The last 3 months, it seems like all I’ve been posting are my 2 grocery store matches, a few freebies and not much else. That’s on a good week, too, which is pitiful compared to a few months ago. I’ve shared with you a lot of the things that have gone on, others aren’t major happenings unless they’re combined with the major ones, and then there’s the domino effect where one thing lead to another and it all falls down. I should call the first 3 months of our year The Domino or something corny like that.
I’m tired of writing the posts where I’m explaining to you that something is going on and that I’m apologizing for lack of posts. I’m sure you’re tired of reading that too. As an avid blog reader, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have stuck around a blog that didn’t deliver better content than I have in the last few months. I’m incredibly grateful to those of you who have, and I hope that those of you who are considering writing me off will reconsider because starting on Wednesday I’ll have a lot of great new content starting with some product reviews and giveaways.
I have decided that the only way I am going to finish anything is to start fresh. I will be taking the rest of this week to clean up my e-mail accounts, and I will be e-mailing the rest of you who have won contests for your mailing info. You will have 24 hours to get back to me, as the sponsors are in a hurry to get the winners’ pi=rizes out. After 24 hours, new winners will be chosen. After my Saturday at the ER I haven’t felt up to speed to do much today. Tomorrow I will be back up to par, on way or another God willing!
So i’ll post here and there this wee, mostly giveaways and the cool things I see when cleaning out my e-mail. Tomrrow I will be posting a permanent schedule which will start on Sunday, as well!
All of this may seem like mistyped jibberish and I’m sorry! But tomorrow I’ll be working hard to get caught up. E-mail me if you have any questions or comments, or a deal you want me to blog. I can’t wait for things to get back to normal but if I don’t get caught up I will continue to feel too overwhelmed to do anything.
I hope you all have a great week! Keep coming back by because I will have things posted that you’ll enjoy plus giveaways! I’ll be back on Saturday
This week has not gone as planned. A sense of normalcy that I hoped would be brought to us simply hasn’t happened. Needless to say something had to be sacrificed and that something was the grcoery ad matches this week. They each take 2-4 hours and I just didn’t feel liked sitting up in front of my PC to work on them during what litle time we were home. I’ve found that I’m needing a little more rest the last few days than I am used to. I WILL be getting them done next week I promise!
I am sure you have all heard the expression “When it rains it pours”. That’s always rung true in our home, as does the saying that my husband familiarized me with that “bad things happen in 3’s”. Well, I’m here to tell you, we have hit the trifecta and we need a man named Noah to come along offering us a ride on a big boat. None of it has been life-altering, terrible things that we just can’t get over or things that we will ook back on in a year that we will even probably remember as being one of the roughest times of our lives. They have simply been major annoyances that we could do without, during a time when I’ve already been afflicted by my depression and anxiety disorder and have already been hiding out under the covers as much as I could. The things that have been going on have been big enough that they have kept me from going about my everyday business, like my grocery matches, and will likely leave us in a financial bind for awhile since our income is so little. That’s just really not the point. The point is that I’m ready for a break, for some sort of reprieve from the trials and tribulations of life as we’ve come to know it, and for my husband to finally be able to find a little peace so that he can rest his poor mind for a bit because he bares the brunt of worry in our relationship. We passed the point of a Manic Monday about 8 hours ago )
So needless to say life never returned to normal this week as I thought it would. I’m still hopeful that it soon will because my e-mail is seriously neglected, and I’m not able lately to stay up until 3 AM to take care of it. When I conk out, I’m out, and I’m just not safe near any way of communicating with others as there’s just no way to tell what I will type or say when I’m in such a deep, far off place. That won’t affect you guys too much, but it will mean that since today I’m going to be sitting at my uncle’s house for awhile while he looks at our van to try to figure out what’s wrong with it, then we run by to pick up a prescription that wasn’t in stock yesterday, I won’t have grocery matches finished yet again till tomorrow morning. I WILL have these done on Thursday morning when life goes back to normal. That is my plan and that will be what happens; however I got my ad late this week plus, well, life happened. I’m almost finished constructing a schedule that will be good for all of us and I think you’ll be happy with, and I’m going to have some time to stay at home and finish checking e-mail and finding some freebies soon. So once again please bare with me and don’t run off just yet. I may have to do a re-launch of our site to let everyone know we’re still alive after all of the “time off” I have had to take!
