Do You Like Free Stuff? Here are 12 months for free!

Do you like free stuff? Who doesn't? Would you like a free 12 month subscription of Parents Magazine? Here's the deal. If you follow the link below and sign up for a free membership to clubmom, you will receive a free 12 month subscription to Parents. Not bad, huh?

Clubmom is a site that has all types of resources for parents. Everything from parenting, to financial information and even bargains and coupons for online shopping. They have forums where you can discuss any topic you desire. I will be submitting some articles over there next week. Pretty soon, you'll be able to read about my entertaining and insane life with the 7 over there!

So hurry because the offer ends today. Happy reading!


SORRY, THIS OFFER IS NO LONGER VALID!

The Entrepreneur and His Ingenuity

The Entrepreneur is ingenious in making money. He started in kindergarten. I started noticing he was coming home with change in his book bag. I questioned his father and he stated he didn't know where it was coming from.

Later that day.
Me:
I see that there is money in your book bag. Where did it come from?

The Entrepreneur in a matter of fact tone that only children use:
The kids in my school.

Me a little shocked and curious:
Why are the kids giving you money?

The Entrepreneur answers:
You and Daddy buy me all the cool toys. I always bring them to recess. One day a boy asked me to play with my toys and I said no. Then he offered me money to play with my toys, so I asked him how much he had and he told me. I agreed to let him play with it for that money. Now the kids ask me what toys I have. I bring them to recess and they pay me to play with the toy.

That's how he got his nickname...way before I started blogging. Kids have paid him for his snacks, Yugi-Oh cards, Pokemon cards and video games.

This was the latest conversation I had about his entrepreneurial pursuits.

The Entrepreneur ran into the house after school:
Mom, guess what?

Me:
What? I answered.

The Entrepreneur:
Remember the chain Daddy let me buy in the store...For a dollar-my blink chain?

Me:
(It was a gaudy costume jewelry chain that resembled the ones rap artists where in their videos) Yes, I remember.

The Entrepreneur:
I wore it to school and this kid wanted it. I said no, but he told me that he would pay me $7.00...so I sold it. Mom, I made $6.00!

See what I mean?

He was born with that. It wasn't taught. Both sets of my grandparents were entrepreneurs. They owned their own businesses and worked for themselves...unfortunately only one died with some assets. When it came to investing they were not well informed. My ex-husband owns his own business, but he spends like crazy. On the plan I had devised, we should have been millionaires by now-but he chose to cheat on me and move on. So, now I get to nurture The Entrepreneur (11) and his pursuits to make something out of nothing.

Pretty funny, huh? It gets better. The Diva (12) decided she could buy some accessories and get them for free. How? While waiting in the doctor's office, a lady that I know started explaining her business ventures on ebay. She explained that she buys two of everything and sells the other one on ebay-that way she gets her item for FREE! That got The Diva thinking...

We went to the mall on Tuesday. She asked me to take her to a certain accessory store that has outrageous clearance sales-15 or 10 items for $5.00. This particular day the sale was 10 for $5.00. The Diva asked me to help her through the clearance bins to find some items. I did. She paid $5.00 and then told me she was going to sell the lip glosses in school. I asked her why. She told me she was going to see if the ladies method worked. That way the lip glosses would pay for the items she really wanted. In the end, her 10 purchases would be FREE!

So now you know a little about two of my 7 kids. I know you are curious about what they look like....here's The Entrepreneur and here's The Diva!

The Credit Card Debt Update

The Credit Card Debt Update

The update for this month must be done. So here are the new figures. Try not to pass out...

Macy's 230.00
Old Navy 400.00
Filene's 293.07
Capital One 275.87
WalMart 553.77
Express 200.00
Ny&CO 750.00
Sears 1200.00
Sears 2200.00
JCPenney 1700.00

This month I paid off:
Children's Place 118.00 (I had to buy the 12 yr old something -growth spurt)
Target 189.04

So far, I have paid off four cards:
1. Victoria's Secret
2. The Limited
3. The Children's Place*
4. Target

I am not charging anything on any of these cards (except for the one time with my 12 year olds growth spurt and I paid it anyway*). To reward myself and the kids I plan to travel to see my parents in Puerto Rico this summer. That not only motivates me to find more ways to make income online, but it gives the kids an incentive to save $$ and conserve EVERYTHING!

