It's been rough.

It's been rough. 

The contractor ran off with the money. 

The house is sitting undone. 

I was switched to a new position at work that I don't enjoy. 

I'm now working just for the check and not for fulfillment. It's so mentally depressing. 

I'm trying to hang on. 

God has blessed me in so many ways. But the desire of my heart is to see Mama in her own house, enjoying it, and giving God the glory while she has the physical health and mental awareness to enjoy it all. 

More updates soon. I don't know what else to say or do about the situation at this point. 

What It Was All For

 My only debt is my student loan and it is down to 25K.

We (Jesus and I) are finally renovating Mama's house. It costs more than $10K - which I put in the header for the blog title. It costs $100K. But the money is coming in. I had to get loans for 2/3 of it, but I feel confident about being able to pay the loans back. 

It was a long journey to get here. The important part about a journey is getting to the destination and getting there in time, even if you had to take some detours.

I'm still here.

 I'm still here. 

I have a nice income and I'm starting my business again. 

I have some regrets but I try not to focus on those. 

I'm still working on being a more organized person, especially with less stuff and more digitally focused. 

Hopefully I'll have more to write about this year. 

Daddy died and his legacy lives on

July 11

Well, I've been saving and slowly paying down the line of credit debt over the past 2 years or so. Mama's in her house now. It's a comfortable house. I've stayed there for over a week. The plumbing works. The carpet is cushy. The temperature from the new HVAC unit is comfortable. The kitchen cabinets are gorgeous.

Daddy died 1.5 years ago and could not see the repairs and how well off the house turned out to be. However, his legacy lives on. He was a wonderful man. That's an understatement.

After all that, the condo building caught up with me and wanted the rest of the back condo fees that I owed. I never forgot about them. I was ready to pay up. It was actually cheaper than I thought. I owed $4500 when I thought I owed $6K - maybe $8K after years of interest. I felt relief paying it off. I used my line of credit so that's back up again. I could have used savings - and maybe I will pay if off with savings before the summer is up. Save the interest and pay myself back instead.

My finances are the  most organized part of my life. I also like to focus on being organized with time and possessions. So, I think I'll talk in the future more about being organized in life in general.

I'm teaching summer school simply because I had nothing else planned this summer and if I don't have a reason to get out of bed each day, I'll waste time. After one week, I used a week's pay to travel to Montreal for the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed myself. No one else was available or they didn't have passports. So, I told my family to update their passports. I don't mind paying their way if I can to create those memories.

New apartment

My 4-year debt free anniversary will be here in 1 month.

In one month I will move into a basement again but this time at full rental price. It's closer to the price of a 1-bedroom apartment. Fortunately, I can bring my dog and it's only 10 minutes from work. It's close to my post office box and storage unit, which I hope to get rid of.

I had to redo my budget for the upcoming months. The good thing is I can tithe and start saving for retirement and my budget will still balance with money for food, clothes, etc. This is how it should be - although I would like my own place one day (above ground and in a very safe neighborhood).

4 year anniversary coming up

I took Financial Peace University again this summer. I shared how I was able to buy each of my graduating students t-shirts from Oakwood University, and that was important to me. I could not have done that 3.5 years ago. I was able to do this because I'm a Free spirit saver.

9-1-2014 will be the 4 year anniversary of improving my finances. I need to think of a way to celebrate. I would like to celebrate only having a student loan and HOA debt of exactly 50K.


Ideas: a personal weekend getaway
a special eating out meal 
ordering Humans online so I can watch the entire series on a weekend binge with root beer and Ledos

Hobo Ahle

Hobo Ahle video-blogs about how to live in your car. I enjoy watching her videos and re-living my adventurous experiences of living in my car for almost 2 years. Here is the video link. 

In this video, she gives 10 safety tips. They are good. Some that I especially agree with are

2. “Don’t tell people you’re traveling alone.” In my case, I didn’t tell people I was living in my car at all.

3. “Lock doors all the time as soon as you can.” Absolutely! I’ve had this habit since I learned to drive. Mama insisted. And I’ve also heard the story (tale?) of people hiding under your car to slash your Achilles’ tendons! Ha!

4. “Maintain your vehicle.” Yep. Your car is your residence. Without it you have no transportation AND no house!

5. “Hide your belongings.”

