Ima Saver's Personal Finance Blog

Get ready to spend some money, we hired someone to wash our windows and he is coming tomorrow.
Our windows are terrible. My dh pressure washes the house every year and we have real hard water. So there are water spots all over the windows. He tried cleaning them, and it would not come off!!
This guy swears he can get them clean. He did come out and work on the window that is on the back door. It took him an hour and a half for one door, but he got it clean.
He is going to charge us $20 a window and he thinks he can get it done in one day. I don't think so.
We have about 45 windows (and that is not counting the side pieces) so the bill will probably be over $1000, but it will be worth it to me.
But why does everything happen at once?? My taxes are due (over $3000), my house insurance is due (over $1100), car tags are due (about $350) and we just spent $1000 on repairs and new tires for the van.
I am just glad I have the money to pay for everything.

Someone mentioned on the forums how they save money by doing something themselves. I am making distilled water right now and I realize that if I had to buy purified water every week, I would be really spending a lot of money every year.
Water is all that dh and I drink in the day time.(nights are different)
I am sure we go thru at least 3 gallon jugs a week in the winter and 5 or more in the summer time. I think I will start paying myself and adding that money to my $20 challenge.
I figure about $1 a jug would be right.
So, I will start today.
Prev. total $1704.00
today 3.00
new total $1707.00

Just 2 more days til closing, but I am worried because the new owners are flying in to Atlanta and renting a car tomorrow. They are calling for snow tomorrow and Georgia does not handle snow very well. I hope they can make it up here!
Lux told us to wear our hill billy clothes to the closing tomorrow. That is funny cause being a working builder, my husband's work clothes are pretty bad. Oh they are clean, but covered in paint, etc. and look grubby! He said he is going to wear his grubbiest clothes when he takes me to the bank to deposit the check.
I told the story one time when we went to the bank and told the lady we wanted to open the highest interest paying savings account.
The lady told me she was sorry but we couldn't. There was a minimum of $50,000 to open an account.
I handed her a check for $100,000 and she didn't say a word.
Hillbillie clothes it is!!(I don't own anything fancy)

Our house closing is 3 days away, this Friday at 2 p.m. I can hardly wait. We have been working on that house since November of 2005. That is a lot of money to have tied up for over a year.
The lawyer called this morning and said there was a problem with the contract. I just about got sick to my stomach.
But it turned out it was nothing major, just the mortgage company wanting to change something in the contract.
We had offered $4000 off so they could pick and buy their own appliances. The mortgage company wanted us to apply the $4000 to the morgage closing costs. All in all, we still come out with the same amount of money.
So, we went and signed the new contract this afternoon.
Keep your fingers crossed for us, and if you hear loud screams coming from North Georgia Friday afternoon, you will know that Ima Saver and dh have just deposited a really BIG check into their money market account!

We have had spring like weather this past week. It has been really nice to have the temp hit 70 this past Sunday. I think the warm weather is ending today. It is already getting cooler this morning. I have enjoyed the week without the heat running very much. Yesterday, it was almost too warm upstairs.
Well, things are changing. I need to walk on the treadmill to warm up.
I got in 2 miles yesterday plus 20 flights of stairs, so that is $3 to add to my challenge money.
Prev. total $1701.00
today 3.00
new total $1704.00

I finally did my final click for Inbox dollars and earned my first survey check. It will be for $27 but they state it won't be processed until March 1st.
I have been doing surveys for mysurvey and have had much better luck. I got 2 $10 checks in the past two months and I just requested my third one.
Several people from this site have e mailed me and I sent them an invite that earned me 150 points each time.
This adds up pretty quickly and you can redeem for cash when you get up to 1000 points!! Most surveys are quick and only take a few minutes. The only long survey I took, was about 45 minutes, but they paid me 1000 points, or $10.
Gosh, this is fun! I love getting checks in the mail this way.

Yeah, I had a no spend day. I went to play bridge with friends and did not spend a dime! I wish that happened more often.

