Dimples' Divine Domain
My journey to financial empowerment.

Just made $101 dollars on Cash Duck tonight. I will try to make another $100 in tomorrow night. Remember to withdraw your total balance by the end of tomorrow night. That way you can receive your money on 6/15/07. If you don't do it before 11:59 on the last day of the month you will have to wait a month and a half to receive your payment. I really want to do the whole NSA (Notary Signing Agent) thing but work has gotten extremely busy and I wouldn't have any spare time to work signing appointments in. So I'll have to put becoming an NSA on hold for now until work lightens up. I received my $4 check from American Consumer Opinion. I haven't received any other surveys form them yet. Oh well. Its not like I can get rich of that anyways. I wish AGLOCO would get their act together and launch this viewbar. It seems like a good way to make some nice money. I need to put my Hustlette hat on and find new money making avenues.

I am so ticked right now. I made an online transfer from my credit union checking account to my Citibank savings account last Thursday for $500. I received an email confirmation and everything. It usually takes 3 business days for the transfer to go through. But Citibank withdraws the $500 from my checking account the very next day (25th). Ok fine. I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that Citibank still shows my balance at $151.10. WTF? It is now 4 days later from the date they withdrew the money from my account and still nothing. So I call them to inquire about my money. This dude tells he has no record of any recent or pending transfer on my account. OH HELL NAW!!!! (breathe.....breathe.....breathe) After I basically let him have it he proceeds to hang up on me. LOL. I don't even blame him. I can get a little nasty when it comes to people playing round with my money. *Grrrr* Anyways I call back and speak to the another rep. She was able...

I finally reached a settlement amount on a case that I have been going through for the past 2 years. I have been trying to figure out what I will do with the money. I have already put $500 into my E-fund and another $500 into my Home Fund. I also took $500 and put into my personal spending account. My mom is going to have surgery in the next month or two so I am going to keep some of the money on the side to help her out in anyway possible. Either it be to pay some of the out-of-pocket expense for the surgery or to pay some bills while she rests at home and recovers. The remainder of the money will go to paying off some of my credit card debt or my personal loan or both. I'll do an analysis later and see what works best. With that said I have inserted my monthly report for May below. I realized I skipped out on April's report. The "Last Month" column in the report is referring to April so April's monthly report is kinda there. I increased my credit card ...

$200 Citibank Bonus Citibank is offering a $200 checking account bonus and the expiration date is 12/31/07. This is not an online promotion. There was a flyer with the promo code MGCH . The easiest way to apply for this promotion is by calling the Citibank number 1-866-810-9043 and mentioning this promo code. Warning: Citibank does do a hard credit inquiry through Experian! Also I am not positive on the minimum opening deposit requirement or minimum balance requirement. I suggest calling and finding out all the info from the rep you speak to.

I decided to do some searching on other available credit card and bank bonuses. Here is a list of websites that list many credit card and bank bonuses. Some are current, others have expired: www.icardbonus.com www.cardbonuses.com www.ibankbonus.com www.ibankdesign.com Take caution in applying for many credit cards or opening many bank accounts. ALWAYS read the fine print. If you are trying to work on your credit score then opening up many credit cards is probably not the best thing for you to do right now. I have only opened 2 credit card accounts in the last 3 years. I will be willing to open up one more if the credit card bonus is a nice amount ($200 or higher). But aside from that I will stick with surveys sites, cash duck, and any other avenue I may discover. Dimps

Credit Score as of4/19/07 (average of all three credit scores): 667 Credit Score as of 5/17/07 (average of all three credit scores): 678 11 points in one month. Not bad. Smaller increase then what I have been seeing in the past 4 months but its an increase no less. My goal is to reach 700 was originally by August but I believe I will change that to July. I am only 22 points away so I hope I can achieve that by then. Then I will look into refinancing my car loan. Dimps

Just received my cash duck payment. $160 right in my paypal and a couple of days earlier than I thought. So needless to say Cash Duck has been confirmed as a legit thing. I plan to make about $150 plus from it a month. :-D Two down and one to go.

I received my $250 Rewards check from Chase today. I am so psyched. I took a pic to prove it. Kee kee. One down 2 to go (Cash Duck and ACOP). :-D

I've decided to reach my financial empowerment goals via another route. I have tried to do the whole frugal biznass but that mess aint working for me. I want to live and have fun. I am too young to be knit-picking every single purchasing decision I make. Obviously, my current salary alone will not allow me to pay bills, work on eliminating my debt, and enjoy life and it's perks. So if what you working with ain't getting you what you want.....then upgrade. What's my plan? I intend on finding different ways to bring in some extra moola each month. The following is a list of avenues that are currently working for me: Cash Duck: CashDuck has many different offers (surveys, trials, etc). Some are free and some are not. You get paid various amounts for each offer you complete. I made $160 in the span 2 weeks Pinecone Research : get paid to do surveys ($5/survey) the only way to sign up with them is via a banner that they might have on a random site. I found an ad b...

Anti-frugality..........lol is that a word?.......well it is now. HA! Anyways I applied and got approved for a Chase Freedom credit card about 3 weeks ago. Chase had a promo going on where you would receive $200 bonus points after your first purchase of $.01 or higher which you can then redeem for a $250 check. I received the card 5 days after getting approved and made my first purchase (gas). My statement closed on the 5 of May and my $200 bonus points were applied to my account. I just redeemed my points this morning and it says my check will be mailed out on Thursday. Yeahhhh! So I should receive that check sometime next week. I am so psyched. I plan on putting a $100 dollars in my E-fund with ING Direct and $100 in my Home Fund with CitiBank . And I will take $50 and spend it on myself and my daughter. I will post more about this later today but I am sooooooooo done with the whole frugal living thing. I am a 25 year old single black mother and I have worked too hard to g...

Source: Springboard Non-Profit Consumer Credit Management ( credit.org ). Expenses vary widely depending on where you live, but these ranges offer smart guidelines for budgeting your cash. 1. Housing -% of Net Monthly Income: 35-45% 2. Auto and Transportation -% of Net Monthly Income: 15-25% 3. Food -% of Net Monthly Income: 10-20% 4. Monthly Installments (such as credit-card or loan payments) -% of Net Monthly Income: 10-20% 5. Utilities -% of Net Monthly Income: 8-15% 6. Medical (such as insurance premiums and prescriptions) -% of Net Monthly Income: 8-15% 7. Personal (such as club dues and haircuts) -% of Net Monthly Income: 5-10% 8. Savings/investings -% of Net Monthly Income: 5-10% 9. Clothing -% of Net Monthly Income: 3-5% And w hy isn't tithing listed? Anyways, here is my current breakdown: 1. Housing : 21% 2. Auto and Transportation (car note and insurance): 21% 3. Food : 0% ----> Paid for by...