6. “Be ready to get up and go.” I kept my househoes under the gas pedal. When I woke up, I hopped in the driver seat, slipped my feet in my househoes, and took off.

7. “Do your research on sleeping places.” Unlike Hobo Ahle, I stayed local. I slept in neighborhoods that I used to live in, so I knew how safe they were, where to park so that wouldn’t be towed, and the foot traffic patterns around my car.  Don’t sleep in the exact same spot every night. Even when I slept in the same neighborhood, I tried to sleep in different parking spots. I didn’t want neighbors to get suspicious and call the police.

10. Have savings. It gives you options and prepares you for emergencies. I remember when the snowstorm hit. I had money for a hotel for 2 nights and food to last when I couldn’t get out in the snow.

11. Don’t share your location till you have left. That’s why I didn’t vlog like she’s doing or post mylocation in my blog.

I’ll end with a quote by Hobo Ahle. “You can’t let fear control your life. Living in a car is different, but bad things happen even in houses.”

That Honda keeps blessing people

"Dec 29, 2015

I'm driving behind my Honda while my brother is driving it. It looks so bad. I look at other people's cars and think how bad their cars look, but I never have the opportunity to drive behind my own and look at it."


I wrote this over a year ago and never posted it. I decided to post it. As bad as that car looks, I would drive it another 5 years if I thought it would make it on the highway. Even though it was time to give it up, someone else is being blessed by it.

Spring Break shopping

Looking back over my past notes, I started with 80K in debts (student loans 45000, credit cards 8000, small debts 1000, HOA fees 11000, PNC 15000) plus mortgage debt (106K). I needed to help renovate my parents house (at least 30K) and buy a newer car eventually.

In 2 years I managed to set aside 1955 a month for either debts or savings. (we paid off 24,985 in two years. In addition, we saved, $20K. That's $44,985 for debt or savings in 23 months. That's 1955 a month!)

It's been almost 4 years. The house is nearly complete. The mortgage, credit cards, and small debts are gone. PNC and HOA are cut in half. Emergency savings fund is fully funded. Student loan is stable. 

I'm ready to start investing again. I've decided to keep renting a house. Owning my own home is not important to me right now. When I buy, I want a house I love,  not just one I can afford or one that I want to buy while the price is right because I feel pressured that someone else will snatch it up before I can get it. 

My roommate plans to stay here for another year, so I plan to stay as well. 

It's spring break and yesterday I spent a lot of time shopping. It was a winning situation because I used cash from the envelopes and shopped from a list. 

I bought household supplies and food to make a specific recipe (vegetarian chicken salad). I saw a shirt I liked and grabbed it. Other than the shirt, everything else I bought was on my shopping list. Even then, I asked myself, is there another cheaper way I can make do without this? For example, I wanted a new pair of shorts to go with the shirt I bought, then I remembered that I have a set at home that will match. Saved myself 10-20 bucks. Go, me!

Today's job is to go house-shopping. I did that yesterday, too, but it was different than in the past. I wasn't eager to go inside and take a look. I'm calmer about it. I just want a contractor to give me a price and then I get started fixing it up. If the seller I'm considering is too difficult to make a deal with me, then he's not the right seller for me at this time. I'll go find other sellers. I'm not stressed out about it like I was 12 years ago. 

It feels good to be where I am today. 

Going more Gazelle

So, for the past several months, I've been grazing around in the field like a gazelle with nothing much to worry about. Like a gazelle who knows all of the lions are distracted somewhere else, so they'll be back eventually but not right now.

Well, I know I better intense again. This  won't last forever.

So, I did a check. My current debt total is: 57758 = student loan (45,058), PNC (6700), HOA (6000)

Today I'm raising my level of automatic debt payoffs. Even though the debt is getting paid down, I need to increase the payments. This summer my roommate may decide to move, which means I need to move as well. I may have to get an apartment with regular rent costs. In that case, I will appreciate all of these opportunities to have paid down debt. I'll regret it if I don't.

I've had some recent opportunities to tell people about Dave Ramsey. I share advice and experiences on Facebook Dave Ramsey groups. Wish I could do more.

July review

Youtube is my cable. I have learned to re-love old television shows and even fall in love with some new ones. I recently watched Diagnosis Murder and the Beverly Hillbillies. Those shows are great! I want to watch more.