So if you’re reading these “personal” posts, I’m still here and I’m still trying to get things back to normal. Just keep on checking your newsletter so you’ll know when we add something new, because I do try to at least give you one new thing each day. I have product reviews and giveaways coming up still, but they’ll probably not happen until Sunday. Don’t forget to enter my Valentine giveaway to win your Crocs, which ends on March 6th!
Thanks for everything!!
If you ever want to chat, or share your story, or have questions or comments, you can always catch me on Twitter (@KristinBrianne) or through e-mail at makingcentsoutoflife (at) gmail.com.
I hope everyone’s week *including mine* is either full of wonderful, happy events or completely calm and uneventful!
I have started and restarted writing this article about 50 times, mostly because it’s always so hard for me to articulate what I want to say without writing far more than I’m sure you want to read. However, this is my “aanniversary post” and I have a few things I want to say before I start a fresh, new blogging year which I am hoping will far surpass Year One. So here goes.
It is the official end of the first year of my entrance into the blogospere! Well, I guess I should say that it has been one year since I purchased my domain and hosting package. After months of talking about it with my husband, I decided that I had to have something to do with my life. I can’t work outside my home due to certain health issues but I can’t let my brain atrophy either. The blog title was something I toyed with for awhile, but let’s face it. Not a lot of things in life make sense. I’ll never quit trying to make sense out of some things, but I have much better luck making cents out of the daily things in life. Whether it’s getting something for free, getting a steep discount on something, or finding a coupon for later use, I can make “cents” out of almost every day in life. Life is not about how much money you make or save but if you’re in a financially unstable place, or just need to ramp up your savings, finding ways to make “cents” out of each day can make a huge difference in your life. Voila! Making Cents Out of Life was created. A new role in my life was created, and I had something to look forward to after such a long time of having very little going for me. I have a wonderful, amazing husband and family, don’t get me wrong, but my work was my last shred of independence so quitting was especially hard for ome. Somehow creating my blog, even though I did a lot of things wrong, suddenly gave me a sense of hope and excitement thinking of all of the possibilities out there.
My friend Kristin from Couponing to Disney gave me some good advice a few months ago. She told me that I should treat my site like it was the only source of information on saving money that my readers were going to get, and provide them with the most and best information I can. It took me a couple of months to get a good start with my posting, call it cold feet or writer’s block but it’s all the same, but after I got over that Ii did try to write as nuch useful content as I could. However, being a faithful blog reader myself I know there’s a limit to how many posts youre going to stick around for. Some of you want as much as I can get, some of you want it kept to 3-5 a day, others have no opinion. Other days when I’m not feeling well, I’m lucky to get online at all.
I started blogging for other reasons than a hobby, but believe it or not money wasn’t a top priority because I had no idea that there was money in blogging. My biggest reason for blogging was to help those peoplel who need help learning how to live a great life without spending any more moeny than they have to. I want to teach others the things I’ve learned through the years so that they can avoid making the financial mistakes I have made, and so that they can see how wonderful and fun it is to live a full life on less. My only financial goal was to someday start some sort of freelance writing projects down the road to get a part-time income for our home. I’m just hoping the website makes enough cash flow to cover the cost of running the site. Would I love to make a part-time income from blogging? Heck yeah, and I do put affiliate links on the site but again, that covers the cost of running the site. When I self-sponsor my giveaways5p.,I’m just not focusing on the money. I’m focused on my readers. God will take care of the rest.
Having written all of that, I know that there are some of you out there who are starting to blog or who are thinking about it. When I was at that stage, I looked for some how-to’s on blogging and I was overwhelmed at all of the information available. What I needed tips on were things I couldn’t find, but I found out over time that there was a reason for that: blogging is unique to each person, or it should be because you don’t want to copy everyone else. But there are some things that I learned the hard way that I should have done differently, and I’ll share those mistakes with you. These are just things that make life easier if you have a certain subject you’re wanting to blog about, like frugal living.
I did not set goals. I started my blog as a hobby, but given the fact that I intended on it being a blog tha tothers were going to see and hopefully come to on a regular basis I should have set goals to give myself something to work toward. You don’t really know what to set for your first year, of course, but small goals like getting 100 readers in 6 months, for example, would be a place to start.
I didn’t prioritize my time. When I got started, I Twittered, and I chatted in forums, and I blog hopped, and I wrote posts, and by the time all was said and done 8 hours had passed and I hadn’t gotten much done. I have to set a schedule that includes all of the social media activities and networking as well as writing so that I can plan my personal time and errands around this.
