Hi guys. Those who know me, know I am a fan of the Twilight books and movies. Well, I just wanted to share with you all a new Twilight parody that just came out. These girls have done parodies for both the first movie and for Full Moon, and they are awesome. I think I actually like them as the characters more than the real actors. So, below I have embedded their latest video for your viewing pleasure. Please let me know what you think, and if you would like to watch their other videos they can be found at The Hillywood Show.

Movies on the Cheap

So, in the last few months, Amazon has definitely been on the top of my list. I have bought books to help with work and books to help me learn stuff at home, all for a cheap price. The last book I bought was $12. I also buy mp3's through there because I can get whole albums for an average of $8 or just one song for $1. The last album I bought was on special for $3.99 and it turned out that I love every song. It was definitely worth the $4.

After the first time I bought more than $7.99 in mp3's, I was given a $3 credit towards their on-demand videos. We ended up renting Alice in Wonderland and really enjoyed it. A month later, I got another $5 credit from them for some promotion they were doing, so we got some more movies. One of these movies was Avatar. It was such a great movie, I ended up actually ordering the DVD. Last weekend, hubby ended up staying home from work one night so we ended up renting one for $2.99. The movie was Pan's Labyrinth. It was AWESOME!! Even with the subtitles, my husband and I both enjoyed the movie, and thought it was worth the money. It was scary in parts (see the picture to the left), but the real terror occurred in the real life world of the little girl who was a witness to the atrocities of a revolution.

Once we get our house in, we may look at signing up for Netflix. I like the idea of having unlimited on-demand videos for one low price. We have also used the Redbox rentals, and like them. We have just had problems getting the movie back after one day so it ends up costing us more than $1. Plus you have to go out in the cold, and we all know how much I love going out when I don't have to in the winter!

Renting movies can be expensive, but it is still cheaper than going out to the movies, especially when you have more than one person. Streaming movies has made movie renting not only convenient, but also relatively inexpensive.

I'd like to take a moment and remind everyone that there are a lot of people in our area who do not have enough to eat. The Food Bank of the Southern Tier helps people who find themselves in this situation. Please take the time and donate, even if it is only $10. They are having their Turkey Drive right now and you can see the paragraph below to find out more.

You can help the Food Bank provide our neighbors in need with a Thanksgiving meal this year by donating to the 1st Annual Turkey Drive sponsored by Tioga Downs Casino Racing & Entertainment. Every $10 donation enables the Food Bank to distribute two turkeys. With your generosity, more families in our community will be able to enjoy a plentiful meal on Thanksgiving Day when we raise funds through the Turkey Drive. Tioga Downs will generously match up to $20,000 in funds raised to help provide turkeys for families in need. Click here to make a secure online donation. Click here for more information or to download a Turkey Drive pledge sheet.

Budgeting Part 1

Creating a budget is pretty simple, but following it is a little more difficult. I recently received an email from a new reader wanting to know more about budgeting. I emailed her back with quite a bit of information that I hope will help her. I decided that a post on budgeting may be helpful to many of my readers, so here it is.

The first step to creating a budget is to track your expenses. If you have a money management program that you already use, this would be a great place to start. If you don't track your expenses, now is the time to start. Whether you do so with a computer program or a spreadsheet, or even if you use a notebook and a pencil, start now. I would suggest tracking your expenses for at least a week to see what you are spending on things like food and gas. Remember, you can always adjust your budget as needed. Your budget is not set in stone, and it should change often. I have created an Excel spreadsheet for you if you would like to download it. You can get 97-2003 or Excel 2007. (highlight file you would like to download and click on More then Download)

You will also need to list all your regular monthly bills. These are bills like rent or mortgage, insurances, car payments, utilities, credit cards, etc. To make my life easier, I take advantage of the free bill pay through my credit union. There are numerous advantages to using online bill payment. I set up my bills to be paid once a month, once a week, or they have several other payment options. I can set up one-time or recurring payments. I save money on stamps and my payments are never late, therefore no late fees. I can put in bills to be paid (for example $83 a month to NYSEG) and not have to worry about that bill again unless the amount changes. It really is a win-win situation.

You will want to either use a spreadsheet program (like Excel or Microsoft Works Spreadsheet) or a notebook and a pencil. I prefer to use a spreadsheet because it is easier to change things easily, but you can use whichever you prefer. Now is also a good time to write down your goals. What is it you would like to accomplish financially? Do you want to pay off your credit cards or save towards a home? Put this in writing(or use Excel or Word). You can even keep your goal list on your frig to keep yourself on track.

After you have done all of these steps, you are now ready to start creating your budget. I will continue with Part 2 of Budgeting in my next post. Look for it, and please leave me any questions or comments you may have

It's going to be a busy week!

Well it's a rainy and cold day up here in New York state today. What better day to get a lot of things accomplished inside.

