So Valentine’s day is right around the corner and I know that many of us are getting ready to shell out some big bucks for that special someone.

There are so many options of what to give someone to show you care but they do not all need to cost lots of money. A valentine’s day gift can be sweet and practical at the same time and it can still mean a lot to someone. I know that a few people have been concerned with the economy and may be cutting back on gifts this year…while others are experiencing an uptick in finances and will spare no expense.

The important thing to remember is to give something that is meaningful so that your valentine will truly appreciate it. Don’t just get something for the sake of spending money but get something that will create a memory for a long time to come.

And most of all remember to have fun this year as you celebrate Valentine’s day 2012!!!!

• Christmas 2011 Gifts Are Done!!!
• Happy Valentine’s Day
• Happy Valentine’s Day 2011
• Did you get your Valentine’s Day Flowers yet?
• What I Am Doing For Valentine’s Day 2009

Well I still do not have all of the documents I need to completely file my taxes. I started inputting what I have so I could see an estimate of the final picture. My tax situation is greatly different from previous years because I lost my job last year and still have not found suitable full time employment.

My W2 lists a really low figure compared to past months since I did not receive paychecks from September to December of last year. I ended up giving the same amount at church as I was giving before I lost my job but the tax software is saying I cannot claim it because I donated too much based on my income.

I received less in interest from my savings accounts because I was taking money out of them instead of putting money in, since I needed that money to live on a daily basis.

I am going to use two different tax programs and compare to see which one gives me a more pleasing result before I end up filing. I am looking for free tax preparation software this year because the program I used last year appears to be trying to charge me this year!

Have you started your taxes as yet? Do you expect to pay or will you get a refund?

• Tax Time
• Documents You Need To Do Your 2012 Taxes
• Almost done with taxes
• Received My Final Paycheck And Officially Unemployed
• Joining The Million dollar Club

I just pulled one of my credit reports from the ONLY site that is totally FREE. To get your free credit report directly from the three agencies you need to go annualcreditreport.com to log in.

Once you have filled in the necessary identifying information on the first page you will be able to request a credit report from

• Experian
• Equifax
• Transunion.

You can request all three at the same time or you can do what I do, which is request one from each bureau every four months so that you spread out the reports over a full year.

I was only able to get one report this time because it is not time for the other two to be available to me. I am not worried because I have alerts on my accounts that tell me of new activity and I am aware of what is happening with my credit.

I just wanted the information as a general part of keeping up with my finances and I urge you to get your free credit report if you have not already done so.

• I Pulled My Credit Report…Oops
• Credit Report Time!!!!!
• How I Save Money Gives Credit Report Advice
• Credit report update
• Denied American Express business card…get free credit report

If you have not already opened an Individual Retirement Account or IRA you now have a chance to get an extra $50 by simply opening a new account with ING.

All you have to do is go to retiremyway.com/50 and open your new account with $500 before 31 January 2012. Once your account is open and funded then you will receive the bonus by 16 February 2012. Of course this bonus will be reported as income for the year and will be listed on your tax documents but the benefit will far outweigh the cost in my opinion.

ING also notes that the bonus will be counted towards your contribution for the year so please make sure to keep track of what you contribute so that you do not trigger the contribution limits.

• Documents You Need To Do Your 2012 Taxes
• How to Store Important Documents
• Get an Orange Account
• Fixing Bad Credit Scores
• ING Referral Links

It is tax time once again and while some people view this time with trepidation, I am one of those who actually look forward to doing my taxes.

I do not get excited about my taxes because of a possible refund. In fact if I do get a refund it is really very small, meaning that the government did NOT get to hold on to my cash for a whole year.

In fact most of the time I end up having to pay a small amount and that is quite fine with me. I have been waiting on my documents to come in so that I can file as soon as possible and was just told by the HR department that they would be mailing out our W2 forms in the next couple of days.

img from hacer.org

When you get ready to do your taxes there are a few documents that you will need to get ready and some of the most important ones are:

-W2 forms
-1099
-Contribution statements

The W2 forms will come from your employer if you work for someone and should be a total of what you got paid for the year. It will also show your deductions for taxes and Social Security etc. for the year.

