Dimples' Divine Domain
My journey to financial empowerment.

*cough* My November Budget Results: Income: I had $93.99 left over from last month. I brought in an extra $352.21 that consisted of blog income and my 401K distribution from my past employer. I missed my income goal $200. The HR department has had their share of errors since the contract started. They some how entered my W-4 information incorrectly and I was getting taxed at a higher rate then I should have. They fixed it on the paycheck I received yesterday. Rent & Utilities : My water bill was higher than expected. Everything else was ok. Auto: I only spent $152.18 of my gas budget. $152 on gas!!!! Aren't recessions supposed to be a sad time? Why can't we have a great economy and low gas prices? Food : I went over my grocery budget by $117.89. But I have several good reasons why. $60 went to groceries for Thanksgiving dinner when I went to my parents for the holiday. $20 went to rolls I had assigned to bring for the Thanksgiving luncheon we had at work. ...

MAY BUDGET RESULTS May was rocky. I spent double my gas budget and almost 7 times my dining budget. I brought in over $1000 in extra income (with the help of the tax rebate of course). Income: I had $35.70 left over from last month. I brought in an extra $1042.70 that consisted of blog income, Revolutionary Money Exchange referrals, Vindale Research , and my tax rebate. Rent & Utilities : Everything is okie dokie in this area. I need to lower my cell phone plan though. Auto: Back on the car note hustle. I am paying a lil more than my car note. Food: I was under my grocery budget by $3.89. Debt: I made regular payments and paid down a credit card. Misc: I went way over my beauty budget. The internet is the debil and satan's offspring invented sales. *sigh* I was $40 under my medical budget. I had to had my pap smear done again and after thinking about it I came to the conclusion that I shouldn't have to pay my co-pay again since it is the nurse practitioner'...

April went pretty smoothly. I need to control my spending. Thankfully, I brought in a nice chunk of extra money to cover my spending. Alrighty, shall we begin? Income: I had $84.53 left over from last month. I brought in an extra $277.98 that consisted of blog income, Revolutionary Money Exchange referrals, Vindale Research , and two sales on Amazon. left over from my tax refund. Rent & Utilities : I had to pay my cell phone twice this month. I was wondering why I had so much money left over from the previous month. Turns out the payment I made in April did not get processed. So I winded up paying for my cell phone twice. Luckily I had the money ready in my account. Auto: No car payment this month. Yay! Food: I went over my grocery budget by $13.19. Due to my health situation I had to clean out the unhealthiness in my fridge and restock on spices and condiments. Debt: I made regular payments and paid down a credit card. Misc: I went way over my beauty budget...

I was so bad this month. I mean REAL BAD!! I should be spanked for the ish I pulled this past month. And not spanked in that kinky sort of way..........anyways I digress. Let's get started shall we....... Income: I had $1227.82 left over from my tax refund. On top of that I brought in $337.41 in extra income that consisted of sales I made on Amazon and eBay, income from my side business, and blog income. Rent & Utilities: Everything but my damn cell phone bill was cool in this area. I am about fed up with Cingular. I keep getting these weird charges (like being charged twice for a text message) and every time I go to fight it, the only option I am given is to upgrade my plan in order to cancel out the overages. So I upgraded my plan from 450 anytime minutes and free nights and weekends for $39.99 to 900 minutes and free nights and weekends for $59.99. Why isn't there a middle plan for 650 minutes for $49.99??? Anyways my contract with them ends January of...

BUDGET RESULTS February was a great month. I brought in some extra income and received a chunky tax refund Income: I brought in $395.26 in extra income and I also received my tax refund of $2629. The extra income consisted of sales I made on Amazon and eBay, bonuses from Revolutionary Money Exchange , mileage reimbursement from work, and blog income. Rent & Utilities: Everything but my damn cell phone bill was cool in this area. I am highly upset with Cingular AT&T or what ever the wanna call themselves today. I supposedly went over my text messages and when I checked the bill it seems I was being charged TWICE for each text message. I called to inquire about this and got the run around. I was leaving to go out of town in a couple of hours and I did not want them to cut my phone off while I was out-of-state so I went ahead and paid the ridiculous $195.89 bill. I called them today and they are going to go over my bill and call me back tomorrow. I want to cancel my con...

BUDGET RESULTS January turned out to be one crazy month. I went over my entire budget by $29.27. Luckily I have overdraft protection and the money was pulled out of my savings account. I forgot all about my insurance bill that is automatically debited from my account on the 28th of the month. My overage was also offset by the $262 in extra income I brought in. Makes me wonder: Did I overspend because I had the extra income or was I just lucky? Income: I brought in an extra $262.52 via a combination of income from my blog, Pinecone Research and sales off of Amazon and eBay. That extra money definitely saved my behind. Miscellaneous: This category has been labeled as DDD's baddest budget buster and I do believe that I broke the record this month. I was over budget by $312.62!!! There were a number of things, unforeseen and foreseen, that came up: - Car registration renewal: $36.10 - Doctor appointment co-pay: $15 - Prescription: $15 - Cold medicine: $20 - Souvenirs from ...

