Going for Not Broke

My husband pointed out that with tax, the cost of our Straight Talk cell service is closer to $67 a month -- this is still better than what we had been paying before.

I hope to eventually turn my hobby -- beadwork -- into a little extra income. I'd like to start selling some of my work on Etsy , a website that sells only handmade items or supplies for making handmade crafts. Eventually, I'd like to be able to open my own brick-and-mortar store, too, but the financial risk isn't worth it to me at this time, not with an infant at home. Curbing my spending on beads can be tough. For a while, every couple of months I'd spend $100 or so on beads and beading tools. There came a point, though, when I realized that I wasn't making any money from it and I already had plenty of supplies. As ideas that I don't have all the supplies for come to me now, I sketch them, hoping that's enough to keep the idea fresh. Then, should the time come when I do open the store and I do start to make a little money at it, THEN, I can get supplies for other projects.

Home Phone For more than a year, I've been saying that I'm going to cut off my landline phone. My husband and I use our cellphones most of the time anyway. It seems like a hassle, though, because our Internet comes through the phone, so I'd have to move it to the cable. However, it seems like the smart thing to do. Our home phone runs around $100 a month, and for that, we do get some use out of the Internet, but make only one or two calls per month from the house phone. Cellphones  Our contract cellphone worked well for us ... until my family started texting us at every turn. We didn't have unlimited text, and for no more often than we use our phones, we couldn't see paying an extra $20 a month so that we can both get unlimited texting, so every time someone sent one of us a text, we were charged 20 cents. So, I decided to try one of the prepaid Straight Talk phones. Because we don't use our phones all that often, the $30 a month plan worked best for both of...

I got our latest electricity bill this past week. It went up. Again. I don't understand why. It's been a mild winter, so we haven't used the heater as much as last year. Plus, I've made a few small changes that I had hoped would add up to even a slight savings: I've cut down on the time the TV has been on. I haven't been perfect about it, though, because I still turn it on to watch something, decide to work on something else at the same time, then after an hour or so, I realize I'm not watching the TV at all. Wasted electricity. I've unplugged my alarm clock. When we first brought our daughter home, her pediatrician recommended we feed her every two hours for the first week or so. After the first night of pushing an awkward combination of buttons and waiting for the alarm time to advance every couple of hours, I realized it was tons easier to just punch the time into my cellphone alarm. I kept the bedside clock until about two weeks ago. I also unpl...

Turtle Through Feb. 29, parents can get a one-year subscription to the magazine Turtle for $9. Content includes crafts, puzzles, games and other activities for preschool-age children. To see the deal, click here . Parents For $12, parents can get a three-year subscription to Parents magazine, which is basically three years for the price of a one-year subscription. To see the deal, click here. American Baby Parents can get a free subscription to American Baby magazine. (Click here .) In addition, they'll receive free e-newsletters.

My husband gave me a Kindle for Christmas, and I've been happy to see there is much I can do with it without paying a cent. I've found free games and ebooks on Amazon.com . I've enjoyed all of the games. Finding a book that suits my tastes has been a little more challenging, but I have found some worth reading. Kindle owners who subscribe to Amazon Prime get a bonus: They can borrow one book a month from other Kindle owners. I signed up for Amazon Prime for a two-week trial but forgot to cancel before I was charged for it, so I guess I'm giving it a yearlong trial. I personally don't use the service enough to make it worth the money, so I don't plan to renew. While I have it, though, I'm going to take advantage of the ebook-borrowing feature. The bulk of the Kindle ebooks that are free -- as far as I've been able to tell anyway -- are books that are in the public domain or self-published. With the borrowing feature through Amazon Prime, though, I ca...

I was a little frustrated with My Coke Rewards over the NBA game I requested tickets to, but it was more at the customer service than the program itself. Had someone in customer service told me when I called that MCR wouldn't be able to send the tickets, I would've been disappointed, yes, but not irritated. Mistakes happen in any business. I know that. I get it. My beef was that with less than two weeks until the game, they couldn't tell me anything. Even a "Yes, we're going to try to get the tickets," or "No, I'm sorry. It's too late," would've been less frustration. OK. I've said my peace. (And in the end, we did get the tickets, went to the game and had a nice time.) All of that aside, I still enjoy the program. I'm giving tickets to an upcoming game to my sister for her birthday, so for no more money than I would've spent on soda anyway, I've celebrated Valentine's Day with my husband AND have a gift for my s...

