It's time to come clean....I am totally addicted to this site. It's been real slow here at work. Real estate isn't real busy towards the end of the year on top of a bad market. Anyways, I'm on this site all day doing freebies, putting in my 2 cents, asking questions, finding information. This site in an absolute blessing.

DH wasn't feeling well last night so we didn't get to the budget...but he did promise me this morning we'd do it tonight. We're also going to put together our debts for the Dave Ramsey payoff method. I haven't decided if we should use the envelope method or not. We get pretty debit card happy so I was trying to figure out a way to stop that, but I am horrible with cash. If I have it I'll spend it. I don't know what to do besides gain some self-disipline. Is there anything y'all do to keep yourself from spending? New Years is coming up fast and I need to get some realistic financial resolutions together quick. 2008 is going to be a good one.

I just came across this site that was recommended by Clark Howard. For those who aren't from GA....he's a consumer reporter down here who actually became a millionaire being super frugal. Anyways, it's a great site to help save on groceries.

http://www.couponmom.com

I finally found the time to sit down with Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. I actually found it quite good and finished it in an evening. I really think the templates in there will help me with making a real budget. I also like his snowball approach in paying down the smaller balances first. I know it will cost less to pay off the higher interest rates but just like a diet....I really need to see the results to stick with it. DH and I are going to sit down tonight and actually use the templates and plan out everything so we can start the new year right. I'm actually kind of excited about it

I hope everyone out there had a very happy holiday! We did, although we did A LOT of driving! We had to go up to SC to see extended family up there then we came back to see my parents and to do Santa here.

So anyways, I was totally excited to see how much money our family members gave us for Christmas! Once everything clears I will be paying off a c.c. I'm totally stoked about that.

I went shopping today at Ingles. I actually studied the sale paper and made up my list according to it. I was surprised how much cheaper and how much more I was able to get. They had a lot of things buy one get one free. I was disappointed though, I got my first Sunday paper and I was ready to get my coupon on but there was no coupons in there. It was strange because I thought coupons came in the Sunday paper thus why I bought the Sunday subscription. After I bought all that stuff I got home to figure out I bought too many frozen goods. I have a fridge/freezer where the freezer is on top and it is soooo small. This has really hindered me taking advantage of sales on meats and frozen goods so today we went to the Sears outlet store. Now if you don't know about this store, it's the greatest if you're looking for appliances. They sell cosmetically damaged appliances for discounted prices. It's great too because they check out the stuff before they sell it and sell it with a warranty. We bought our fridge there when we bought the house signifcantly cheaper because there was a slight dent on the side. You can't see the side so it was great. Anyways, we went there today to look at those big freezers to put out in the garage. I found a big stand up freezer for $250. It had some pellet looking dents in the side of it but it works and it's going to be out in the garage so I thought that was a good deal. So I used the bonus I got from my boss to pay for it. Now I have a place where I can take advantage of the sales.

Other than that...not really a whole lot going on. I've had the past 5 days off courtesy of the boss...paid too I hope everyone has a Happy New Year!

I wanna start out by thanking everyone for their support. I really appreciate the advice and I really appreciate y'all asking me questions I never even thought of. It really is a true motivator!

So today was a no spend day. I've been working on my paid offers/email sites today. I was finally able to cash out my inbox dollars today for $30. Woo! I've also been working on my other two (cash crate & fusion cash)....as of right now both combined are about $45. Little by little. Oh yeah and all of that will be going back on the c.c's. We had a good close on our recent ebay auctions. Total was around $950....I haven't gotten around to fees yet....but still that is a total motivator as well. That's almost 1 of my c.c's . Makes me giddy just thinking of it.

I did some research today on internet service. We are currently paying $57.95. I checked with our local phone service about dsl and they have a bundle of phone and dsl for $60. I've been on the fence about this. It makes more sense since we don't have a home phone (just cells) and you'd be getting two services for almost the price of our 1 current but then again that's still extra $ I could be using on the bills. Plus I don't know if they add on all of those taxes like your cell phone bill does. I bet it does now that I think about it. I told DH maybe we could just hold off for a little while.

I got a subscription to the Sunday paper today. It was a special for $1.45 a week. If you bought it at the store it would be $2.50. I figured this would help me by using coupons and planning meals better. I currently go to the store and just buy things....no real structure.

All in all today was a good day. It was very good motivation to be well on my way.

Alright, so how the heck could I possibly run up that much on the c.cs in a year knowing that my stuff had been paid off. Well, I went back to school. I only have a couple of classes left so it was foolish not to finish. I do that online on my lunch at work so I can have time to play with my son when I get home. I get grants to pay for tuition but not enough to really cover books and supplies. I needed a laptop. So I got one. Since
the tution isn't that much ($565 full-time) I couldn't get a student loan. Maybe I didn't try hard enough. Anyways, some of it of it went to the wedding. We bought clothes, stuff on Ebay (more so a lot on Ebay). In a nutshell it was stuff we really didn't need and I would probably stretch to say that I indeed have a compulsive spending problem. Now it wasn't always something for me....since I grew up w.o a lot of things I wanted, I'm really spoiling my child which I know is totally not the way to go. Especially since he's only 19 months. What do I have to show for it?
Nothing really except for a huge headache everytime I look at the bills and boxes of toys I'm taking to Goodwill this weekend (at least I can get the tax deduction) I don't have an emergency fund. Believe me I know how important this is. I had to have emergency
surgery back in April so now I have about $5000 (uninsured) I've been paying on that. I do have an ING savings account but it only has like $157 in it. Oh and I have my IRA I just started with ING (work doesn't offer it) and it has like $257...not much but it's something