I don't like Monday holidays. Monday is my payday and the bank is always closed. Today is MLK day, so the bank is closed and I cannot cash my dh's paycheck.
This is one of the few times i allow myself to borrow from one of my envelopes if need be. But I am sure there is enough in the misc. envelope to just use that.
DH informed me Friday that he was getting new tires for his van today. I did not have that in my budget, so I told him to charge them. I will find a way to get it paid off next month.

I can't believe it, but my dh is outside right now, cutting the grass.
On Jan. 14th!!
We mostly just have wild onions that he is mowing down.
I can't believe that man. He went to work this morning and came home early at 1 pm. He has cleaned out and washed his van, my vette,and is going to clean house and cook after he is thru with the grass cutting. I know, I am spoiled!!(I love it)

It is mid january and it is in the sixties right now. I know that Georgia is a southern state, but where we live, the weather is comparable to Maine. We don't get as much snow, but it gets really cold here. We are in the mountains and our county is the highest peak in the states.
I am not complaining tho. It is nice that the heat does not have to run all the time. right now it is warmed outside than it is inside the house.
I checked on my propane usage yesterday. We have used about 200 gallons in the past 3 months which is not too bad.

My husband likes to smoke a pork butt once in a while. (On the grill) We stopped last night to buy one after dinner. He smokes it all day and then he uses it for lunch for a week. The one he bought last night was on sale, so we saved $4 on it. I also walked over a mile yesterday on my tread mill, so i have $5 to add to my challenge money.
Prev. total $1696.00
today 5.00
new total $1701.00

I walked a mile on my treadmill and did my 20 flights of stairs yesterday, so I will add $2 to my challenge money.
Prev. total $1694.00
today 2.00
new total $1696.00

I have been looking for the south beach diet book to see if I would be interested in trying that diet.
Our libaray does not have it. I found it today at CVS and it was $7.99 for a little paper book.
I started reading it to see if it was worth the money and wound up reading the whole thing in about 15 minutes. It is a lot like the atkins diet, except they allow a few more things, but those were things I don't like anyway.
I am glad I saved my $8 but I am not going to add the money to my challenge.

Over a year ago, I signed up for a survey place called inbox dollars. You do not really take surveys, you get paid to read their ads. It is 3 cents a click plus once in a while they offer you a dollar to fill our form to get free quotes, etc.
You cannot get paid until you get to $30 and it has been a long hard process.
I check my account balance and it is $29.98, so I am just one chick away from finding being able to ask for my money. They take a $3 fee for mailing it to you, which is a rip.
I don't think I will continue with them. I like mysurvey a lot better and have already gotten 2 checks.
Anyone wanting to sign up for mysurvey can send me their first name and e mail address and you will be sent an e mail to join.
My e mail address is juliedenski at yahoo. com

Well, I have another $3 to add to my challenge money. I saved about $2 using my advantage card and I got in my 20 flights of stairs yesterday too.
Prev. total $1691.00
today 3.00
new total $1694.00

Buyers of a condo developement in New York City can now charge their down payment on their american express card!
Boy, that is one way to get frequent flyer miles!!

I am reading an article about payday loans. It seems that one in five military member in California are payday borrowers. The average borrower pays $660 to borrow $255. You can borrow for 2 weeks and renew the loan up to nine times. Families pay about $500 million in fees per year. wow. Not a good idea.

I have subscribed to this newsletter since it first came out, about 10 years ago. It was called Cheapskate Monthly but changed the name about a year ago. Mary Hunt sugeests that you live on the 10=10=80 formula. You give 10%, save 10% and use the other 80% to live on. she suggests saving the 10% even when you have debts to pay on, because everyone needs to have an emergeny fund.
Does anyone else read this newsletter?

My little Holly had some problems this morning. She gets groomed once an month and has her anal glands "expressed" The groomer had to cancel last month and had not been well enough to go back to work.
So Holly had a problem last night and required a bath this morning.
Now I know why I pay the groomer $32 to bath and clip her. She was not a happy camper at all.
Luckily my dh stayed home and helped me. It takes two people to bathe that 6 pound dog. Gosh she is a tough little puppy to handle, but I love her.

