Money Making Scams

Working for yourself at home sounds like a dream for alot of people...myself included. In the past, I had found different ways to make money at home. I ordered supplies from a company to make earrings, that supposedly if sent back to the company and the company approved of them then they would pay for them...course the company always found a reason not to approve of the earrings. I should of just sold all the earrings in a yardsale.

I knew an old retired guy, who wanted to supplement his retirement fund by stuff envelopes. I think he did get a list of names & addresses that he was supposed to mail stuff to but after he got the initial list of names, he never heard from the company again.

Years ago, I even joined some sites that would pay a person to read emails. I figured, great because I am always reading emails. Course they were not going to pay you to read your own emails. You had to go to special sites and click on a bunch of ads and read the advertisments (also known as emails). You would get paid about 1cent for each email and wasn't going to get a check for any of it until you got to $100 (or something like that). I never did get paid for that.

Even today, you can pick up a "National Enquirer" trash-paper and find ads toward the back of the paper for business opportunities...processing mail, data entry work, mystery shopping, and even one claiming to pay up to $3,000 dollars a week. Well you know the old saying "if it sounds to good to be true, then it is" and that last one of making $3,000 a week sure sounds to good to be true.

This week, it would seem that I fell for another money-making scam online. I've been reading quite a bit about how to get paid from writing blogs online. Sure I can type a blog, and I can be opinionated on alot of different subjects. My problem seems to be getting other people to follow my blogs and/or clicking on the ads that are on the same page as my blogs.
I found a site "bloggingtothebank.com" and Rob stated that he would set up a FREE blog for me and help me along to get followers and make money with it. I should have known that it was a scam when he sent me to sign-up with another site, which I had to pay $24.95 for. Supposedly Rob said he would have my new blog up & running in 24-48 hours. It has now been over 84 hours. I've already written to Rob to complain and all I get from him are more sites to join with more stuff to buy for a few hundred dollars.

Guess I will keep my day job for awhile longer.

Court bill

Yesterday while looking in a box, I found 1 of the old Kingman court bills that was finally sent to me in April. I don't have any idea on why they divided the bill in 2.
Anyways I paid $450 towards the bill. I had thought of saving up until I had the total amount and then pay it off with one-lump payment. But figured it was better to just get the money out of my reach so I don't waste it on silly nonsense stuff.

It wasn't on the budget I made up yesterday, because I wasn't even thinking of the money I already had in the bank. But actually the money in my savings account was supposed to be saved for this court bill anyways. So I did the "grown-up" thing and started paying it yesterday. Weird how doing the "grown-up" thing of paying bills can actually make me feel good. But I bet when the court opened up today, that someone must of had a heart-attack when they saw my payment. My court bill is about 7 years old.


Well today is a new day and looks like it might rain again. Good day to stay home and clean out more boxes. Maybe I'll find all the paperwork I need for the state of NH court.

I need a budget

Now alot of people will say that you need a budget. I have even heard Brenda make comments as she is ordering craft supplies that something isn't in her budget (I don't really think she makes a budget). She is probably like me and will just shop as long as money is in the bank account.

So I thought I would give it a try for this month. Now to figure out what I actually spend money on.
Groceries:$100
Eating out:$80
Qwest:$100
Birthday gifts:$30
Post office:$25
Comp/Cam:$30
Magazines:$20
Bathroom stuff:$15


See my rent & utilities are automatically taken out of my paycheck before I even get paid so I don't have to budget for those, and the rent amount is always different depending on how many hours I work.
I don't own a car so I'm not budgeting for gas or insurance. I don't have a phone or cable TV so there really isn't much for me to budget for this month.
Almost forgot to add in Qwest for my wi-fi service. I haven't gotten a bill from them yet...guess I should go to their site later and find out why.
I almost wasn't going to put bathroom stuff on this list as I'm pretty sure that I already have enough shampoo, but decided to add $15 as a "just in case I need it".

This budget only comes up to $400...so I guess the rest of my money should just go into savings...yeah right, lets see if that really happens.

Payday

I checked my bank account online early this morning to find out how much my paycheck was for today...$297.82
I worked 72.52 hours @ $7.73
Deductions total was $262.76...$162.88 was for NH.
$602.24 is my total in the bank right now. It would have been more, But I took $300 out a few weeks ago when I went to Jerome.

I had my review at work today...it was really good. I'm getting a .14 raise, that will go back to 6-21-2010 and that will be on my next check. I thought this years review was better then last years...but my raise was bigger last year. Oh Well.
I probably won't even try to guess how much it will actually be. No need to count your chickens before they hatch.

I have another 3-day weekend coming up Sunday (8/1)--Tuesday (8/3). Time for more cleaning.