First up on my to-do list is a meal plan. My husband will be starting his new job tomorrow after being laid off for more than a year. We're really happy that he found something, but it also means we need to start following a more strict schedule and plan everything out. The first two weeks he will be on first shift and then will be on second. What I plan to do is utilize my crock pot during the week. The night before I will cut everything up and have it all ready to go in, so that I can just throw it all in each morning. I will also need to plan lunches for the little ones since they will be going to the sitter during the day for the first two weeks (will mostly be sandwiches or mac n cheese, with a fruit and/or a veggie). I plan on giving the sitter an extra $5 to cover the milk they will drink. So, here is my meal plan for the week:

Sunday -not sure yet (leftover chicken from yesterday)
Monday - chicken n cornbread dumplings (crock pot), veggie, pudding or jello
Tuesday - leftovers
Wednesday -ham (crock pot), stuffing, veggie
Thursday - breakfast for dinner
Friday - turkey breast (crock pot)
Saturday - spaghetti, homemade bread (bread machine), green beans

Now that I've got that done, there is still plenty of things that need to get done today:

• I need to go through my coupon binder and clean it out. After my husband goes to the store and gets me a paper I will also have to cut out and add those coupons to my binder. I already looked at the sales at Tops and they're really bad, so I guess I will just get exactly what we need for the week. No stock-up shopping this week.
  
• For my database class I need to finish reading the chapter and take the quiz. For my C++ class I need to rework 2 lab programs and work on reading the next chapter. I also need to see how many weeks I actually have and schedule time to get all the work done.
• Laundry. Mine and the kids clothes needs to be washed and I also need to wash a load of towels. I really should do up a laundry schedule so I am not trying to do it all on Sunday.
• There is at least one more load of dishes that need to be washed. Maybe I can get hubby to work on those this afternoon. One can hope!!!
  

I am sure there are tons of other things that need to get done, but it won't be happening today. I will be lucky if I get all that done, especially since I don't feel well. My little girl gave me her illness. :( So I may need to add a nap to that list too, lol.

I am hoping everything goes semi-smoothly this week. If you have any suggestions on how to make the transition better, I would love to hear them.

Words of the Week Wednesday 11/12

It is Wednesday again and time to provide my readers with links to sites that I found interesting in the last week.

1. $5 Dinner Mom. Erin Chase has one of the best blogs out there. She shows you how to feed a family of 4 dinner for $5 or less! The meals are really simple and taste wonderful. She also has a new cookbook out, so check that out while you are at her site.
   
2. Makeusof.com. This site is more for the techy person. The reason I love it is because there are so many links to free programs, free graphics and more. It is a great site if you are interested in anything from computers to phones to graphics and more.
   
3. Wisebread.com has a HUGE list of the top 100 personal financial blogs listed on its site. If you are interested in finding some new blogs to read check that out.
   
   
   
   
   

Debt Pay Off

Yesterday I mentioned how we used our income tax refund to pay off all our credit cards. Below is a break down of how much we paid to each of the cards.

I also wanted to share with you something that I found very interesting. When my husband received his Juniper bill last month there was a chart on the first page. It showed how long it would take to pay off the bill if you only paid the minimum and if you paid $51. It only showed how much you would pay.

Very interesting huh? The minimum payment was $32.92 a month. So, just by paying an extra $20 a month, we would cut the amount of time it took to pay it off by 18 YEARS and pay about $1257 LESS! This is just proof positive that you can get all your credit cards paid off just by sending in a little more money each month.

Paying off Bills with Income Tax Refund

Well, it's tax season. For some of us that means paying in, while others get a refund. Somehow we ended up getting a nice chunk of change this year. My husband and I decided that we would pay off all our credit card debt and save the rest. We paid over $6000 on credit cards and are now debt free in regard to credit cards. The only debt we have left is the van loan and school loan. Since, we would like to get a house built on our land as soon as we can, we have decided that we will save the rest for a down payment.

It feels really awesome to not have the weight of all that debt on our shoulders anymore. We were spending about $200 on credit card debt a month (we always paid extra) and now we have that money to put in our savings each month. I was also able to add $450 to our emergency fund so now we have $1000 in there.


Even if you are only getting a small amount for a tax refund, you can use this amount to reduce your debt. You can either use it for your highest interest debt or your smallest debt. Paying off your smallest debt first gives you a sense of accomplishment when it is paid off. As an added bonus, you also now have that amount to put towards the next debt to pay off. This is called snowballing.


What are you doing with your tax refund? I'd love to hear from you.

It's Sunday

Hi everybody. I hope you are all having a great day and staying warm. Hope my friends in the mid-atlantic states are enjoying the snow. I am actually envious of them since all the snow this year has actually missed us.

I will keep this short since i am posting this through ping.fm. It is a convenient website that lets you post to all your social media at the same time. We will see how it looks. I am now off to work on homework for my classes. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and the superbowl.

Organizing Your Coupons

If you want to start couponing, you will need some sort of filing system. Couponing without organization just does not work. If you dont' know where your coupons are, you won't be able to use them to save your hard-earned money.


Envelopes
Envelopes are great for those couponers who don't use a lot of coupons. You can label several envelopes with different labels. For example, you could have separate ones for cleaning, HBA products, dairy and frozen, boxed goods, etc. I have also seen people use Ziploc bags and this might actually be better than using envelopes because your coupons won't fall out. The downside to using envelopes, or Ziploc bags, is that if you get really into couponing, it won't work anymore. It's just not that efficient of an organizational system for mass couponing.