What's sick about this whole situation is that we have friends who are married and have taken a total of 3 mortgages out on their house (total I'm gonna guess about $240,000). They have 2 cars totalling about $1000 a month and various other store c.c's. All they do is spend spend spend. Everytime she shows me something new, later on I talk to my husband and declare what fools they are (recent purchase: matching Iphones). She owes me
$100 for her bridesmaid dress I bought her since she didn't have it at the time. Instead they bought $1500 worth of hardwoods for their living room....so I'm gonna stretch and make a guess she has no cash. Granted, I'm not that bad in, but I'm on my way there and I know better!

So what am I doing about it? Well I'll go ahead and say that we're very dedicated people when we have a plan. Just haven't gotten that far yet. We're both so stressed about this that we're ready to make a change. Alright, I'm a very avid Ebay seller so I sell stuff on there. I have also refrained from doing any searches which may tempt me. Within the past two weeks, I have signed up
for accounts with Inbox Dollars, Hit4Cash, and Cashcrate. Little bits of money here and there. I am also becoming more consious of spare change so I'm picking that up as I go. Below is my bills to give a better picture. I don't have a real "budget" just my excel
file of my bills that I must pay and what's left over to do other things with.I have decreased our cell phone bill by $20 and I have decreased our internet by $10. I'm still picking at the bills to see what else I can cut. I need to figure out a better way to go about my food budget since the baby now eats "real" food. I need to learn how to cook more with less. My husband and me were legally married 2 weeks ago *ssshhhh* the family doesn't know. We did that because open enrollment for health/dental insurance at his
company is in January so for an extra $50 a month I can be fully covered not to have another disaster (my son is already covered). I don't have coverage at my job.

Here are my bills:

House: 1206
Trash Service: $45
Water: 40
Internet: 57.95
Power: $140
2 Cars: $565
Land we own 5 acres on lake in SC: $235
Car Insurance: $171 (I have gotten quotes, this seems the cheapest)
CC 1: $280 (15,084)
CC 2: $200 (9,950)
cc3: $58 (1,879)
cc4: $50 (1,471)
cc5:$30 (1,236)
Daycare: $608 (this is paid in one payment a month to save about $50)
Hospital Bills: $50 (this is $10 a month to each dr) (5,000)
Cell: $66

Work Income: $4,142 (Bring home and adjusted for health insurance)
In addition to our regular income, we also get $250 a month until Sept 2008 for my car
I sold to a friend.

The land we have is land my husband bought before me. It was 5 acres lakefront for $15,000
His sisters moved trailers onto the land because they hit some financial troubles (one sister is going through divorce while other is married has 3 kids and
had a foreclosed home and bankruptcy). *I DON'T WANNA BE LIKE THEM!!* His family bought up the land down there so they
all stay down there. These sisters get free everything (i.e food from parents and childcare) Don't get me wrong, I think that's great family can come together. However, they kind of take advantage of the system. I told my husband maybe it would be good if
the sisters could team up togther and pay something/anything for using the land. Granted, they do pay the taxes each year which is like $200...but I mean since they use it and if we wanted to sell it, we couldn't...just something since we're stuck with the payment and can't use
it for anything. He doesn't want to....but I'm still working on it.

In writing, my fianances look pretty bad. I don't count in Ebay until I actually have it transfered to the bank. Here lately it's really pulled us through. Like I said, I really need to pick at the bills see where we can get by with less (Daycare isn't an option.
Mommmy likes to work and baby has devloped remarkably well/fast and this is the cheapest with the greatest ratio to quality)

Ok I'm here. After checking out this site, I figured it would probably be good for me to have this blog. I see how it's helped everyone else and for me, I think I really need to put things in writing to put it into perspective.

We have debt. Let me rephrase that, we have A LOT of debt. It was never our intentions to have this happen, it just kinda did. We use to be very good at our spending. I don't know what happend. I don't know if we got lazy or what?! We bought a brand new house in Aug 2006....3bd/2ba since we had the new baby. Great stuff! We used the c.cs to buy the stuff we didn't have moving from an apartment. We did great by paying off everything with our taxes this year. Totally debt free in regards to credit cards. Now almost a year later we've racked them up something crazy. Credit cards alone are about $30,000. I know...I know...I'm so ashamed. That's why I'm here. I'm here to get back to my old ways! I really am glad that I found this site. Great people and great advice!

I'm making a promise to myself. I'm going to post on here to track progress. I just have to. Ok, well I'm going to go so I can get my stuff together to make my first budget post. Please, if anyone has any advice at anytime don't hesitate to tell me....I need to be smacked around a lil'....oh and before you tell me, the c.cs are put away.