Going for Not Broke

I have a rather busy week this week, so I'm going to take a short vacation from blogging. My next new post will be Dec. 3. Have a good week, everyone!

I have an arts & crafts festival I plan to attend next week, so for this coming week, I'd like to spend all of my extra time working on my crafts projects. Hopefully, I can sell enough to make back the money I put into it. If not, that's OK, but I just won't sign up for any more arts & crafts festivals until I KNOW I have enough stock to make it work my time financially. After this coming week, I plan to shift focus to a different type of extra income. I'll start practicing transcribing audio. Hopefully, it works out, because the work does something like something I'd be interested in.

Have a great -- and safe -- time with family and friends today! I've checked all of the Black Friday preview ads for stores that might carry the items I'd like to buy, and none has them. So, I won't be venturing out for the Black Friday crush this year.

My husband recently read through a book that listed some interesting opportunities for extra income. One is limu.com , a site through which people can teach (or take) classes in a wide variety of subjects, or even offer tutoring. So, if any readers out there are handy with knitting or knows a lot about the history of Country music, or any other topic, they might be able to earn some extra income through the site. The other site is www.trialjuries.com . Through this site, lawyers can test out their case on real people. The people who sign up to review the cases can receive payment for their effort. The lawyers look for people from within their own districts, so I imagine that the opportunities to serve on one of the "trial juries" are few and far between unless you live in a big city, which I don't, so I'm going to pass on this one. I might offer some tutoring through Limu, though.

I've mentioned several times that one thing I'd like to start doing is unplugging the computer when I'm not using it. It's a habit I've been hoping to get into for months now, because I really think it would make a noticeable difference in our electric bill. Well, I go through spells where I remember. But quite often, I don't. And then, there are the times when  I get distracted while I'm working at the computer, so I walk away from it, leaving it on because I intend to come right back to it but don't. At these times, the computer winds up not only being plugged in when not in use, but even on and running. The monitor will fade out, but the computer is still drawing power. My husband, on the other hand, remembers to shut it down and cut the power to it most of the time he uses it. That makes me smile.

I don't know why, but I like buying kids meals for my daughter whenever we go out to eat at a fast food restaurant. When I was a little girl, I loved getting kids meals, but my mom and dad hardly ever bought them for us. Perhaps that's why I buy them for my daughter even when I know she's barely going to eat from it. She eats just the bun off of a burger or other sandwich, just the hot dog out of corn dogs, and she's yet to finish a serving of Arby's mac-n-cheese. (She does, however, eat Chicken McNuggets like they're going out of style.) All she does is make a mess. She's also usually too small for the toy and she's too young to read the box it came in and play any games. At her age, it's just a waste of money. I'm vowing now not to buy her another. She can just share my meals with me.

I've been a little under the weather, so this blog will return Monday.

I've been doing some more thinking about transcribing from home. It turns out, Scribie isn't the only site available, so the potential to earn more is there. I just need to decide whether I want to invest in the equipment (a foot pedal to start and stop audio) to practice getting faster to increase my per-hour earning potential. I feel a little stressed in trying to decide whether to pursue it. While I do have an interest in transcription, I'd also like to eventually open my own craft shop, first as a part-time gig, then eventually -- and hopefully -- to replace my full-time income. The snag is that every minute I spent practicing transcribing (and eventually working as a transcriber) could be time spent working on crafts. However, if I try transcription, find some success at it, it could replace the other major freelance site I use that has dried up as a resource for me. I could create some "pay-it-down" money for me right now, as opposed to maybe one day in

Being cold is a weak spot for me. When I was a little girl, my mom and dad kept the air conditioner set high in summer and the heater set low in winter. I can remember my sister and me sitting on our bedroom floor, stretching our shirts down over our legs to get a little extra warmth. (In retrospect, we probably would've been better off putting our robes on over our clothes, but it didn't ever occur to us to do so.) Years later when I had my own place, I cranked up the heater whenever I got cold. And make no mistake, I got -- and still get -- cold often. I kept the thermostat set at 81 degrees in winter because that was where I was most comfortable. And boy, did I pay for it when my electricity bill came. Nowadays, my husband and I keep it set around 67 degrees in winter. That's mostly his doing. If I lived alone, I don't think I'd be willing to pay the bill that comes with an 81-degree setting again, but I'd likely still have it set above 70, and I'm no

Yesterday, I came across another online work-from-home opportunity that I thought was a possibility. It doesn't pay great, but my thinking was that it would be good for extra income to help me pay down my debt. The site is Scribie, and it does transcription work. For each 6 minutes of audiotape, it pays $1. The quicker I'd be able to work, the more I'd be able to make, but at that rate, the most I could make is $10 an hour. Knowing myself and my tendency to double-check myself a billion times, I'd probably do well to make $5 an hour. But, like I said, I was interested in it as side income, not as a full-time job, so I thought I'd give it a shot. So, today I went to check it out. According to the website, Scribie currently has more than 2,000 applicants still waiting to hear word on whether they've been approved for the site. In just 390 days, the site says, I should get word back on whether I've been approved. Believe it or not, I'm still conside