Coupon holder
I originally started out with a small coupon holder that I bought at Target. I soon found out that this wasn't big enough for my needs so I invested in a bigger sized one at Target. These were both $1, by the way. There are several pockets to divide your coupons up by category. They came with stickers so that I could write whatever I wanted on the tabs. Coupon holders are nice for the person starting out, but when you get several copies of one insert or start really printing those Internet coupons, they just don't work as well.


Don't cut, put in folders
Now, there may be a different name for it, but for the life of me, I don't know it. This method of coupon organization is touted by many of the coupon websites such as couponmom.com and the grocerygame.com. How does it work? Well, each week when you get the inserts from the Sunday paper, you simply label a folder with the date and stick the inserts in there. Each week, you can check out one of those sites that will tell you which sales and coupons match up. The date of the insert will be listed and you just go to that folder and cut the coupon out. This is great if you are one of those people who make a grocery list and stick to it. The problem I have with this method is that I find unadvertised specials and clearance items all the time. If I didn't have my coupons with me, I would miss out on really great deals. Plus, where do you put those extra coupons, like the ones you get in the mail or in products?


Binder method
Some people use large binders with plastic insert pages that can hold baseball or business cards. I recently found that my old way of coupon organization was not working and that I needed something new. I decided to try this method. I had a binder that I figured would work until I could get a better one when school supplies went on sale. I bought one package of plastic sheets, but soon discovered that this was not enough and sent hubby out to get another pack. This seems to be enough, at least for now. I have it organized in the same order that my coupon holder was organized in. Which is good, because I only have 2 dividers right now. I am waiting on some good back-to-school sales to stock up on some. This method lets me quickly go to the coupon I want and I can easily see if I have more than one. Yes, there is an initial investment of at least the plastic pages, but I see it as an investment in my sanity. LOL. Especially with three kids, plus hubby, often tagging along to the store, being able to find coupons quickly is priceless. You may also find it a little embarrassing to walk into the store with it. Well don't be embarrassed. Look at how much money you will be saving. If it makes you feel better, find a cart outside near your and put your binder in there. No one will even notice it's there.


I hope this helps with any organizational problems you may have with your coupons. I am sure there are many more ways to organize your coupons. These are just the most popular ones. If you know of any other ways, please share by leaving a comment.

free milk coupon and giveaway

Enter to win a years' supply of milk (52 coupons). The first 125,000 people to enter will also receive a coupon for a free gallon of milk. Just remember to print your coupon a second time, you can click on the back button a few times. The limits on most of these type coupons are 2. You can enter at The Great Gallon Give.

Menu Plan Monday

On Saturday I finally got my $5 Dinner Mom cookbook by Erin Chase. The first third of the book talks about how to save money and feed your family healthy, yet frugal dinners. Although I knew most of the things Erin wrote about, I did learn a few new things. Then I went on to look at the recipes. WOW!! They are easy to make recipes that sound so yummy! Many times when I am looking for frugal recipes they tend to take a while to make or are complicated. Since I now work full time, I need to get it done quick. Erin's cookbook is a great resource for someone who is trying to save time and money.

Now on to my meal plan for the week:

MONDAY - leftovers
TUESDAY - ham steaks, scalloped potatoes, vegetable
WEDNESDAY - spaghetti with homemade meatballs, vegetables
THURSDAY - leftovers
FRIDAY -pork roast in crock pot, baked potatoes, vegetable
SATURDAY - homemade macaroni and cheese with chicken and broccoli
SUNDAY - leftovers


Meal planning not only saves you money but also time and frustration. There is no more "What's for dinner?" moments. What's your meal plan for the week?

Snapfish photo deal

Do you have a bunch of digital pictures that you want printed? Now is the time to do it.

Snapfish has a great offer - 50 prints for 1 penny each! The code is NEWYEAR50 and it expires January 11.

Working on first financial resolution

Last week, I posted my New Year's resolutions on here. My first financial resolution was to get $1500 into our savings account. We are working hard on getting to this point so that we can begin to pay off our credit cards. My husband really wanted me to start paying off the credit cards right away, but I explained to him that I didn't think that was a great idea. Even financial gurus like Dave Ramsey tell you to save $1000 emergency fund before paying off credit. If something happens (for instance we need to buy a new tire, etc) and we don't have the emergency fund we would end up using a credit card. I finally convinced him that this was the way we should go.

It is my goal this year to post the amount I transfer to savings each week. I will also be posting my weekly meal plans (on Mondays) and how much I spend on groceries each week. Once I have my emergency fund fully funded I will post how much I send to credit cards and how much is left.

This Week's Totals (1/7 to 1/13)

Weekly Amount sent to savings: $550.00

Total Amount in Savings: $558.51

Weekly Amount spent for groceries: $19.73 / $75.00

(hubby went to Wegmans this a.m. - bought a newspaper, 3 gallons milk, pound of deli turkey, 3 loaves of white bread and 3 loaves of wheat)

Total for Groceries this Month: $59.48/$300.00

Meal Plan expected to be done by tomorrow.