Here's something I found out about budgeting last summer that I never posted:

When my monthly bills change drastically, it's better to budget weekly or biweekly. That helps keep up with the fluctuations.

When everything is smooth sailing, then I can budget monthly.

While I was renting a basement, my budget was the same every month, so I didn't pay attention to it much. I just stuck with the budget.

During the summer, I started budgeting again because of the changes in rent, storage fees, and not making car payments to myself but instead paying extra money back on debt again.

Now that I'm renting a room again, I find myself not using Everydollar consistently. I just fill the envelopes, let the bills get paid automatically, and even the debt is on auto-pilot.

Here's a blessing: I noticed in December that my envelopes are getting rather full of money that is not being spent. That's because I'm cooking more at home and carrying lunches to work (my lunches this week amount to $2/day!), and also because my commute to and from work is shorter than it was a year ago. I'm going to make a bank deposit and put that cash back into the bank. Then I'm reducing the amount called for on my envelopes.

Food dropped from $100 a week to $75 a week to now $50 a week.

Gas dropped from $40 a week to $30 a week.

scrambled eggs, sweet potatoes, and my money

1-2-17
Happy New Year.

I’m excited.

2017 is going to be a good year. I will achieve more goals than ever before. How do I know? Because I slow-cooked scrambled eggs, tofu skins, and a sweet potato today and they turned out really well.

??? 

Yeah, so here's the thing. 

I like to experiment in the kitchen, but I don't like foods that take a long time. Transferred to other areas of life, I don't like saving goals because they take so long to complete. I don't like waiting for a good real estate deal to come around. When I have an idea of something new to try in the classroom, I like to try it the next day - not inform my teaching assistants, wait for them to think about it, put it on next week's lesson plan, etc. I don't like waiting. 

However, getting out of debt has helped me develop the discipline to wait. It pours over into other areas of my life - like my cooking today. I cooked the eggs on a lower heat than usual. Sometimes I microwave my sweet potatoes. They don't taste as good as baked, but they get done faster. Today I let that baby slow roast in that oven. I also cooked tofu skins for the first time, and let them simmer not according to any clock time set by the recipe, but until they looked done. 

So, 2017 will be a good year because I have more patience. 

I started looking at real estate deals this past week. I found a house that looked like a good deal on Thursday night. Friday afternoon I checked and it had been delisted. I didn't freak out. More good deals will come, I said. 

On a more practical note, I rejoined MAREIA and WREIA, local real estate investing clubs, and put their upcoming classes on my calendar. I signed up for a Chinese language meetup. I signed up for 2 hikes this month. I signed up with MyHouseDeals. 

Update on finances: The house is ready to be moved into with new appliances, floors, window, roof, electrical wiring, retaining wall, bathroom toilet and vanity, kitchen cabinets, paint. Whew! That’s a mouthful. What hasn’t been done? As you can see by the amount of work done, that’s why it took 3 years to complete when you’re cash flowing it and you’re not rich. The estimated cost is $30K. Final touches include siding on the outside and gutters.

Last debts are a line of credit, money owed to an HOA, and a student loan. I expect to pay them in that order. I’m knocking out the LOC by paying weekly instead of monthly and I’m paying double the minimum amount.  

Not only am I NOT livinginmyhonda anymore, but it doesn't look like I'll be doing that anymore since I have Jefferson back with me. 

Review of 2016 and new goals for 2017

So, I looked at my goals for 2016 and, yeah, I knew I had way too many goals back then. But here was my thinking: If you have a lot of goals, then surely you can achieve 25% of them by the end of the year and feel good about yourself. I was throwing mud. If you throw mud at the wall, some of it will stick. 

So, here are some of the goals Jesus and I achieved in 2016. 
MENTAL - We read 9 books, watched 9 movies, and listened to numerous TED talks. 

FINANCIAL - We cash-flowed about $15K on house repairs. We gave more regularly. 

CAREER - We videotaped  ourselves teaching 6 times this year. 

PHYSICAL - We drank 96 bottles of water. We ate a salad an average of once a week. We took up hiking and kayaking, and we went swimming and improved our strokes this summer. 

SPIRITUAL - We wrote 3 prayers this year and used one of them to pray more regularly. 