I've been checking for jobs this week on coolworks.com, getting ready for that plan "B" I guess.

Lists/Process

My Process

Plan your project – make a list – evaluate present system, what is working, what isn’t working, – develop timeline

Remove items – start from a clean slate – empty the space completely – remove then sort & purge

Organize into piles – donate/toss/sell/keep/ – sort like with like – purge excess –

Containerize – find storage solutions/containers – establish limits – designate a space for items being kept

Evaluate plan – how is your system working for you – are you able to work your system? What needs to be modified? A good system should be easy to maintain

Solve/simplify anything that isn’t working for you – revise accordingly

Smile, relax and enjoy your hard work!


Sometimes this system might not work the first time I try to do something...but I must remember not to give up.
Course my oldest daughter would laugh if she could see all my lists now because she once told me that I make a list for EVERYTHING. She said I make lists more then anyone she has ever known and she is probably right.


This weekend, I have started with the space under my bed. Now the bed sits way up high...bottom of bedframe reaches my hips when I stand next to it. So there is lots of space underneath.
I totally took everything out from uder there yesterday, and then started with the 3 empty (15 QT)plastic tubs and 1 box. I also have another bigger plastic tub and will use that later.


The problem with storing stuff under the bed is that if I filled up that space with boxes then I would have trouble getting to boxes that would be pushed to the back corner without dragging out boxes sitting in front.
I'm putting books I want to keep for now into the box now. Whatever books don't fit in that 1 box will be going out to the free table downstairs. Hopefully someone else in this building will want to read them.

Well this process is going rather slowly, mainly because I'm still spending to much time online. But as long as I keep at it a little everyday...it will be done when Summer is over.

Procrastination

Seems that I have spent a lifetime procrastinating. My ex-husband said I lived in the "Land of Later" because I would always say I would do something...Later. Course sometimes later never came around.

“Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.”
Spanish Proverb

“How soon ‘not now’ becomes ‘never’.”
Martin Luther

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
Karen Lamb

“To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.”
Eva Young


I know what I should do, or what I want to do, but I still end up spending hours on the internet (just like I'm doing this morning).


I've read that if you have trouble getting started, to just choose 1 thing to change. Make sure it's a goal that you choose for yourself and not a goal that someone else chooses for you.
Well I already know what I NEED...I need to declutter my room.
Problem is I also WANT....to feed my addiction of being online all day.
And yes, there was a time years ago that I could spend a whole weekend sitting at a computer and ignoring everything else.

Supposedly there are 4 reasons why we procrastinate:
1. Fear of Failure.
2. Feeling Overwhelmed.
3. Human Nature.
4. Perspective./Difficulty

I think they forgot #5 Addiction to something else, or would that fall under 'human nature'?
Often I will use the excuse that I don't have enough time for what I need to do.
Another excuse is that I'm to tired from work to do anything else.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day. I usually sleep about 6 hours, which means I have 18 hours left for other things. On workdays I'm gone from 5am-3pm, so work takes care of 10 hours. Which means I still have 8 hours during every workday to jump into my goal of decluttering my room.
I'm an a 3-day weekend from work right now so I have even more time to devote to decluttering, but have I done anything to my room this morning....NO, obviously I'm online typing this and doing other internet stuff.

3-day weekend with my stuff

Ok, I was reading
http://manvsdebt.com/stuff
And I liked the way Adam had all his belongings listed out. I decided to make my own list...hoping that it will keep me on track when weeding out my room. I made my list by saying to myself "If you had to quit your job for any reason and move this week, what would you need to take with you"? I guess I'll pretend I already have the van I mentioned in yesterdays blog and only keep what would go into that. Guess I will need to schedule a yardsale soon too.

I’m on a 3-day weekend right now, so I’m getting serious about weeding out my room starting tonight.
Seeing as I’m single & live alone and don’t have any stuff left with family, I assume my list could be smaller then Adam's when I’m done. (or maybe not)
I hope to only have 9 boxes in my room when finished. 1 box for each category, if an item don’t fit in the box then it don’t fit in my life. Sorry, but for now I'm not going to list every item that will go into each #box.

#1 Bathroom stuff
#2 Kitchen stuff
#3 Misc Household
#4 Tech Stuff (this term came from Adam,usually I called it the camera/computer box)
#5 Important Stuff (got that idea/term from Adam)
#6 Clothes
#7 Books
#8 Pictures (until I can scan them onto my computer..taken before I got a digital camera)
#9 Jewelrymaking supplies


Oh I know myself well enough to know that this will be tough because I am what some people would call a "packrat" or "hoarder". If you do an online search for both terms you would find a description of me. Well enough is enough....I QUIT!! I'm starting over, starting now.