One of the ways I’ve been trying to pay down my debt a little quicker is by taking on freelance work. The work for one online client, however, which had been my go-to place for a few extra bucks, has dried up lately. I’ve earned only about $200 through them over the last six months, whereas before, I could earn more than $200 within a month and had the potential to earn that much in a week. I was kind of hoping that after my daughter was born, I could quit my full-time job and work from home, but there isn’t enough for that to happen. I’m hoping the work for that client builds back up soon, but in the meantime, I’ve been able to focus on another freelance client and a hobby that COULD be a source of income down the road (and it has afforded me the time to start this blog). I also found out another of my freelance clients has decided to increase what it pays me. It’s far from enough to offset the loss of the other work, but it’s better than nothing.

Walmart is offering a free cloth and cleaner for glasses on its website while supplies last. This link will take you to the site where you can print out a coupon then take it to be redeemed at at a Walmart Vision Center.

I love Woot-Offs. Woot usually sells one item each day at a discount for 24 hours beginning at midnight (CST). If the item sells out before midnight, no new items are listed. But during a Woot-Off, another item is listed as soon as the previous one sells out. I love seeing what's for sale. I'm always on the lookout to buy gifts for family and friends early.

One of the things I've been trying to do to save money is cut my electricity consumption. It's rough going. Way too often, I have the TV on just for background noise. Usually, it's reruns of a TV show I've seen a thousand time but still love to watch, such as "Friends," "Supernatural" or "That ’70s Show." It's a tough habit to break.

A couple of years ago, I read about online survey sites that pay a little bit of cash to people who answer surveys. After a little research, I signed up for three -- HCD Surveys and My Survey were two. (I cannot remember the name of the third.) Unlike Instant Cash Sweepstakes , these sites feature surveys only from businesses or organizations. Some questionnaires take just a few minutes to complete; others may take 45 minutes or more. An occasional one might stretched out over a week or so. The sites pay bigger incentives for more lengthy surveys. Members can cash out once their accounts reach a certain level. For me, My Survey is the only one of the three worth my time. I never qualified for a survey through the other two. I think that’s because the businesses sponsoring the surveys were typically looking for the opinions of people with kids, and until six months ago, I had no children. Also, I work in the news industry. (Quite often, when a survey began by asking d...

Not too long before I found out I was pregnant, a Savers -- a nonprofit resale store that benefits Big Brothers Big Sisters -- opened close to my house. Not wanting to spend a whole lot of money on maternity clothes I'd need for only a few months, I took my kid sister's advice and stopped in. Well, the maternity section was somewhat limited, but I did manage to find a pair of pants in my size. Our local store has TONS of other clothes, though, and I plan to browse the baby section really soon. It amazes me how quickly my daughter has outgrown her clothing. We had plenty of clothes we received as baby shower gifts in newborn to 6-month sizes, but now that she's 5-plus months old, I've noticed that her closet has thinned out quite a bit. She's got enough to get by until she gets a little closer to 9 months old, but not beyond that. I hope to find enough to get her through the summer.

For a little extra pocket change, I visit Instant Cash Sweepstakes every now and then. Get the <a href="http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/ics-widget-1">Join to ICS</a> widget and many other <a href="http://www.widgetbox.com/">great free widgets</a> at <a href="http://www.widgetbox.com/">Widgetbox</a>! Not seeing a widget? (<a href="http://support.widgetbox.com/">More info</a>) Here's how it works: Site members take short surveys -- usually three multiple choice questions -- and in exchange receive rewards in the form of a few cents, "coins" and/or tickets for the ...

I love samples (especially ones that show up with coupons I can use later). I saw on television yesterday that Quaker is offering free samples of its Oatmeal Squares cereal through its Facebook site. Click here for the link. I signed up for it; it should take six to eight weeks for the sample to arrive. I can hardly wait!

I'll be hitting the sales fliers every week now that my daughter is starting to eat jarred baby food. The baby cereal is a pretty good deal -- you can get quite a few meals out of a $2 box. But the jarred food is another story entirely. I welcome any tips, and as I come across some, I'll post them here.

My browser screen is only so big, and rarely do I ever scroll down from the landing page when I visit a store's page, so it's quite possible that the rest of the world -- or at least those who do bother to scroll down -- already know that Target has extra coupons posted on its website. Customers can find and print coupons in lots of categories, including baby items and supplies -- right now, there is a coupon for 20 percent off Carter clothing -- health and beauty, entertainment, grocery, furniture and other departments.

I'm proud of my husband. We both really enjoy reading, and we love bookstores. For probably the first six years or so that we were married, we spent a lot of money at bookstores. A lot of money that we could've been putting toward bills. But now, we don't. For me, I don't take the time to read that I used to, so I haven't been in the market for a new book recently. However, my husband still reads -- not as much as he used to because finding time when you have a 5-month-old is tough. When he came across a book he wanted to read recently, he wrote down the title, author and ISBN number for a book he wants and took the info to our local library and requested it through interlibrary loan, a program through which libraries loan books to each other for patron use. Hundreds of libraries participate, and for most, it doesn't cost anything. I think most people are not aware libraries will do this. I didn't know until I worked in one. Odd, isn't it, that it ne...