I have started my new bridge classes. Now there is very little teaching and a lot of playing.
One lady played today that has been playing for about 50 years. (the teacher's wife) When things did not go her way, she just got up and quit! She was my partner too! Now I like to win too but she knows that we are beginners and don't know everything. I hope I mellow out when I get to be 80!!

Interest on your savings is a nice thing. We kind of keep track of how our mutual funds and/or stock is doing, but I never keep track of how much interest I am earning. This year, I got a notebook and starting this month, I am going to keep track of how much interest I earn each month. Does anyone else do this?

My bridge lessons start this afternoon. I enjoy the game, the only thing I miss is, I get so far behind on these blogs that I love to read. Well, I won't spend any money playing bridge!

It really makes me mad, cause I am losing $56 a day. I have worked hard most of my life, and I have never ever once, made $56 a day. I usually worked for minimum wage!
We build a spec house which we sold months ago. The people are in no hurry to close cause they have not sold their other house.
We finished the house up mid December. I called for inspection on the 13th. I knew it would be hard to close by christmas, but I had hoped by the end of the year.
The lawyer the bank used, closed the entire week after christmas.
The first week in Jan., I got a call. The closing will be Friday, Jan.19th at 2 pm.
That is when the owner's plan to be here and to close.
In the meantime, I am losing over $56 a day in interest and it is really upsetting me!!
Please notice the closing time. I will lose three more days of interest because I can deposit the check until after 2 pm on Friday, so interest does not start until Monday.
When this thing closes, I will be doing the dance of JOY!!!

I don't use a lot of make up, but I do use eye shadow and eye liner. Why does that stuff cost so much. It is terrible. I went to CVS this morning and used a $4 off coupon that i have, so i will add that to my challenge money also.
Prev. total $1687.00
today 4.00
new total $1691.00

I walked a mile yesterday plus did 20 flights of stairs. I also had a stay home day which means I saved on gas. I pay myself for each of these actions, so I have $3 to add to my challenge.
Prev. total $1684.00
today 3.00
new total $1687.00

Our co worker accidently bashed my husband's van's taillight with a piece of plywood and broke it.
when dh took the van into get the brakes worked on, the mechanic there broke one hubcap and lost the other.
My husband must have his vehicles as perfect as possible, so of course, he ordered new hubcaps and a new tail light. The bill yesterday was $225. $225 for somebody else's mistakes.
Of course the mechanic said the hubcap was broken and the other one missing. Believe me, they were not!

I am not making my N.C. liquor trip today so that will save me at least $2 in gas money. I also walked a mile yesterday, so I have $3 to add to my challenge money.
Prev. total $1681.00
today 3.00
new total $1684.00

My husband has to take prilosec every day. I am so glad it is now over the counter. It use to cost us $130 an month, now it is less than $30.
I had a coupon for $4 off, so I went to get some today. The large size was $5 off at Ingles today, so I saved $9 in total. add to the challenge:
Prev. total $1672.00
today 9.00
new total $1681.00

I don't know if all grocery stores do this or not, but I notice it a lot at Ingles. There will be a "on sale" sign on a item, but when you check out, it scans at regular price.
I bought some sugar free pre packaged pudding for my husband's lunches as a treat. They were marked 2 for $4 or $2 each. When I got home, I noticed on my receipt the price was $2.88. I got ripped off for 88 cents. I think the store does this to hundreds of people a day. The last time I bought kleenex, it was the same thing, on sale, but scanned out at regular price.
I wonder how much the grocery stores make extra each day?/ (I know, I should take the receipt back and demand the money)
From now on, I am going to scan my own groceries so I can catch it right away.

Anon asked me if I had any experience with internet banks. I got a coupon for a free $25 to open an account at ING bank, so of course, I did.
I had planned to add more money to the account and also open one at GMAC. However, my local bank is paying 5.25% interest, so I have stayed with my local bank so far.