RELATIONSHIPS - We kept in contact with specific friends more regularly through email and texting. 


Instead of listing all of my goals for 2017, I decided to just link to the goals I posted on 2 Deals A Year. Here's the link. 

http://richerwithpets.com/welcome-to-the-mall-rwp/

Cousin Rina diied. I need to update my will.

Christmas break started Thursday, December 22. I started off very productive – with a visit to the dental office. Then I began blogging. Sweet.

I expected to declutter my room and storage and really make progress on my side hustle during this 10-day break. Then, sadly, Murphy (you know, the creator of Murphy’s law) came to visit.

What happened was my cousin, Rina, was found dead in her apartment on Thursday afternoon. Congestive heart failure due to pneumonia. Early 40s. Completely unexpected.

So, now I’m helping to pack up her apartment and that got me thinking about my own state of affairs.

I haven’t finished my will. Well, it’s written but not notarized or filed with any attorney. I don’t have a health directive completed. I have asked my aunt to be in charge of my affairs after I die, and I’ve notified my mother that I asked my aunt to do that. However, if it’s not on paper, it didn’t happen. That’s the legal rule of life.

So, today, I’m decluttering my room for a few hours before I return to Rina’s apartment to help pack up hers. I want to have less stuff so that when I go, it will be easy on people. That’s no reflection on Rina, her life seemed very simple and it’s been easy to pack up so far.

However, I have boxes and boxes of books and papers. Sometimes an important piece of paper is mixed in with all the memoirs, old teaching materials, etc. So I need to filter that stuff so family won’t have to throw away something important by accident, or worry that they did.

Fortunately, my financial papers are the one bright spot in my paper-life. Well organized and recognizable.

So, this Christmas eve, I urge you to do like me. Declutter your space and finish your end-of-life documents. Help out those who will be left to finish the job after you. 

Re-branding my blog

I'm a little confused and disappointed. It appears that the way to make money online is by telling other people how to make money online. I've looked at so many other bloggers' videos and webpages and blogs. Most of them that make money seem to do it by telling people how to make money.

I'm left wondering, so what did you sell? Video games? Jewelry? Comic books? Did you make $10,000 selling ebooks about automobiles, or your travels, or what its like raising twins? No. The top bloggers are internet marketers, podcasters (discussing how to be a good podcaster), site builders, seo specialists, people telling about how to be an entrepreneur but it seems like they failed until they started the entrepreneur-teaching business. They are business consultants and salespeople. 80 percent of bloggers go right back to "you pay because I'm telling you how to make money."

I wanted to think i would make money just telling people how to get out of debt and selling pet products on line. Naw.

I'm flexible though. I decided if the market wants to know how to blog, setup websites, etc and that's how I will make money, well, I can rehash the information that I've learned and sell it. That sounded dull though. ten I realized I can teach people how to invest in real estate. There's a demand for that.

Then I came across Yaro Starak and he is very honest. He talks about the "Make Money Online" phenomenon. Since he's in the same field of interent marketing, he showcases his students' successs stories to show that his method of blogging works. He also doesn't believe in being on every social media. he believss in targeting a few well-chosen customers and not eveyrbody in the world.

My kind of guy.

So, it's been 9 weeks and I'm glad to say I've been faithful at blogging once a week. I have 750 Twitter followers. I also have 17 pages of a book written on real estate investing for beginners.

I rewrote the vision, mission, title, and tagline. I have an idea for a logo.

It's going to be a whole new website, but it's a topic I've been interested in for more than 10 years.

I look forward to continue working on this side hustle and I feel even more hopeful that I'll see income in 6 months and not 6 years.

Richer With Pets going strong after 4 weeks

I'm still excited.

I just ended week 4 of my new blog Richerwithpets.com.

I conducted 3 t-shirt campaigns, none of which earned moolah.
I have 3 posts up, which have each been revised at least 5 times.
I have a total of about 125 likes/followers on Facebook and Twitter.
I have an elevator pitch, 3 taglines (haven't settled on one yet), and an editorial calendar of upcoming posts.
I've spent about $250 on ads, t-shirt designs, and the website/email.

I have the opportunity to host an after-school science club or tutor. I may tutor, but I'm seriously thinking of turning down the after-school club so that I can focus on RWP.

