Trying Something New

I hit a wall today when I realized that I really have no money. I have spent my entire life in school or with a full time job. My decision to take the last three years to go to law school has not yet seemed to financially pay off. So when I ran a budget for what I need to survive even through the summer, the impact was pretty bleak. My absolutely necessary expenses are three times what my income is. As I said, pretty bleak.

So I have spent the day on the internet. First I was really just applying for jobs (this activity is not unique to today - I spend most of everyday looking and applying for jobs). Then I started looking for coupons and other ways to save money on household necessities. This was a fun activity (well far better than being rejected from job after job)! I found some very useful tips on saving money and realized that I have been unintelligently grocery shopping my entire life. Do you know that there is such a thing as "stacking" coupons? Meaning that you can use several coupons for the same item? Apparently there are people out there that do this quite successfully - sometimes either getting things for free or even making money.

Anyway, from that point (gaining coupon expertise) on, I started looking at other opportunities. I have started selling mass amounts of my personal items on ebay (which is not as lucrative as I had hoped, but it is something AND it makes my house feel bigger now that a lot of the clutter is gone). Monitoring my auctions on ebay has become one of my favorite activities. Lame. After this, I was somehow pointed in the direction of swagbucks.com, and hope to see how that turns out (apparently doing certain things can earn you swagbucks that you can cash in for gift certificates and other items). http://www.swagbucks.com/?cmd=sb-register&rb=1956592

Now I am starting this blog. I decided it would be an interesting way for me to keep track of my experience trying to make it through - essentially working part time, studying, and trying to keep a roof over mine and my daughter's head. Maybe through maintaining this log, I can prevent you from making some of the mistakes I make and tell you what has worked for me.