I am going to make this short and sweet. Here is my budget results for December: I brought in an extra $2700 in income this past month. $2500 was bonus money. I used the extra $2700 and paid off 4 credit cards . I did pretty good in all categories except Misc. I blew that one out the water. I treated myself to cute Ecko bag from Ross and a new hair-do for the new year. I also got my daughter a couple of things from Ross. Here is my current net worth standing: Self explanatory. I am in the midst of revamping my budget as I said I would in my last monthly report post . Once I get that ironed out I will post January budget. I am also going to revise my PF Goals file to incorporate the finance goals I listed on my 2008 Goals post . I will post that up also.

It is that time of the month again! Here are my budget results for November: November Budget Results I have a surplus of $219.70. This is money that was allocated for my cc debt snowball but is now going to be used for my X-mas budget. As I stated in my last post, I was going to budget $250 from November and $250 from December to go towards X-mas gifts. I spent about $32 this past month on gifts. And now I have $219.70 remaining. Income: I brought in an extra $100. A combination of income from my blog and Pinecone Research. Miscellaneous: My budget buster has redeemed itself this month. I was UNDER in this category by $12.37. Yeah Dimps! Gas: I went over on gas by $9.77. Still not bad. I was able to work from home majority of the time this month. I also got reimbursed for business related travel I did in November. So in actuality I spent $179.77 in gas which $70 of that was reimbursed. Should I have counted that $70 as additional income and still captured the $179.77 ...

Its that time again. Here is how I did in October: I did ok this month. I still exceeded my budget by $4.24 which is better than last month. I'm on a learning curve and I am sure I will start coming up under my budget.....shoot I might even do that this month. :-D Income: I brought in an extra $135.14. A combination of income from my blog, Pinecone, ACOP, and Ebay. Miscellaneous: I have officially awarded this category my Budget Buster. Damn! damn! damn! Over by $166.36. Key things that contributed to busting this budget was my trip to get an oil change that resulted in me paying $64.93 for an oil change, air filter change, and fuel injection cleaning. I am glad I had all that done because I saw a huge difference in my gas mileage. I also had two doctors visits this month, one for me and one for my daughter. The copay was $15 for each visits. And to think I increased my Misc budget by $18 like that was gonna help. LOL. Anyways......I need to get a handle on th...

It's that time of the month once again. Time to get to the nitty gritty. September Budget I did pretty good on my first official budgeted month. Income: I brought in an extra $272. I received a payment from Cash Duck for $80, my $150 Toshiba rebate for my laptop, and $40 from Pinecone, ACOP, and Ebay. Rent & Utilities: I went over in this category by $57.73. September was a hot month so electric and water went up some. Groceries: I went over my grocery budget by $20.77. I decided to go on the Lemon Cleanse to jump start my body and get it ready for the extensive exercise and diet I will be on for the next few months or so. So I had to pick up a few extra items. E-fund: I reached my $3K goal this month. Yay for me!!! Car Note & Insurance: Went over $.76. I rounded down when I should have rounded up when I initially did the budget. Daughter's School: Under budget by $18.21. I pay my daughter's tuition via paypal. I got padi for a couple of surveys...

I just got done with my end of the month report. I have put the whole home purchase business of hold for now. My report for August only contains information related to my new PF goals. I have changed some of my due dates. As you can see my credit card debt increased by a lot. I have no excuses and I won't even elaborate on how it increased so much. All I know is that it ain't getting any higher than this and I am taking action. I am happy that I am so close to my initial emergency fund goal. Once I hit the $3000 mark this September, I will move my goal out to $10K. @ that rate of $200 a month I should reach that goal in 35 months from September. But I have bonuses, extra income, my tax refunds, and raises to take into consideration during that time so I know I will reach the goal way before 35 month. I also redid my budget. I think this is the first time I have done a real budget. I am pretty proud of myself. I went ahead and budgeted in groceries and gas, something...

Well June wasn't too bad. I originally set myself to reach a 700 credit score by July but that is definitely not going so happen to I pushed in back two months. Hopefully I reach my goal by then. Still searching for ways to bring in additional income. Since my daughter will not be with me for the summer and I have free time I think I will attempt the whole NSA (Notary Signing Agent) thing. I need to do more research and get my license in the next two to three weeks. Cash Duck is still going well. I am doing good the Pinecone Research but thats only about $15 a month. I found some more GPT (Get Paid To) sites but I need to make sure they are legit first. Once I find out the good ones I will do a post and list them. I want to take advantage of the free time I will have for the next two months and bank in as much extra money as I can. Once my Sweet Pea comes back it will once again be her world. She will be back in school and I want to get her into to some extracurricular ...

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 ...

Everything has been working out better than expected this month. I believe I will reach some of my financial goals sooner than I predicted. I have attached a my financial statement for this month below: As you can see I decreased my credit card debt by a substantial amount. I received a large credit from Cingular this month due to some errors on my billing. I did an upgrade several months ago through a another company, WireFly, and for some reason my whole account went to the nut house. After I received my second bill that was over $200 I decided to call in. I was being charged for calls after 9 pm and Cingular-to-Cingular calls. Anyways to make a long story short I received a $387 dollar credit which I had them mail back to me. I used that money and the money I had already set aside and paid a nice chunk off one of my cards. I have already reached my goal on my credit balance-to-credit limit ratio. Everything is looking good and on track except for bringing in extra monthly i...