You may also receive a 1099 if you have received interest on savings or checking accounts and these amounts have already been reported, so there is no reason to think you can avoid filing them with your paperwork.

1099s are also issued if you have done any independent contract work and this will also be counted as your income when determining the amount that you will get back or what you will owe.

If you have made any charitable contributions during the year you should receive a statement from the places that you made the donations. These statements may not be on a particular named form but might simply be on the letterhead of the organization. My church sends a letter detailing how much I have contributed over the year because I make my Sunday donations via check. I use this letter as documentation when claiming my taxes, in case I should ever get an audit.

Of course there are many more documents that you will need if your taxes are more complicated but generally most of the people I know will only need these forms to get everything done.

I am waiting on my W2 right now so that I can begin the process online and I say happy tax prep to you all!

• I Am Really Ready To File My Taxes
• Taxes Are Completed And Filed
• Started Working On My Taxes
• How to Make the Best of a Taxing Situation (Guest Post)
• $14.95 Stupid Tax

I have decided to post my weekly spending for the previous week on Fridays so you know how my cash has been flowing for the week. Please note that I get paid on the last day of the month so my cash flow net effect will usually be negative until the last day of the month.

This does not mean that I am adding to my debt, it just means that the money coming in is less than the money going out because bills are due starting on the first but I don’t get paid until the last day.

So again to clarify (since I get so many questions), this shows the cash FLOW for the month. On Day 2 of every month I will have a negative FLOW because I have paid rent etc so money has LEFT my checking account. I have not had any money come in on Day 2 of the current month since I got paid on day 27 or 30 or 31 of the previous month so that income is counted for LAST month.

Income for the month to date: $314.15

Expenses for the month to date: $1780.24

Net effect: -$1466.09

Since the last posting I received $11.23 from Lending Club and the electric bill came in at $136.12. I spent $40.88 on food, including some fast food when I had a long trip.

Things look really bad right now and I think I might stop these weekly financial updates for a little while….so this will be the last one until things shape up.

I will see you guys and gals later as I continue my journey to save money and remain debt free!!!!

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• Tracking My Finances In 2011: May Week 3
• Tracking My Finances In 2010: September Week 3
• Tracking My Finances In 2011: December Week 4
• Tracking My Finances In 2011: June Week 3
• Tracking My Finances In 2011: July Week 2

I just wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday today. As you celebrate Martin Luther King day today please remember to take some time to think about what today really means.

Dr. King fought for equality and fair treatment and went through a lot to get his point across.

His supporters were beaten and jailed so that people could enjoy the same rights and freedoms as everyone else. So I challenge you today to do something nice for someone today while you are celebrating!!!!

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• Happy 4th Of July 2010
• Happy Memorial Day 2011
• Happy birthday FeedBurner
• Happy Mother’s Day 2010
• How to keep your Skin Clear

I have decided to post my weekly spending for the previous week on Fridays so you know how my cash has been flowing for the week. Please note that I get paid on the last day of the month so my cash flow net effect will usually be negative until the last day of the month.

This does not mean that I am adding to my debt, it just means that the money coming in is less than the money going out because bills are due starting on the first but I don’t get paid until the last day.

So again to clarify (since I get so many questions), this shows the cash FLOW for the month. On Day 2 of every month I will have a negative FLOW because I have paid rent etc so money has LEFT my checking account. I have not had any money come in on Day 2 of the current month since I got paid on day 27 or 30 or 31 of the previous month so that income is counted for LAST month.

Income for the month to date: $302.92

Expenses for the month to date: $1505.26

Net effect: -$1202.34

Since the last posting I spent $53.41 on some personal items that will last me the next few months. The total actually came to $60.62 after tax but I purchased the items online through a program that earns cash back on every purchase.