I never had a clear plan for writing. I write reviews and type up giveaways and schedule those for the days I want them to be published, because sometimes I’ll have time to review a product on a Saturday but I’ll have so many posts that I won’t have room for it until Wednesday because I’ll want it to get enough attention without competing against so many other things I write. Just an example. But I’ve addressed this before and I need to do this for ya’ll: I am going to come up with some kind of routine schedule so that you’ll know what you’ll find when you come here on certain days. Not every post will be scheduled because freebies and coupons pop up but for instance my Ten to Win or Six Talk Saturday are series that i need to schedule. This way if it is something someoneo is intrested in, they’ll know to stop by on that day! A lot of my favorite blggers do this and I like it.
I need to schedule a set time to blog. This is my main obstacle because of personal issues. Most of my blogging gets done late at night and early (as in 4 AM) morning. I have a weird sleep schedule, due to chronic pain and some other things, that’s just when I am awake. I often need my afternoons for personal errands and for family time so I find msyelf not being able to get you the best deals and the quickly ending freebies. My goal now is to get my personal sleep schedule back on track so that I can be around all day, during the actual daytime, so I can be a better blogger.
I need to gain more confidence in approaching people so that I can get more opportunities for our site. Confidence is something I have never had in myself, so that’s a big struggle but a successful blogger or a successful business person in general has to have the confidence in themselves to succeed. If I don’t have any confidence in myself why should anybody else have any confidence in me? That is why I started putting the little bit of money I made from the blog, which so far has been under $100 not counting the fund raiser for my mom’s school, back into buying giveaway prizes to gain readers. Having readers come by and sign up, and comment or e-mail me gives me confidence that I’m doing at least a little bit of something right, and gives me the confidence to continue to do it and not quit when I get frustrated.
Keeping in mind that I wrote this with an extremely awful lack of sleep, I hope it all makes sense. One of my general goals in blogging, as with this article, is to tell you what I do wrong so that you can learn from it and possibly do the opposite, or adapt it to your own situation. Not everything this past year was bad. In fact, I LOVED this last year of growth in my life. I learned so uch from seasoned bloggers who don’t even know of my existence, and I’ve met some wonderful friends online whom I may never meet in person but they are still friends in real life because this here is my real life. My real life because it plays such a part of my life at home, and wherever I go I’m always searching for blog-worthy material. sometimes just a story, sometimes something I saw on sale, or I get on my soap box. But the simple fact is that this is my “real life” because it has changed my life by giving me something to look forward to during a phase in my life when I was not sure i was going to ever again have something of my own to look forward to. I was content happy with life before blogging, but I have gained so much from it that I didn’t even realize was missing from my life.
I know I put the word “regrets” in the title, but I honestly have to say that I don’t have any. I made the mistakes I told you about, and probably more but I’m considering those as stepping stones for Year Two. I’m not going to regret these things because they have lead to personal growth and knowledge; regrets should be left for those things from which nothing good can come. I’m not a top blogger, or a “big deal” blogger or any kind of person you’d want to take much advice from but I’m going to give you one big tip anyway:
Be yourself and be true TO yourself. Don’t sell out to make a buck. In the end, you’ll have ot be the one who sleeps at night and even if that doesn’t bother you one day we all have to answer to our Makerf for our actions. Will it be worth it? I have had to ask myself that a lot. There have been opportunities I have had to advertise certain things on my site that would have made me a significant amount of money (in our meager budget, a lot of money is different to us than a lot of others) but it was to advertise check advances, which I am strongly against and you owill never, ever see an ad for one on this site if I can hekp it. I can’t control my Google ads but if I were to see one of those I would definitely make sure it was removed. A quick buck isn’t worth selling my soul. Blogging takes a lot of hard work, sweat, tears, and sometimes yes, blood shed. Paper cuts, coupons…you get the idea. Blogging is one of the most personally rewarding things I have ever done for myself. Just learn, like I always tell you, from my mistakes and you can do anything your heart desires.
Thanks for puting up with me for a year. I know a couple of you have been around the whole time and I appreciate it more than you know. You’re good friends who lift my spirits when I need it; let me know if I can ever return the favor! I hope you all have the best of luck and a wonderful week! I appreciate each and every one of you!
T0day marks the start of a new month, and it’s been officially one year since I purchased my domain and hosting plan for this site. I have another post about that coming up, of course, but I have a few things I needed to let you know that will be happening either this week or from now on, s9 I’ll try to keep it short and sweet!
