy. like the pizza roll. the kids like them.

today i plan on making up sale flyers for our extra car, a 1992 chevy caviler 5sp and our 96 ski boat. i plan to ask for 900 for our car, and 2000 for our boat. that seems fair. i also have a couple of non running jet skis i plan to part out and sell on ebay. that maybe some extra money that way. i have wayyyy too much stuff and i need to clean it all out. i hope to make some extra money on it so we can put that back for our house. we wanted to buy a house this year, but its not looking too good right now. i used all the savings we had when joe was off work for 5 months when he got hurt. and on top of that..our total income this yr so far is only 7000. thats gonna hurt at tax time.

i will take pictures of our car and boat , print up the flyers, and get it all the way i want it and try to sell them. if i do ..i do..if i dont..well i try again next year.

hopefully this wlll work our.
ericka

today was another payday. ive been taking $20 a pay period from dh check in quaters to save in my change jar. its really a 5 gal water jug from a cooler, but no one in the house uses change to spend so its the easiest way to save. i have about 140 in it right now. plus i have been trying to save 10 from each check into a savings account too. theres 54 in there now. i also save the 1s that i can, and have about 30 there.

i want to save more, and we have had a talk today about paying as i can on the bills.even if its just a little bit at a time. but every little bit helps out. i guess hes right, he usually is and it drives me crazy.

i have a bad habit of if its a good buy..i do. and i get some great buys. i have about 50 bottles of shampoo and creamrinse, i got them for about .10 each. im happy with it. i get all i can at the best deal i can. i try to help out. ive been a stay at home mom for the last 2 yrs since joe and i got married. and befor that, i worked and went to college. i have a degree in information processing but ive never used it.

well i got the kids started at school, and ive began to go thru the things i need to weed out here. im trying to get my pantry cleaned out adn sorted thru. i have alot of stuff..just dont realize what i can make since its all scatterd around the room.

my horse went on vacation without me, sil took him and 4 others for her and her friends this weekend. my horse is a 7 yr old blanket app gelding, and i love him to peices. he got to be rode for a good weekend, i got to have time in my barn working on it, and clenaing it out. that was helpful. the best part was when he came home, and i got to get him back in my yard. the guy whos gf rode him said hed give me a blank check for him, and i took a long time telling him NO!!! not just NO but REALLY NO. they finally took the hint.

so today for frugal im making my list for the next time dh gets paid, working on my budget and working on the house. so i guess ill be going for now..and ill be back in a while with a list of things im doing this week.
hopefully i can get some things done befor everyone gets back home.

dh got paid. less than we thought. so i have to redo most of the bills. i do have the money for the phone bill, and bobbys last boat payment. plus lot rent on our trailer. other than that, i spent 10 at cvs and got a full size physic hair jel, 2 deodorents, 2 oxy skin care pads, 2 loreal kids blueberry shampoos, and on that i saved a total of 14.48 and spent 9.49. so that was pretty good.

plus for the kids school books and lunches, i got free books and lunches for all three kids. we make low enough we got that. which helps alot. books were going to be 45 for ds in jr high, and 35 for each dd in grade school. plus lunches are 1.50 each every day. thats alot for us. so im glad we got the help on that.

i put 5 gas in the car, and thats all there. at walmart tho i spent 20 getting spark plugs, toilet paper, female things, light bulbs, and a newspaper. so thats not too bad either.

i called about my 98 olds bravada, the transmission went out on it, and its still coverd by the warrenty i hope where we bought it at, so that will be fixed by next week i hope. i love my truck, and i want it back, im driving my old car now, a 92 caviler, but its not much fun. its a stick, no ac and it hates me. plus its not big enough for all of us, and the kids are always complaing about how cramped it is. so ill be happy when i can have my suv back.


other than that..im thinking of lowering my bills by $50 a month. $25 from droping my extra movie channels, and $25 for dropping my cell phone extras down. that would be an extra 50 a month that i can come up with. other bills, i cant drop so i have to be creative. maybe ill come up with something else. maybe. i doubt it tho.

ok, my husband has just gotten back to work since hes been off when he got hurt. he fell off a tanker truck and hurt his leg. he was off for 4 months. but since he got back to work 4 weeks ago, hes not getting as many hours in. so insted of getting 87 hours every 2 weeks. hes getting about 60. and that cuts his pay by about 200 or so. that leaves us about 550 for the 2 weeks.

our bills are
lot rent for our trailer
truck payment
car insurance
dsl
cell phone ( we only have cell phones)
satalite dish
hospital bills
utiltility bills
animal food
gas in our cars
car repairs
misc.

thats what we need to pay.

this week im paying
100 to bil for a boat joe bought.
160 for cell phones
rest of school supplies
80 lot rent
i should pay the car ins tahts not due for a whlile, but i probly wont. ill use that money for something else. i also need to get a few things at the store. plus the kids shoes for school.

thats about all for today.
ericka

this is my new journal. i want to start off by telling something about myself. my name is ericka, i am married to joe...hence the name, and we have 3 kids that live at home. our kids are jerron, ds 12, destiny dd 8 and brittny dd 6. they are children from my prevoious marriage. i am a stay at home mom. and joe works for a local warehouse delivering oil and things to farmers. this is my own journal about what i do to try to save money. our goal is to save up for a house. we have a horse, a pig, a lizard, dogs and i want more animals.

since tommrow is joes payday...ill make my next entry on what i have to spend..and what i have to pay.