Debt Free Kid

Yep, I almost did it. I almost pulled the trigger on a couple of sites today. I had stuff in the carts, but I closed the tabs before I pulled out the credit card. The first cart contained a couple of "ugly christmas sweaters" for Bean and I, and they weren't even that ugly. The one for me was pretty cute, and since it was pink and black, I could wear it year round. I knew Bean would get a kick out of the one I picked out for him. The second cart was for skincare, my most favourite thing to splurge on. I'm almost out of my $55 serum, and I saw an email for some sample primers at a great price. I needed to add only $2 more to get bonus points, so I picked out a new face wash. I scrutinized my purchases a few times, and read a couple of reviews of the primers. I needed to make sure the cosmetics company was cruelty-free. And then I clicked "x," twice. And went to heat up my ramen noodles for lunch. I also figured out how to file a dispute with amazo...

The light at the end of the debt tunnel is beautiful and warm. Just in time for a well-deserved thaw, I will be credit-card debt-free. With my income tax refund I paid off the line of credit. With the child tax credit I will put $200 on the credit card, bringing it down to $3000. The good news is that I was asked to house-sit for three months!! Without having to pay rent (or bills) this spring and summer I will be able to pay the debt off in full, several months before my self-imposed deadline. Then in the fall I can begin to pay my student loans. I am trying to come up with a strategy to get around the consolidation agreement that stretches out the payments over 14 years, doubling the amount borrowed. So, that is my good news. In other news I am grateful to have a little bit of savings into which I can tap to make a donation to MSF . Seriously, Karissa

I have mentioned here before that in 2005 I spent two months in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I don't have any more big trips on my radar for a while. I might have to wait until my son is an adult, or maybe we will go somewhere together. In the meantime, I will have to satisfy myself with the adventures of others. Are you planning a big trip in the near future? If so, you might want to check out Tyler Tervooren's (Advanced Riskology) free e-book Instant Adventure . Seriously, Karissa

I mentioned  in my previous post that I won a gift certificate from Squirrelers' Thanksgiving contest. It was for $20 at Amazon.com. I normally order from Amazon.ca but xmas was arriving quickly and I thought I'd redeem it for something for someone I love. I had a harder time than I thought I would. Shipping from the U.S. is expensive and since I had left it so late, nothing I chose would be here in time for xmas. A couple of toys I had picked out for my son would not ship to Canada at all. I finally chose a backpack for my bro-friend but before I hit the switch I decided to check locally. I found the same pack for the same price at a shop in town and avoided shipping altogether. Last week I decided to buy a book with it. The book cost $10 and the shipping was $11! I couldn't bear to spend more on postage than on the book itself, so I went with my original plan and offered the gift certificate to a friend in the U.S. Since I had carelessly applied it to my own account ...

For the first time ever, and without requesting it, I received a refund cheque for interest paid on my rent deposit. I almost fell over when I opened the envelope and realized what it was. With that I am $18.16 more wealthy. On a similar note, I checked my ING account today and found a $25 referral deposit, another first. Many thanks to the person who took my orange key from the sidebar and used it to open their own account. I hope your $25 serves you well. Since I gave up monetizing this blog I haven't looked at all at my account settings. Last week I chose to renew my domain name and clicking around in google took me to my adsense account. I saw that I had almost $10 in my account so I decided to update my information with them. I'm waiting on a password to arrive in the mail to finish the process. On a whim I also decided to re-visit my abandoned Swagbucks account. In the past few days I have earned over 40 Bucks just playing around on the 'net. I think I might try...

Simply Frugal informed us today, and for today only (January 5), David Bach's Debt Free for Life is available as a free pdf download . Seriously, Karissa

I've been maintaining this blog for (close to? more than?) two years. I'm obviously not keeping track of time. The blog is not exactly what I thought it would be, but it's been an amazing tool for tracking my progress and that's the most important thing. It keeps me honest and accountable. It probably keeps you asleep - if you even read it anymore. I don't care really, I stopped watching the stats almost immediately. And I've come up with a few rules and here's three: 1. Stop clicking on free stuff. Maybe even stop following blogs that offer free stuff. Thanks to a couple of thoughtless keystrokes I now get a spam phone call each night, and at least a couple of spam snail-mails each week. Good thing I'll be moving and leaving my landline in the spring but in the meantime ... 2. I've stopped following almost all blogs that don't offer a full blog post in their feed. I follow way too many blogs now and rarely click on them individually unles...

There's a lot of talk about freedom in my neck of the woods these past few days, but I'm going to try to keep it simple and mention a couple of cool free things that have come my way the past couple of weeks. There is of course the car, a great little Honda Civic that is serving us nicely around town. I say a prayer of thanks every time I get into it. I've been offered another car for no charge: my sweetheart has a Saturn that is not highway-friendly and he has been meaning to take care of it for over a year now. He said I can take it whenever I want to. The caveat is that it is manual so I will have to learn to drive standard. My "bucket list" (I really dislike that term) includes this skill so I think it is time to cross something else from the "list of things to do before I die" (my preferred title). Finally, I was pleased to receive an email from Ms Single Mama requesting my snail-mail address, as I had commented on her offer to give away a fr...