It’s the start of a new month. I forgot to remind you to print your end of the month coupons, and I’m so sorry! New coupons have been released, old ones reset (a lot yesterday!), and more will be added or reset all day and each week. The major sites to check are Coupons.com, Red Plumand Smart Sourcein case anyone here today is new to couponing.
A lot of the things I will be doing this week will be “behind the scenes” but you will be able to see it when I’m finished with it. I will be adding tutorials for the drugstores and a few grocery stores and Target shopping for anyone who is new; it bothers me that inexperienced coupon users can’t come here for information on how to get started. That’s a major mistake I made as a new blogger and I haven’t taken the time to rectify that situation. That’s a really high priority for me this week!
I will not be ending yesterday’s giveaways until tomorrow because I have no time today to choose winners. They will end tonight at midnight; I will contact winners within 3 business days.
I have a few product reviews and giveaways coming up this week! I am planning on starting those on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on which day I end up going to the doctor.
Tomorrow I will have a tentative schedule for you that will be set in stone. Not every post will be scheduled of course, and you’ll still be able to see surprises and the latest freebies (I will be doing a LOT better than I’m doing now!) but I’ll have a plan for major things like reviews and grocery matches.
I am incredibly behind on everything, including still getting out giveaway prizes that I self-sponsored. so if you’re expecting a prize from me it is coming; it’ll be there as soon as I can get it there. Trips to the post office are hard to make these days, as I haven’t felt like leaving the house very often unless I’ve had to. I’m praying the doc has me fixed up and this week I improve enough to get your prizes out to you!
I will be adding a couple of stores to my coupon matches this week, God willing! I am not sure which ones but if you have requests now is the time to leave them! I do my stores in depth in the way that Lori at Moms By Heart does hers because that’s the way they do the most good in my opinion, so you’ll never have an item that’s missed if there’s a coupon to match it. So if you have a store that isn’t getting adequate coverage leave a comment and I’ll consider adding it to my site! I’m pretty flexible so I can do more than 2 if need be. The only requirement is, of course, that I am able to get my hands on an ad, either a paper ad *which I prefer* or an online ad.
I have a LOt more “how to” posts coming up, including a how-to on a price book and a how-to on coupon organization, and finally a how-to on creating your own coupon database or spreadsheet in further detail than the last post i wrote. I found a few helpful guides that I want to pass on.
I think that’s all I needed to say as far as what’s going on around here and what will be going on. I’ll have an extensive list of printable coupons for you by late tonight or early morning so you’ll know where the best things are to print!
Now, since I just caught myself drifting off to sleep when I snored, I am going to go take a “nap”. i use the quotation marks because my “naps”‘ last 4-5 hours because it’s the only sleep I get !
Just a quick note to my subscribers and anyone else who received a massive e-mail with a few responses from me in it. I got an e-mail awhile back from someone I thought was a blog reader and a ew blogger asking about a few things, which I happily answered and sent back. She compiled her answers and sent those answers to people who’d asked those questions as a help to those peoplel who’d been wondering those same things. That was a wonderful idea because you can’t ever get too much help as a new blogger! Blogging like this, when people are counting on you to get things done rather than just showing up to do it as a hobby, can be hard work.
Now there seems to be a mass e-mail circulating with various topics, and i dont think everyone who is included on the list wishes to be, and quite frankly I am not sure where the e-mail originated. This e-mail has nothing to do with Making Cents Out ofLife!! I am NOT sending out this e-mail, and you are only supposed to be getting 1 e-mail from me per day.!! I choose to do this as to not bother you with multiple e-mails each day as I add and edit posts.
Please do not cancel your Making Cents out of Life subscription because of htis e-mail. If you have been included in it and would rather be taken off, please leave a comment or e-mail me individually at makingcentsoutoflife (at) gmail (dot) com. I will do what I can to ensure that you aren’t bothered by these mnass e-mails any more. Again, I do apologize and was not aware that they were being sent to those of you who didn’t request them. I’m going to try to figure out what the origin of the e-mail that is circulating is, and how i can get it stopped from reaching my subscribers. NoBODY has access to my subscribers but me so it may be that you are on another blogger’s subscription list who may have decided to include you.
Any e-mail you receive from me will be a giveaway notification e-mail, or an occasional e-mail to catch you up on deals i haven’t had a chance to post but i wanted to let you know about. You’ll know they are from me.