I received $14.23 from my Lending Club investment this week which was really surprising as people generally tend not to have extra money to pay their loans right after Christmas.

I had $6.61 in cash back, which was then applied to my purchase automatically, reducing the payment. I earned $2.67 in cash back which I can redeem in April. I am not sure how they calculate when you can use the cash back since April seems a long time away but I guess I probably won’t be buying anything from that site until then anyway.

I will see you guys and gals later as I continue my journey to save money and remain debt free!!!!

Check out my Experiences with LASIK surgery

• Tracking My Finances In 2011: July Week 2
• Tracking My Finances In 2010: April Week 4
• Tracking My Finances In 2011: December Week 4
• Tracking My Finances In 2010: December Week 4
• Tracking My Finances In 2010: June Week 4

Well I would like to file but I am still waiting on my statements. I know it is a bit early but last year at this time I had most of my statements, yet this year I do not have anything yet.

I hope it is not a case of more places deciding to have you log in to the system and print off your own statements because that is just annoying to me. I have no idea what my tax situation will be this year with the job loss but maybe with having a much lower income I will get a refund this year.

At the very least if I have to pay it should only be a really small amount since I did not have as much income as last year..but I won’t know until I get all those statements in my hands.

• Taxes Are Completed And Filed
• Documents You Need To Do Your 2012 Taxes
• $14.95 Stupid Tax
• Tax Time
• Started Working On My Taxes

I have been seeing people talking about Redbox for a long time but never paid much attention to it since I always got movies from a friend. I also used Netflix for a little while but did not really watch that many movies.

I got rid of my cable a long time ago and have just been using Hulu to watch shows or I would also get them from various sites. I decided that I really wanted to see a few movies over the weekend so I decided to try out Redbox since there was one in the store where I was doing my grocery shopping.

There are no instructions on the Redbox kiosk!!!!

I stood there for a few minutes trying to figure out where I would get my DVDs. I saw on the screen that I could pick movies but only saw a little slot to swipe my card and could not find the opening where the movies would come out. I looked around the side of the machine and still could not figure it out so after about a minute of clicking the screen to look like I knew what I was doing I decided to check out and maybe I would see where the movies would come out.

Turns out there was another vending machine on the right side that had something obstructing the slot where the DVDs would come out but I did not think to look there because that was a toy machine. It was badly placed so it was confusing for me but I finally got my two DVDs. Luckily there was not anyone around to see me!!!!

Quality Website Design 3HN Designs.

• Changes To PineCone Payments
• How to get TWO 20″ LG USB Monitors
• Customer Service Issues At CVS
• Should I Disconnect The Television?
• Revisiting Bad CVS Customer Service…Part Four

Well folks it is time again to update the coupon listings for the new year. Check out the coupon page which now has the current coupons available for 2012.

Tomorrow is GREAT day to buy the Sunday newspaper because there will be a total of  SIX coupon booklets available. This is an excellent way to replenish your stock of coupons that have expired. It will also allow you to actually START your coupon stash if you have not done so already.

I know I will be getting the newspaper tomorrow because my coupon book is empty right now as I got rid of all expired coupons at the end of last year.

Good luck and I hope you get some great savings out of your coupons this year.

• Tracking My Finances In 2011: January Week 1
• Monthly Financial Check Up: February 2011
• Monthly Financial Update: May 2010
• 5 things to do while housebound
• Monthly Financial Check Up: December 2011

Here is the breakdown of my income and expenses for the first week of January 2012.

• Income to date: $232.16
• Expenses to date: 928.87
• Cash flow to date: -$696.71

I received $7.93 from my Lending Club investment this week and also got $220 in private advertising.

I paid $65 on the shared cell phone bill, even though I was told I did not have to pay anything since I have not been working. I still want to contribute to the bills while I can so I reduced the amount that I normally pay.

I spent $8.60 on household items which included the purchase of a large desk calendar for the current year. I keep it tacked on the wall because I do not have a desk that is wide enough for it and it is also easier to see from all around the room that way.