Homemade Frozen Dinners I go through spells when I look for new recipes to try, but for now, I'm out of new ones. I've decided to just do regular posts on Friday. I'll do homemade frozen dinner topics whenever I try another recipe or find one I'm interested in trying, or when I have another homemade frozen-dinner related topic. I still welcome recipes from readers who also make their own frozen dinners. Feel free to email the recipe here . Black Friday Sales I've never, never, never thought I'd get out of the house for a Black Friday sale. It's far too much crazy for me. This year, though, I have a couple of gift ideas that are out of reach unless I can get a darn good deal on them. (I can't say what they are because they're for my husband, and he reads this blog.) So, for the first time, this year, I'm going to scour websites and fliers to see if maybe one of them might be on sale this year. Extra Income Next month, I will attend a craft

Today was grocery shopping day. I picked up the items I can't get at Aldi at Neighborhood Market, then went on to Aldi for the rest. I love to see what extras Aldi has. I've seen metal shelves, grills, inflatable mattresses, etc., but the store rarely has the same extras from shopping trip to shopping trip. Today, I saw a toy kitchen I think my daughter would love for $30. Walmart has one very similar that's $34. It's not a significant savings, but every little bit helps. After I do my checkbook and see if I have anything left over, I might just run back to Aldi and pick up her first gift for this holiday season.

My husband and I started a college fund for our daughter over the past week. We've had some money set aside for her account for several months now, earning a whopping 0.1 percent interest in our traditional savings account, as I tried to decide which investment option was best for us. Ultimately, though, we just went with what the financial planner recommended because the amount of information out there is just too overwhelming for me. As we reviewed the funds that the financial planner had prepared for us, I was pleasantly surprised to see how much we can see, eg., specifically what companies our money would be invested in. My retirement account doesn't provide information that detailed. After seeing what's available, I thought I might try reading a book like "Investing for Dummies" so that I can get the basics of investing down. I'd like to take a more active role in our investments. I had hoped I could borrow the book for free on my Kindle from Amazon,

One day last week, I read a headline for a column my local paper runs called "Everyday Cheapskate" by Mary Hunt, which focuses on living within your means and paying down debt. The headline mentioned using "unflinching determination" to reach your goals. I didn't take the time to read the article, but I like the idea of "unflinching determination." I was able to think of those words a few times when I wanted to buy something that I didn't really need. It also propelled me to take a walk (getting fit is another goal of mine). But as often happens, the words lost their impact. Perhaps I can get back the "unflinching determination" I had for those few days if I wrote the words on a piece of paper and posted them in a place I see often.

I went to an arts-and-crafts festival in early October intending to sell some of my beadwork. The weather, though, was miserable, and the festival goers were few and far between. I froze for about four hours and sold nothing. At that time, I made plans to attend another festival at the end of November. I wanted to have a lot more stuff on hand for it because it’s farther away and a two-day event, which means a possible overnight stay. That means that in order to recoup what I put into the festival and to come out even a little bit ahead, I’ll have to earn quite a bit. I thought by now I’d have a lot more pieces made, but I don’t. As a matter of fact, I’m still working on the same bracelet I was working on when I went to the early October festival.  Therefore, I really need to make time for my beadwork. It’s tough, though. My goal between now and then is to commit two full hours of beading every day. That’s not much, but with a full-time job and a baby, it’s what I think I can reaso

I buy frozen cooked veggies because they’re handy to toss into my homemade frozen dinners as a side dish for an entree. If I make chicken, I can just shake some frozen peas, carrots, green beans, corn, etc., into the food container with each individual serving. I’ve decided to quit buying prepackaged frozen veggies, though, because I can get more food for less money if I buy fresh vegetables instead. I’d like to be able to cut up and cook the veggies, then freeze them in a bag, so that just like with the store-bought packages, I can shake out what I need as I need it. The problem, though, is I don’t know how to keep them from freezing together, which they’ll do if I cook them in liquid. So, I decided to try a steamer. I thought that unlike with boiling them, they don’t get dunked in the water, so maybe they’ll remain loose when frozen. So, on my last trip to the grocery store, I bought some carrots, green beans and yellow squash, and I spent a chunk of Saturday cutting up veggies

Our shower faucet has had a drip over the past few months; it's been slow enough that I didn't really think it would have much of an impact, if any, on our water bill at all. But before it got worse, my husband took it apart and stopped the drip. Our water bill this month is down nearly $5 from the months before. Turns out those tiny drips really do add up.