Most days, Woot sells one item all day long at a discounted price (with $5 for shipping) until it sells out of the item or the clock strikes midnight (Central time zone). In the two or so years I've known about Woot , I've purchased only one item from it, but I check the site nearly every day to see what the featured item is. The site is always entertaining, even if I'm not in the market for the featured product. Quite often I'm tempted to buy, and if I weren't determined to pay off everything, I'm sure I'd probably purchase 10 or 15 things from them yearly. Occasionally, the site has a Woot Off, in which it sells one item until it runs out then immediately begins selling another item. Woot Offs I've seen generally last about two days.

Through Walmart.com, people can sign up for a free sample of Life Choice bars . It's not available in my area (darn!) but I thought I'd pass the info along anyway.

Thanks to a tip from a friend who already had children when I was pregnant with my daughter, I occasionally get coupons from Enfamil and Similac , which goes a long way in curbing the cost of buying formula. New and expecting moms can just register at both sites. Periodically, the companies will send samples and/or coupons. I registered with Gerber as well a few months before my daughter was born and got my first set of coupons in the mail from them last week. I love coupons!

To save a little money and to keep a little garbage out of the landfills, my husband and I cloth diaper our daughter most of the time. (Because I have a full-time job, we have to put her in daycare. When she's in daycare, she's in disposables. I never asked the daycare if they do cloth diapers, but I figure they probably do not.) Some cloth diapers, in my opinion, are pretty pricey. You can wind up paying $17 for a single diaper that your baby will outgrow in months. However, the kind I decided on seems like it should grow with her. We got Flip diapers, which has snaps that you use to adjust the diaper for size. We paid very little for the diapers, because I had about $100 in Amazon gift cards, which I used to purchase the diapers. The diapers are bulkier than disposables and my husband was a little intimidated by all the snaps at first, but they're really not bad at all. Changing a poopy cloth diaper can be pretty unpleasant, but still worth the cost savings, in my o...

I made out my bills for the month earlier today, and managed to send an extra $25 and some change to one of my credit cards. Not much on my quest to no longer be broke, but it's a start.

Looks like I will be going to the game after all. MyCokeRewards sent the tickets, which arrived via FedEx this morning.

I don't know if I don't fully understand extreme couponing or if it's just not as doable in my area. (My grocery store options are Aldi , Walmart supercenters, a regular Target , Dollar General , Walgreens and an IGA, which offers a loyalty program similar to S&H Green Stamps, through which you trade loyalty points for prizes, but I'd rather have money off my overall bill.) Aldi doesn't accept coupons, so I've been keeping track of sales and coupons I can use at the other places. I've saved as much as 3 percent on my overall grocery bill, but never the 50 percent and greater savings I see on the extreme couponing shows For my most recent shopping trip, I went to Aldi to do all of my grocery shopping. For the first time in years, I got out of the grocery store for less than $100. In fairness, this was a light shopping week, so my overall bill would've been less than normal no matter where I went. However, I plan to shop there for the bulk of m...

Today, I received tickets I requested via MyCokeRewards Jan. 31 to two different games -- still not the tickets I requested Jan. 3. They came via FedEx two-day delivery. I appreciate the promptness, I really do, especially in light of the problem with the other set of tickets.

One of the things I've done to save money -- sort of -- is participate in Coca-Cola's MyCokeRewards program, through which customers enter codes found on bottle lids and carton boxes of Coke products on the website. Participants receive points for the codes and can later cash the points in for T-shirts, tickets, movies, DVDs and various other items. Diet Coke has long been my favorite soft drink, so when I registered for the program back in 2009, I figured I could get something back for the money I spend on the soda. Well, I cashed in some of my Rewards points back on Jan. 3 for two tickets to an NBA game scheduled for Feb. 14. As of Jan. 31, I still had no tickets. So I sent an e-mail to MyCokeRewards using the website's contact form asking about the tickets. Two days later -- Feb. 2 -- I got an e-mail that says: "Thank you for contacting MyCokeRewards.com. We appreciate the opportunity to assist you. We want to help and will look into this further. We will get b...

I owe. A lot. It sucks knowing that every penny you earn really belongs to someone else. I became a mom in 2011, and for the sake of my daughter, I'm hoping to have it all paid off by the time she starts school. Mortgage, student loans, credit cards ... all of it. Every penny.