Again, please don’t cancel your subscription because of the mass e-mail. Let me know if you’re affected by it and give me a chance to rectify the situation as I’m not sure what it is that is going on. Only one e-mail from me per day is the norm unless of course you contact me. Besides, if you unsubscribe but enter my contests you can’t win if that’s a requirement and I havfe some GOOD prizes to give away
Thank you for your time. As a blog reader myself I know that I sign up for a ton of newsletters but I don’t want to be bombarded by extras! I will rectify this if you have been affected, and I apologize from the bottom of my heart if you have been inconvenienced!
Carie from Carie’s Coins and Cents presented me with a Beautiful Blogger award! I’m so excited! Thank you Carie!!
I have received 2 of these in the past and I was grateful for them but wasn’t quite sure how they worked; I was an extgrmely new blogger so I’ll dig them up and post them soon so I can thank my presenters. Thank you Carie, and thank you to anyone who has ever sent me an award because I anm honored that any of you would think of me. I take nothing and no one for granted, so even if I did not post the award does not mean they were not treasured. So thank you to anyone who has ever given me anything You’re all wonderful!
There are rules for accepting this award so let’s make sure I cover them all.
Copy & Paste the award on my site. Done.
Thank the person who nominated and presented said award. Done!
Link to that person who presented award. Done.
List 7 interesting things about yourself. ugh. I’m boring but I’ll ramble about something
Nominate 7 more beautiful bloggers. Easy
So I have to think of 7 interesting things about myself. Well, here goes.
I am the most boring person I know!
I own 6 copies of Dirty Dancing: 5 on DVD and 1 VHS, two unopened.
Law and Order has been my favorite show since I was 11.
I met my husband online through chatting on Yahoo out of the blue. Best thing that has ever happened to me.
I could live off of my Maw Maw’s chicken and dumplings and Rice Krispie treats.
I refuse to pay for toothpaste other than tax because of coupons.
I was born with Spina Bifida and have been a paraplegic since birth.
Did I mention I was boring? I have no hidden talents or anything or if I do they’re so hidden that I can’t find ‘em. I like my happy/stressfuf/blessed life in my little house with my husband and little dogs right beside my Mama and Daddy. I wouldn’t change the fundamentals at all. I would add in a little more income for obvious reasons but other than that, I’m right where I should be. Isn’t it a good feeling to be right where you feel God wants you to be? Most days I have this humongous feeling of contentment, knowing that no matter what happensI have so many blessings. This “silly little award”, as I’m sure some think of them, made me sit and think about all of my blessings. Thank you for that, Carie, because this week has not been a week of blessings. It’s been a week of disappointments and depression; taking this time to focus on blessings was a wonderful break from that.
The 7 Beautiful Bloggers I’m going to award are blogs that I recently found; my blog hopping hasn’t been as active lately-nothing has been active in my life lately so I have some major catching up to do.
So I’m off to go give away some awards, take my daily “nap” so I can get up with a (semi!) clear head and share more deals. I promise I’m going to get things back to normal around here one way or another. My Dr. appointment didn’t go as well as I had hoped so the pain is still mostly excrutiating most days but if I can function on the way they have me living right now and it alleviates pain then maybe I will be a bit better next week. Either way, my focus next week is on YOU. Well, this blog so that means YOU. If you want to see something in particular be sure to let me know!
Hi! I hope y’all are all having a wonderful weekend! I want to apologize for the lack of quality content I have given in the last 3 weeks. I won’t go into long explanations because I’ve told you all what’s going on; Ill summarize and say that my chronic back pain went from managed to completely unmanageable wtihin 3 days, and it still isn’t under control completely. God willing, after my appointment on Thursday it will be taken care of. Regardless, this will be the last “apology for neglectng you” post I plan on writing for a long time. I’m sure you’re as tired of reading them as I am of writing them, and by now if you’ve been reading for even a couple of weeks you know what’s going on. The bottom line is that from now on I’m going to make a much stronger effort to just do what it takes to start making sure I post as much information for you as I can, so you’ll start seeing more deals, freebies and hot online shoppng deals as I can post.
Right now the stores I do matches for are Piggly Wiggly and Foodland. I’m contemplating adding stores to that list that aren’t matched at other blogs, or stores that are in our area that aren’t covered for this area that may be regional so they differ from what you’ll find at another blog. Kroger is a good example of that. The Kroger deals for Alabama differ from Kroger deals from Kroger deals from some other states, so I want to make sure that the ad for this state is covered. I will keep doing matches for Piglgy Wiggly and Foodland, and I may be adding up to 3 stores to the mix but that is dependent upon the information I am able to find an the time I have available.