I spent $46.91 on food for the week. The (not so) funny thing was that I bought eggs and made sure to carefully check each one for cracks. I found two that were damaged and I replaced them so that I would have a perfect set of eggs. I had a few things in my hand and when I got into the house the bag with the eggs fell to the ground. When I opened carton I saw that TWO of my eggs were broken. I was a little upset by that but hey it is just two eggs right?

I am still working on a few things and hope to see my situation improve quite soon.

• Tracking My Finances In May: 19
• Checking My Eggs To Save Money
• Did I save money in April: day 17
• Tracking my finances in July: day 22
• Tracking My Finances in June: Day 11

Well everyone a new year is now upon us and I must say that I am looking forward to 2012. I am not sure what this year holds for me just yet but I have a positive outlook with regards to everything, especially my finances.

I am always working on my budget and I give it a tweak or two every couple of months because I believe that a budget needs to change as your financial situation changes. This year I am using a combination of the rollover budget and the zero based budget to track my income and expenses over the whole year.

I will still use a monthly zero based budget where I have a certain amount set for each category and where total income will equal the total expenses for that month. I am also using a rollover budget, where any unused funds will roll over to the next month to form a base for the next month’s spending.

img from quizzle.com

In my case I am using a hybrid of the two because my zero based budget will be tracked via spreadsheet (and a bit through Mint) but I will also allow any unused funds in each spending category to roll over to the next month. Everything will continue rolling over until the end of 2012 so that I can have a total figure for the year, as well as an average for each month.

I am mainly doing this because I want to have an idea of how much I really spend and bring in during one full year. I have been allowing Mint to reset my spending to zero every month but this did not give me a clear picture of what I really spent on gas, for example. There were some months the bill was below $50 and other months where it was above $50 but since I never kept a running total I am not sure what my average really was.

This rolling budget for one year should give me a better idea of what I actually spend and that should help when it comes time to tweak the budget for 2013!!!!

I know that many people will say you cannot combine the two types of budgets because you should have a zero at the end of the month for the zero based budget and a rollover budget implies that you did not reach zero. In my case I will be doing the zero based budget in my spreadsheet where I track all my receipts and will be applying the rollover to Mint.

• Monthly Financial Update: December 2010
• How I Am Preparing For Higher Gas Prices
• I Just Figured Out What I Was Doing Wrong In Mint
• Monthly Financial Check Up: December 2011
• Slight Tweak To The December 2011 Budget

I would like to take this time to thank everyone who reads this blog!! Thank you for the positive words when I lost my job….you really kept me going with the positive attitude and the kind words.

You guys and gals have stuck with me on this wild and crazy ride and I must say that I have some of the best readers out there. I want to wish everyone a safe and happy 2012 and may we all have better financial situations moving forward.

I want to thank all of my bloggy buddies who offered advice and who commented here and also those who linked to this blog. I have made some great new friends here and I really appreciate all of you.

img from www.duy.im

I also want to thank all of the clients who placed advertising on this blog and helped me to pay the hosting fees, web technician fees and the internet bill!

I want to thank all of the guest posters who wrote for me, especially when I was in the hospital and could not think straight. You guys kept the blog going as I had posts ready to go before I went in for my surgery.

I would like to welcome all the new readers I will get in 2012 and hope to grow the blog into something bigger and better.

Have a happy new year and may God bless us all.

• Looking For Guest Posts
• I Am Going Home!!!!!
• Tracking my Finances in October: Day 21
• Recovering From Surgery: Three Weeks Post Op
• Changes to site

This month I came out in the red once more since I do not have a full time job and hence, no salary. I did not do too badly this month considering everything and I really do hope that things work out in January so that I can work on building up my savings instead of spending them to live.

I pulled out a total of $34.55 this month from Lending Club and as a result I will be funding a new loan in January. I did not redeem any coupons this month but I also did not buy the newspaper so that was okay.