I have been experimenting, investigating and researching many different ways of making money online. I wanted to post more on Operation Debt Pay Off, but I want to give accurate figures and I am still waiting for some of the totals to get back. I am determined and obstinate...in succeeding!

STAY TUNED! The credit cards are going to get paid and then I'm moving on to saving money and attaining wealth!

Carnival Of Debt #28

It's time for the Carnival Of Debt again. I love to submit entries and read everyone else's! There are many great reads, so make your way on over and enjoy.

Don't forget. If you haven't already started, come back and read how I am GETTING OUT OF DEBT! Join me in waving goodbye to all those creditors! I wish I could say good bye to the oil companies, but as long as I live at The Little House on The Prairie- they will have a hand in my finances! Here's another photo of my neighborhood. You see why I call it The Little House On on the Prairie?

I'll be back to post later, I have to take one of the 7 dwarves to the doctor, he's scheduled to have the cast removed on Thursday!

Remember to spend and save wisely...

Obsessed With Paying The Credit Card Debt

The obsession with paying off the credit card debt is consuming me. I have spent hours on end online doing surveys, writing articles, joining blogging sites and more. I have been so busy that I haven't had a chance to update here. I want to share all the numbers and the methods I am using. Unfortunately the little creepy, crawly spider bots flagged most of my blogs as spam blogs. Needless to say, I got locked out of my own blogs. That was cleared up, they sent me an apology email and I am back to blogging.

I have to keep this short, the weekends are really hectic for me and I have to go tend to the 7 dwarves. I will try to put all the information together in a coherent fashion to show what I am doing and what the results are. I will be getting out of debt sooner than I thought. There are many ways to make money on the internet and I am going to prove it. In the meantime, I was able to post some info on some of my other blogs. Here is the link to one and here is the other.

Enjoy!

Operation Debt Pay Off Day One

Yesterday was day one of OPERATION DEBT PAY OFF! What did I do? I will share that with you.

1. Wrapped all the coins that I had saved in a large container. (By the way, my children contributed $60.00 of wrapped coins they had. It has become a family mission.) The total was $234.50.
2. Took some of the bottles that were in the basement waiting for me to be redeemed. I had been procrastinating due to the weather. Yesterday turned out to be a bad choice to do this. It was reaaly, really cold. The total was $4.95.
3. Returned items that I purchased and later didn't need (home improvement project) and that totaled $30.00.

The grand total was $269.45. I put $50.00 towards the Walmart card, %20.00 towrads the Filene's card and PAID OFF the Target card $189.04. Yeah ME!!

So, that was day one. Today is day two. Just wait until I tell you about today's adventure.

I wasn't kidding when I said I was going to get out of debt and use every means possible!!

Stay tuned for Day Two of Operation Debt Pay Off!

debt pay off
credit card debt
debt elimination

A New Book About Credit Card Debt

Last week I received an email from a marketing manager at Simon and Shuster concerning a new book about credit card debt. She told me she had read my blog and was wondering if I would read this new book and then write a review about it. She felt that my readers would enjoy knowing more about this book since it relates to my blog content.

I am halfway through the book and I can't wait to share it with all of you. Let me give you the jist of it. A woman from NYC (an editor by profession) gets so frustrated while creating a hole of debt to buy Christmas gifts, that she decides she is NOT BUYING ANYTHING for a whole year! Yes, this woman got so fed up with using her plastic and the superficiality of American consumerism, that she took it into her own hands to get off the roller coaster of shopping and debt. She recruits her live in boyfriend to join her in her resistance to consumerism. What a CONCEPT!

The book has a chapter for every month of the year she is on strike. The chapters are written like journal entries where she is brutally honest about her withdrawal to the addiction of shopping as well as dining out. It is raw, well written and it also includes facts about how we deplete the earth's resources and endanger the planet by our careless craving for more STUFF!!!

I can't wait to finish the rest of the book. I hope to tell you a little about the end, but I am not giving any details. You'll have to go and read it to find out!

Not Buying It
by Judith Levine

Judith Levine
Not Buying It
book review
credit card debt

No Credit Needed: Carnival Of Debt Reduction

No Credit Needed: Carnival Of Debt Reduction

I'm am happy to say that for the first time, I was a part of The Carnival Of Debt Reduction!
The carnival is made up of great posts about many bloggers on the topic of debt reduction. Go visit No Credit Needed and read some great posts.

By the way, NCN:
Congratulations on being interviewed once again!!!

