Part of my "Saving and Budget Plan" was to get myself back to my simple life.

I didn't use to have debt as in credit cards, attorney fees and small loans. I have always had a mortgage. Then over the past couple years, I replaced my older Jeep with a newer Jeep - add a car payment, had to add Central Air and replace my furnace when it caught fire and burned up during my mom's funeral. Thank God it shut down and caught nothing else on fire (like my home), but added a credit card payment and have been restoring and maintaining my teeth (which is an investment, cause I am only half way through my life - I hope), but that was a large chunk of money put on another credit card or two.

I am eliminating those debts above this year, as in my Plan, by November. I thought about trading in my newest Jeep for an even newer one until I read Jeffrey's link to "keeping the old car and maintaining it". I am good with maintenance. I still have my first Jeep, which my husband is driving and it works just as well as mine, so I am going to fix the items that are wrong on my Jeep (i.e., new brakes and rotors, oil change, windshield wipers and eventually tires) and get it paid off within the next couple of years.

Anyhow, back to my simple life. I live in a comfortable size cottage (about 1600 square feet) on about 1/4 of an acre in which I have a few different gardens and such right next to the Lake and Club I work at in the summer.

I like a good cup of coffee in the morning. I like a couple of different wines every now and then (my favorites are Pelee Island's Ice Wine, Belinger's White Zinfandel and St. Julian's Simply Red). I still have the same everyday dishes I had from 20 years ago. My mom taught me to buy quality to save in the long run. I don't own a lot of knick knacks, they would only need dusting. We have one set of sheets for our beds. I take them off once a week, wash them and put them right back on the beds and we don't own a hugh amount of clothing. Mixing and matching changes the look daily. We only replace what wears out or that my children have grown out of. I just don't feel the need to own so many extras of anything and neither does my family. They are simple also.

We do like technology, music and vacationing. But, we also will can our own strawberry jam in the summer cause it tastes so much better and pick our own tomatoes off our vines for our salads and burgers on the grill.

And, after my encounter with the tax man this week, I am thinking that putting cash in a tin box and burying it underneath the swing set is an awesome idea. I am going to re-visit this later on, cause my encounter with the tax man this week was a huge eye opener.

So, I am off to get another cup of really good coffee with really good flavored creamer and bask in my simple life in my simple cottage with my simple children and husband (well he is at work).

Wow, it has been two months since I wrote our "Spending and Budget Plan". I have accomplished everything on that Plan so far.

So, after writing out my bills for March, my debt is just over $10,000; and this is what else I found out, after keeping track for the month of February.

My ING and Savings accounts are going up.

Spent $172.90 on gas, more than last month and this month was shorter.

My stock in my Sharebuilder account has been steadily going up. Still haven't received my $25.00 bonus.

I spent
$340.24 on Groceries
$112.90 on Fast Food/Eating Out

Extras:
B-day gift $15.00
Two Prescriptions for my tooth, Ibuprophin and hair color $31.56
Drywall Mud and ant traps $16.82
Copies and mailer box $3.34
Mail expense for stuff sold on e-bay and half.com $5.97
Bag of Chocolate $3.50
New Pants from Salvation Army $6.34
For a total of $82.53 on Extras

I got everything accomplished for February, like paying my Jeep and Homeowner's Insurances, Sold my Up North Property, but haven't closed yet and got our taxes done.

I will be receiving two fairly large checks the beginning of March, one from my Federal Income Tax Return and one from selling my Property. Some of the money will pay off the first two debts totalling $850.00 and the rest of the money will go to build up my EF account.

I listed my Vacation Package for sale. I will try to sell my last 6 weeks of vacation to get back some of that money. I just don't use it, so I am loosing money.

I counter-offered the buyer on my property to $2,800 and they accepted.

All the paper work is getting done over the next week or so and we are supposed to close before March 7.

Now that is a quick sale and an extra $300 more than their original offer.

On my property that is.

I bought the property for fairly cheap and have sat on it awhile, but it cost me about $400/year to maintain it (taxes, water bill, association fees) and we never use it, so I thought I would sell it.