My goal is to create a schedule/routine and stick to it…which is just like a diet for me, almost impossible but absolutely necessary! When I’m at a point where I’m able to go an entire month without “taking days off” I’ll have to start thinking about that. Til then, I’m going to slowly start to bring back series that I’ve started and finish bigger projects that I’ve been promising you. Hoefully in about a month we’ll be in our new “home”, a.k.a. entirely new blog deisgn. Yay! I’m excited!
So anyway, I’m done rambling but again, I apologize for neglecting you but it won’t happen any more. My posting will still be both late at night and late afternoon for now. I can’t control my sleep schedule for now, and I tend to take 2 4-hour “naps” rather than a full night of sleep lately. Beats no sleep, right? I’ll be around here a lot more from here on out. Some of it may be “behind the scenes” if I’m doing coupon matches. Tuesday through Thursday may be light posting days since I’ll be working on coupon matches.
Piggly Wiggly matches will be finished by Thursday morning of each week, and Foodland matches will be done by Thursday night/Friday morning. I would love to have them finished earlier, and will if at all possible. On busy weeks, I will have all of the ads finished by Friday morning. This last week mistakes were made and I didn’t od things as efficiently as I should have; I learn the hard way but I did learn so it helped me to set those goals.
Would you like to see something different, or to see a grocery store ad matched? If I can ge tmy hands on an ad, either paper or online, I’ll be happy to! Just drop me an e-mail with whatever your request happens to be, and I’ll do my best to oblige whether it’s an idea for a post, a series of posts, or a store match. I’ll be happy to answer any questions I can, and will be happyt o help you in any way I can.
Would you like to do a guest post, or for me to do a guest post on your blog? Email me! You can reach me at makingcentsoutoflife (at) gmail (dot) com. Have a wonderful weekend!
I just wanted to let you all know that the ads are almost finished getting matched up! I got a late start and have had several disturbances and appointments this week so they have gone slower. I am going to have to try to sleep for a few hours so they’ll be finished I hope early in the a.m. but for sure by around lunch time (God Willing!).
I hope next week everything is back to normal and I have them done at a normally set tie=ne, which would be Wednesday night. Life shouldn’t be so hectic then!
I just realized it is almost 7 PM CST, and I haven’t really accomplished anything I wanted to today. Do you have those days? I wish I could blame it on the pain that has plagued me for the last month, but some time in the day I just simply lost track of time. Today has been my first Manic Monday in quite a long time. I have a love/hate relationship with Manic Mondays, but any day I’m still here is a good day so I won’t complain!
I started out on a positive note about 6:30 AM after a truly decent night of sleep, and went through some massively ignored e-mail. I had a mental to-do list that was quite extensive. I was going to plow through the prodigious piles of magazines and coupons and other papers that clutter my kitchen and every table surface in my living spaces in my home. I know my husband’s tired of it, I’m tired of it, and it is embarrassing for my parents to pop in (they live next door) because I KNOW they think I’m a terrible housekeeper. I’m not the best, but I’m not trashy and I don’t want to end up on the next episode of Hoardersor Intervention! I cringed when they first advertised Hoarders because I just knew my dad would be on the phone calling them about me when he saw my coupon stockpile!
We ran a couple of errands. We made a trip to Dollar Tree and the grocery store to pick up a few things that were going off sale today, and also to get a FreeCycle computer monitor for my husband from a really generous man I’ll be telling you more about later this week. That was the point where my day went off-kilter and I knew I was in for a long night. We decided that, since I had a coupon and we don’t “do” Valentine’s day, we would have lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant which happens to be next door to Dollar Tree. I refuse to eat dinner out most of the time because lunch prices are much more reasonable and the portions are too, epsecially at this particular establishment. What cost us $10 today would have cost us $30 (without the coupon) tonight.
The errands that should have taken an hour and a half, tops, took about 3 1/2 since we ate and went to Walgreens. I also splurged on a bag of 50% off all-cherry jellybeans there, and they are so good! It’s all cherry but theres all different kinds of cherry flavors like cherry vanilla, cherry cola, cherry cheesecake, and a bunch more. I wouldn’t pay full price for them before Valentine’s Day but I happily paid for them today with some Register Rewards. See? Im running off on another tangent again. OK, I’m back.