I redeemed a total of $49.53 in coupons for the year and spent $21.00 on newspapers, giving me a net gain over the year of $28.53 in coupons. I am not sure how my coupon usage for 2012 will work out as I do not know what my situation will be quite yet but I will keep everyone posted when I know.

Areas where I remained under budget are:

-Utilities : I came out $80 under budget total and the electric bill was also under the budgeted amount.

-Car : Even with more travelling for the Christmas holidays I managed to stay under budget total and did not even use all of my gas budget.

- Fees: I did not spend  the amount I budgeted for fees such as the Health Savings Fee and other miscellaneous fees.

Areas where I went over budget are:

-Food : I went over the food budget by $50.34 but some of that food was bought on 28 December and will last well into the new year.

-Health : As long as I am paying the COBRA insurance I will be over the amount I budgeted because my insurance used to come out of my salary before I received my paycheck.

-Shopping : I went over my personal shopping budget by $40.16 this month. I need to spend less in January because that has defeated the point of having a zero based budget. I actually should have taken some of this out of the entertainment budget (which I did not spend ANY of) because some of this money was used to buy books for my kindle…and should be classified as entertainment.

I am going to make a very small tweak to the budget for the new year and I will also be rolling every category over in Mint so that I can have a yearly running total. I know this sounds a little bit complicated and unnecessary to some of you but it just something I want to try. It is not going to take any ongoing effort on my part…once I set the categories to roll over they will continue to do so automatically in Mint.

• Monthly Financial Check Up: November 2011
• Monthly Financial Check Up: February 2011
• Monthly Financial Check Up: June 2011
• Monthly Financial Check Up: September 2011
• Tracking my Finances in 2008: December And Year End Update

I cannot stop talking about how much I am loving Lending Club. I initially fell in love because it was the site that gave me the best loan when I needed to consolidate my credit cards so that I could get out of debt.

After paying off my debt I decided to invest in Lending Club and even though I have had a few poorly performing loans I do not regret anything about my decision.

I am currently receiving a return of 5.14% on my investment which is more than what is available on savings accounts. I know I can get a higher rate of return by investing in the more risky loans but I have decided to stick to the low risk loans in order to preserve my investment.

Here is the breakdown of my loans at present:

-51 current and active

-20 fully paid

-0 late 16 to 30 days

-2 late 31 to 120 days

-4 charged off

I feel really blessed that out of all my loans I have only had 4 total that were charged off and those were all the minimum investment of $25 each.

I only invest $25 per loan to spread out my risk when possible, although I did invest more than that in TWO loans because they were people that I personally knew. One of those loans has been fully paid off and the other one is only four months old but I have confidence in it being repaid.

I am receiving slightly over $25 in repayments on average every month, so I will continue to fund a new loan for $25 every month. I withdraw the money from Lending Club on a weekly basis because the money does not earn interest while it is sitting in the account. I track my receipts on a spreadsheet and every month that I collect at least $25 I create a new loan the following month.

How is YOUR investment doing right now?

If you have not already invested in or borrowed from Lending Club you can use one of my referral links at the top of the blog to sign up. You will get a bonus for signing up and I will earn a referral bonus so we BOTH win!!!

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• Lending Club Portfolio Update July 2009
• Lending Club Investment Updates: May 2010
• Lending Club Performance: July 2011
• Lending Club is Up, Prosper is Down
• Easy Sign Up For Lending Club

I have decided to post my weekly spending for the previous week on Fridays so you know how my cash has been flowing for the week. Please note that I get paid on the last day of the month so my cash flow net effect will usually be negative until the last day of the month.

This does not mean that I am adding to my debt, it just means that the money coming in is less than the money going out because bills are due starting on the first but I don’t get paid until the last day.

So again to clarify (since I get so many questions), this shows the cash FLOW for the month. On Day 2 of every month I will have a negative FLOW because I have paid rent etc so money has LEFT my checking account. I have not had any money come in on Day 2 of the current month since I got paid on day 27 or 30 or 31 of the previous month so that income is counted for LAST month.