Well, an offer came in. You see my property is not appreciating as rapidly as the cost of upkeep.

So, I have paid approximately $5,825 for my property and the upkeep and the offer is $2,500. Now after subtracting the realtor fees and pro-rating around taxes, water bills and association fees, I will pocket about $1600. I am at a loss of around $4225.

I will probably accept the offer so that I won't have to be responsible for the upkeep in the future, and we can still visit the area, just not have access to the Association.

So, I will deposit that money into my savings account and let it sit there. I am eventually going to put it towards debt, but all of my debt is at 0% interest until November. Might as well take advantage of that and have a little EF on the side drawing interest.

This is part of my De-Junking process. To get rid of those items that are costing me or could be put to better use.

Yesterday, I added another $725.00 to my CC for a tooth we have been working on for a month. It needed a root canal from a 30 year old filling that gapped and got infected. I had an infection around my tooth and was put on an antibiotic which shut my kidneys down, so they switched my antibiotic which gave me a rash. Luckily, the infection is gone, my tooth is pretty much done and I am almost completely recovered from my antibiotics.

Transferring $400 from my savings today to pay my property taxes, leaving me a mear $40.18 cents in my general savings account until the beginning of March, where another $200 will be deposited back into my savings.

My "Up North" property has been listed "For Sale" and I am praying every day that it does sell. That extra money will help with my savings account and debt.

Also, need to file my taxes and get my refund. I usually get somewhere around $2,500 back. That is also going to help with debt and my savings account.

Working on the "Snowball Effect" on my debt, so that I can become debt free again within 12 to 18 months.

My purchase of "Midway Games" stock has been pretty much going up every day in my Sharebuilder Account. That is really exciting. Can't wait for my $25.00 bonus money to be deposited in that account so that I can buy some more stock.

My ING account keeps going up, that is an awesome thing.

Pretty much everything is right on track since making my "Budget and Spending Plan". My major bills have all been paid along with the regular "keep your life going" bills, I have made some investments and feeling pretty good about eliminating my debt, along with my investment in my beautiful smile.

I have been trying to organize my desk and simplify my life. Not that it is totally messy, just I am wanting to make it work for me and help me bring in passive income, reduce spending and add to savings, bargains, freebies, good stock finds, rebates, etc.

What I want out of it is a place to:

*Do some research
*Pay bills and keep them filed
*0% credit card offers
*Keep track of Investments
*Keep coupons organized (grocery store coupons and coupons off travel, hotel rooms, prescriptions, restaurants and shopping)
*An area for gift cards received
*A place for Rebate forms
*Travel brochures orderly
*Decorating ideas in one place
*Side business information/product
*Stuff I have for sale
*A binder (or something similar) of the local farmers and grocery stores I shop at, the best prices, etc.
*My kids education tests, transcripts, etc.
*Office supplies (pens, pencils, sharpener, paper, ink)
*Recycle area for cartridges, etc.
*Birthday/Wedding/Anniversary cards to send out

I want to be able to know right where everything is, so I can grab what I need and keep the passive income coming in with rebates, savings in coupons for food, grabing the $25.00 incentive coupon when I need a RX filled.

I don't want to come home from filling a RX, shopping for groceries, etc. only to find out I had a coupon that could get me more.

I am already pretty good at most of those, just need to organize my desk to cooperate. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

It is so frustrating with Mortgage Payments. I am never late, but I just got my annual tax and interest statement. So I paid $7,425.95 in interest and only $1,361.29 on the Principal.

My whole goal is to have my credit card debts paid off, so I can add the extra to my vehicle and some on my mortgage payment, to pay it down.

My house is worth $100,000 over what I owe on it; and I am not planning on moving cause I love where I live, but paying all that interest sucks.

Part of my debt free plan is to have the credit cards/small loans paid off by November 2007, take a small break for the Holidays 2007, and then start tackling the Jeep loan and Mortgage in January 2008.

So I invested the money in my Sharebuilder account on MWY (Midway Games) stock.

I like this stock. Its all about the gaming systems and games.