When I realized how late it was, I decided I’m going to have to make some changes with the way I think, the way I manage time, and the way I run this site. I am not accomplishing the things I set out to do when I started blogging, and now that we’re growing a little bigger and I have a few professional obligations as well as my biggest obligation to you all I need to set myself up to succeed with more of a plan than I set out with in the beginning. In the beginning, there was no plan and there was no idea where this would go. I had no ideas of the possibilities that were out there for me, and Im still discovering those! I’m excited to set new goals, get new things going, finish the old things, and meet new people…all of you! So tonight I’m going to really sit down and set some goals. I’ll get back to you when I figure out what they are and how I will reach those goals.
I started my blog as a hobby with the intent of helping hopefully a few people learn from my financial blunders of my early 20’s. It was also a way to give myself some accountability so that I wouldn’t make those mistakes anymore. Traps are easy to fall back into, whether youre celebrating a major milestone and need to buy that one special thing or you’re depressed and want to buy yourself a special “pick-me-up”. I don’t want to go there again. I’m GOOD at saving money when I shop. When I have time to plan, and have time to get organized and calmly shop without distraction I can come out with $100 worth of stuff and have paid $4 for the entire transaction including tax. I’ve done it, and I love it, but it takes work and dedication. I want to show others how they can do it too, and give everyone who will listen the knowledge and the power to do that so they aren’t spending a penny more than they have to. My mission is simple: I want to spend what time I have left on Earth helping others to discover easy ways to live happily spending less while gaining a richer quality of life. I know from experience that once you learn how, it’s fun to see how inexpensively you can live.
So today was my Manic Monday. If you want to take a nostalgia break, listen to the song (above) and enjoy that trip back to the 80’s. I was too young to appreciate the words back then, but I’ve lived them in my adulthood. I wanted to let you know that I will hopefully have a more normal posting week, other than today, than I have had in the past month. No more out of town trips are planned, I only have 1 doctor’s appointment on the books, and other than my pain there’s no other big battles going on.
My posting will be done throughout the night, at least for now. It will be scattered between then and late afternoon. With my personal medical issues, that’s just the time I have to dedicate to this. I sleep weird, and it’s hard to explain because when I get used to it something changes. You will only get 1 e-mail daily from me if you subscribe, so you should check throughout the day to see what else I have posted in case you miss something Around here, you never know.
Thank you for reading my mental breakdown, if you’re still around I want to let you know what I’m sincerely trying to accomplish and also what’s going on in my life so that when you dont see the things you see other places you know my reasons. I’d love to be as involved, and I will be, with things as a lot of other bloggers but at this moment in time I’m having to deal with medical issues that I haven’t had to deal with in awhile. Hopefully my next doctor’s appointment will alleviate all of that. That may be TMI for you all but I have gotten a few e-mails from a lot of you who are in the same boat as I’m in, and I welcome any and all of you who wish to e-mail me to go ahead. I’m more than happy to share stories and get to know any of you who want to talk about what you go through! I’ll gladly try to help you research those programs I speak about that help you find ways to pay for medical care as well.
So have you had a Manic Monday or another day you dread or is hectic? Share your story! Make me feel better!
If you have e-mailed me within the last week, I will have gotten back with you within 48 hours. Our internet was horrible last week so I am really behind checking that account! I’m so so sorry!
For those of you who are new around here, I rant occasionally! Today was my day. I like to occasionally share withyou my thoughts and stressers, and I end up with some awesome feeback from a lot of you oon ways to reduce it or fix it, or tips for some really good blog posts! Keep ‘em coming!
You can e-mail me at makingcentsoutoflife (at) gmail (dot) com. That is the account I check most often, so if you send an e-mail to one of my othe accounts please don’t get discouraged if you don’t hear from me quickly. I do check the others but only a few times a week.
For those of you who have e-mailed me with ideas for posts, I’m working on them. I will be finishing up series and promised posts within the next month so all lose ends are tied. Blog design will be redone soon, and I’ll have tutorials up as well for those of you who need help from the ground up!
One BIG goal I have is for the look and feel of this place to be totally different in 60 days, from the look of the site to the ease of navigation and hopefully it’s just gonna flat out be a better site. Fingers crossed, God willing!
OK. Rant over, Manic Monday has 4 more hours and I am off to make the most of them. I hope I can stay awake that long!
but I did learn so it helped me to set those goals. 
