August Financial Wins!

You would think that becoming debt free last month, I would NOT be having financial woes in August. This month has brought on a lot of financial challenges. 

But first my August wins:

Blog Ad check was: $109.64

I added a new customer to my business and had 1 clean in August - extra income $100.

Swagbuck Money: 

Last month I cashed in $175 in Amazon gift card money. 

This month I also cashed in an additional: $78

Bringing my Amazon credit to: $253

I LOVE HAVING FREE MONEY!

My current balance is only 1513 which equals $15.13 in swagbuck money to start off September. 

A lot of my friends don't see the point of doing all this swagbuck work for pennies. For me, it's equivalent to someone addicted to a game on-line. However, this addiction to swagbucks is making me some money. You don't earn a lot of money daily, but it does add up, as you can see by my Amazon credit balance. 

I'd rather waste my time on-line doing something that makes pennies then making no money at all. It's easy, and I do it while I read books, while I check out facebook, while I blog, while I watch TV - I have something running on my laptop, iPod or computer that is earning me money.

Some of the ways I earn money is on Swagbucks is: 

Mobile videos 36 points per day

Games 10 points per day

Daily task: 4 points per day 

Stream newsy videos on my computer - 10 videos equals 3 points. I try to get around 100 points running this. 

nGage, I run while running videos and you get 2 or 3 points per segment. 

I do surveys sometimes, but I hardly ever get qualified to finish them - so I rarely spend any time doing that. 

Anyway, Swagbucks is usually running while I am home after work until I go to bed. It is a slow process, but it adds up. I fee like $78 from last months earning is totally worth the time I put in to running swagbucks. 

Now, on to the financial woes I had in August. 

Brady's tuition was an additional $1000 to the money I had budgeted. I did not expect the rise in tuition and the additional expense. That was a total bummer. We could have applied for a loan, but I really would like him to graduation without much debt. He is starting his senior year and his total debt so far on student loans is $2000. The sad part is that he won't graduate this year because he transferred from BYU to UofU his sophomore year and all of his Freshmen credits didn't transfer. 

Jason also cost me some money to get him out of trouble and help him out. The joys of being a parent *wink.

The really sad news is that Jason and Sharon's marriage is breaking apart. Jason has moved back home. With the trouble and helping him get new tires for his car so he could commute from my home to his work - I ended up helping him out with about $550. 

I'm glad that I didn't have debt going into this month so that I could help out my children. 

I did budget to get new front tires for my car $255 before all these other expenses came about. 

I also have an order for firewood which cost $500 for 2 cords which has been budgeted for and I have set that money aside.

But, without budgeting for the additional tuition cost and helping Jason - my financial reserve is really low right now. Lower then I've allowed it to dip for several years. It causes me some anxiety when I get that low. 

Hopefully September will be better for me financially as I am trying to save for a new roof. 

The good news is that I was NOT tempted to charge anything to my credit card and did not allow Brady to get a student loan. NO DEBT was accrued - so that makes me happy. This is why emergency funds are so important - Murphy's Law always pays a visit. 

I was able to meet all the financial surprises in August. Now I just move forward being frugal and building up my savings.

Being debt free was suppose to alleviate any financial pressure - but life happens. 

As long as I don't go into debt again, life is good!