Credit Card Addiction

I went through all the blogrolls on most of the financial blogs that I found. Many people have started these blogs to document their process while getting out of debt. Most importantly, they were paying off their credit card addiction. Yes, I used the word addiction.

What is the definition of addiction? According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

addiction
One entry found for addiction.


Main Entry: ad·dic·tion
Pronunciation: &-'dik-sh&n, a-
Function: noun
1 : the quality or state of being addicted
2 : compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly : persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful

I know some of you think this is a harsh word. Is it really? Let me tell you a little story. When I was single, I worked in The Gap part time (my full time job as a supervisor in a bank couldn't feed my habit of shopping). The manager and I became very close. He confronted me about my shopping habit. I was honest about the huge balances I was carrying on all my cards. He asked me to give up the cards and he put them in the store's safe so that I wouldn't use them. What did I do? I was ok for a little while. Then I started freaking out and I found ways to use them even without having them. I would go to the store and get a temporary shopping pass for the day. You know, the one you can get when you forget your credit card, but you still have your driver's license. Later when I was married, my husband CUT MY CARDS! He cut my Bloomie's, A&S, American Airlines and Discover Card. It was WW III. Later that week, I received new ones in the mail. (I blamed it on the kids and their access to a scissor ). The same deceptive behavior of an addict, same high....different method.

With that in mind I pondered about what led me to the point where I said "Enough!"
Two things contributed to this action.
1. I realized that I was a slave to MASTERCARD. Those credit cards own me, my time and most of my possessions.
2. The pain outweighed the pleasure. Usually in 12 step programs, they have meetings where each person stands and proclaims that they have a problem. Why? They have hit rockbottom and know that there is no longer any pleasure in the action, but increased pain. They have to admit to themselves and the world that they have a problem and that they need to work on it on a daily basis.

How do I know that I have reached that threshhold? I don't want to answer the phone, open my mailbox or balance my checkbook. Why? Well, because it is just painful. Bills, Bills, Bills just like Beyonce and Destiny's Child sing. That's all there is.

This leads to one of the most important points of starting the journey to become debt free. Your thoughts and feelings must be in tune with your goal. You need to see what triggers the emotions of wanting to spend, charge and shop and then work those feelings out. This is no different than people that feed their loneliness, depression and need for control by overeating. It is also the same as the person that medicates with substances such as alcohol and drugs to numb the pain of their past.

Did I make you think? Competing with the Joneses' takes on a whole new light, doesn't it?

Think about this post and feel free to leave a comment.

credit card debt
debt repayment
addiction

Credit Cards and My 18 Year Affair Part II

Looking back at the years I spent shopping with my family, I realized something. In some families all the members suffer from obesity because their lives revolve around eating. In my family, we were financially unhealthy because many of our bonding took place during shopping sprees and the use of credit cards. Funny, we always used what we purchased and I NEVER paid full price, but that was irrevelant if I carried a balance. And guess what? I often did.

As it always happens with addicts, a person doesn't make life changing decisions until THE PAIN OUTWEIGHS THE PLEASURE. When my first child was born, I wanted to stay home. Unfortunately, I couldn't. I had to pay off the debt that I owed. So, I made a conscious decision to pay off the debt. I paid it and then I had a crisis in my marriage and we were separated during my second pregnancy.

After struggling with paying off the bills and staying out of debt, the final separation between my husband and I was the biggest financial upheaval yet. After financing a home, a minivan and his business he left. Left me with the kids, no income,the household bills, his cellphone bill and ALL THE CREDIT CARD BILLS he had charged up. I still haven't recovered from that one.

How will I recover? By every means possible. I have automated my life. My bills get paid online so that I don't have to step foot in the mall. I don't meet any friends there to resist any temptations. I find free forms of entertainment as much as possible. (With 7 kids I never have a dull moment.) So, I am exploring other ways on making a passive income including blogging, affiliate marketing and hopefully in the near future cafepress and ebay. (I can't start right away because my car just broke down and I don't have alternate transportation.)

That's my story about my addiction to credit. Am I cured? I don't think so. I still long for the day that I can purchase something and actually have the cash and not have to figure out what isn't going to get paid. I am determined and I will persevere until I am successful. If there is one thing that I am sure of is that I must be one of the most stubborn people walking on this planet and I will be debt free!

credit card debt
credit card repayment
personal finances