Income for the month to date: $451.08

Expenses for the month to date: $1964.65

Net effect: -$1513.57

Since the last posting I received $9.23 from Lending Club this week which brings my total for the month so far to $31.30, meaning that I can fund a new loan next month.

I spent $60.63 on food this week including food for the cat!

There has not been much more activity in my finances this week since I already did all my Christmas shopping in advance.

I will see you guys and gals later as I continue my journey to save money and remain debt free!!!!

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• Tracking My Finances In 2011: June Week 4
• Tracking My Finances In 2010: November Week 1
• Tracking My Finances In 2012: January Week 3
• Tracking My Finances In 2011: January Week 4
• Tracking My Finances In 2011: February Week 3

So my apartment company has just informed me that they will be changing the way that rent can be paid next year. Currently I can pay my rent online via  the following methods:

-credit card

-debit card

-automatic check

or I can walk into the office with a money order.

All of the methods are free of charge so I opted to pay my rent via credit card so that I could earn points for the transaction. This was free but the complex is changing over to a new system and we will now be charged for using a credit card.

The fee for credit card payments will be $19.95 which I think is utterly ridiculous!!!!!

I guess I will now be paying via debit card, since I can use my ING debit card to make the payments. I am just upset about this because I will no longer be able to earn points for purchases so that is a loss of potential income for me, even though it was a very small amount.

I thought about using the automatic check function since that would be the same as the money coming directly out of my account but I feel a little bit safer using the debit card option.

• Changes To PineCone Payments
• Fraud Protection: Debit vs. Credit (Guest Post)
• Can You Live Without Debt Or Credit?
• Get 1% Cash Back With Your ING Debit Card
• MyPoints Introduces Bonus $20 Gift Card For Online Shopping

It is time to sign up again for those bonus categories from your Discover card. Every three months you can sign up for a new set of categories and earn an additional set of cash back on the things that you already purchase on a daily basis. So why not sign up and get some extra cash back just for shopping!!!

If you have a Discover card, you can get 5% cash back on the following categories:

-Gas

-Museums

-Movies

All you have to do is log in to your Discover card account and click where it says to sign up for the bonus. Remember you only earn this bonus on up to $1500 in purchases but if you use your card specifically for those categories that is not a bad deal.

I always use my Discover card for gas purchases and while I don’t see myself visiting any museums or paying for movie theaters it is still a wise idea to sign up for something I already do anyway.

This bonus 5% runs from January to March so you still have time to sign up now and have it all set up for the new year. The next set of categories begins on March 1st so you will have to log in again to sign up for the new bonuses.

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• Sign Up For 5% Cash Back From Discover
• Discover Card gives 5% Cash Back on Gas in July
• Thanks For Nothing Chase!
• Make money online with Deal Barbie!
• Earn 2% Cash Back On All Discover Purchases During Your Birth Month

I have decided to post my weekly spending for the previous week on Fridays so you know how my cash has been flowing for the week. Please note that I get paid on the last day of the month so my cash flow net effect will usually be negative until the last day of the month.

This does not mean that I am adding to my debt, it just means that the money coming in is less than the money going out because bills are due starting on the first but I don’t get paid until the last day.

So again to clarify (since I get so many questions), this shows the cash FLOW for the month. On Day 2 of every month I will have a negative FLOW because I have paid rent etc so money has LEFT my checking account. I have not had any money come in on Day 2 of the current month since I got paid on day 27 or 30 or 31 of the previous month so that income is counted for LAST month.

Income for the month to date: $319.20

Expenses for the month to date: $1500.25

Net effect: -$1181.05

Since the last posting I spent $50.67 on food this week and redeemed 4060 in points for $40.60 deposited to my checking account.

I will see you guys and gals later as I continue my journey to save money and remain debt free!!!!

• Tracking My Finances In 2011: December Week 4
• Tracking My Finances In 2010: September Week 3
• Tracking My Finances In 2011: June Week 4
• Tracking My Finances In 2011: June Week 3
• Tracking My Finances In 2010: November Week 2