I'm excited about the possibilities of what to do with this site and where it could go. I have to setup a store with products and focus on selling products. I don't want writings to be the  main source of income because the Internet is so full of personal finance blogs and an almost infinite supply of writings.

October review

October review

1. I have been paying $100 a week on my bank loan to decrease the interest charged by hitting the principal more frequently. One week I paid $700.

2. I designed a t-shirt and posted it online for sale. I attended a women's entrepreneurs meeting and shared my elevator pitch with 10 women, then I asked for help creating a tagline.

3. Consistently came home and worked in the evenings. Created goals and met goals related to my own business.

4. Created a blog, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook accounts. I have 61 Twitter followers and 12 FB likes.

I'm aiming to earn $500 this week from my t-shirt campaign. I will use it to give to Aunt and Uncle and say thanks for letting me stay when I really needed a place and this is a gift. Later, I'd like to give $500 to my  friend who let me stay with her as well.


I am inviting people to submit t-shirt ideas for future t-shirts. I want to pay people $500 for ideas. I could offer to share the income 50/50, but I'm so passionate about this side interest and putting so much time and attention to it that it may be an unfair deal to go 50/50.

3-year anniversary (this post is late)

3- year anniversary

I bought a splurge meal of barbecue chicken, ice cream, and pickles. Tempted to get root beer but didn't I haven't drank pop  in one month.

I am creating plans to start my own finance blog.

I reached 110 crunches, 50 leg raises, and a 65 second plank. Day 18 of the 24-day Abs challenge.

3 years ago today I was using this weekend to take my dog down South so I could come back up North and sleep in my car. I would have $100 extra money after doing that, the first time in years I had $100 and no pressure to spend it anywhere. It was the beginning of an awesome adventure. I want others to feel excitement and enthusiasm as they partake of the same adventure. So, I'm not going to write a finance book for teachers but find a different way to write about personal finance and earn money at the same time.

Life is Richer With Pets

I'm excited! I started a new blog today! It's a topic that I'm passionate about and I can think of countless blog posts, so many that I can't list them on or even organize all the topics I'm finding to blog about.

I have started 4 unsuccessful blogs in the past, then this 1 which is 3 years and 190 posts long. I feel proud.

Today my new site went live. I came home and treated it like a part time job. I posted an introduction post. I joined Wordless Wednesday and posted a pic. I setup my Facebook page and read about how to improve a blog. Then I found out about FinCon 2017 and BlogPaws Conference 2017 and made it a goal to attend both ($200 a piece if I register this month).

I'm excited and look forward to coming "back to work" tomorrow evening.

Here are some preliminary goals for the blog:
1. Help people as evidenced by a following of 20K on any 1 social media type
2. Earn $2K a month through ads, selling products, or writing articles for other media
3. Reach the first 2 goals in 200 days (May 1. That's 100 new followers a day). \

Let me explain why this moment is so momentous.

This weekend after 3 years of living without my beloved Jefferson because I was paying down debt, I decided at the last minute to hop in my car after work and drive down South for the Columbus Day Weekend and pick up my baby.

So, here he is under my feet, bathed and ready for his 3rd walk of the day. I'm feeling so blessed and excited that this major part of my debt-free journey is apparently over. Jefferson did his part by putting up with a less than ideal living arrangement. Now, I'm going to share my experience with others who are getting out of debt with a pet. It's a great feeling to know that as difficult as the decision was to separate from him for a time, that this experience could be the very thing I need to get rid of this last chunk of debt and start giving more.

August review

August review

Since I moved into a new room, I cook for myself more. I pack lunches to  school and they are healthy. Salads, foods that can be eaten without heating in a microwave, vegetables and or fruit in every lunch. I also have a surplus in my food envelope each week.

I save $80 a month on rent. It's only 16% of my income. I also save gas and get to work on time because my morning commute is at least 15-30 minutes shorter depending on when I leave home.

I will have a surplus each month for the next 9 months. In August, that surplus went to car repairs.

I finished Financial Peace University, and in September I plan to start the debt snowball again. I have a visual hanging on my board that I can color in gradually as I pay down debt. I no longer have a new car fund. All of my surplus now will go to the debt snowball. I plan to start a new car fund again when I pay off PNC.

I have begun exercising almost every morning. My pants fit better and I feel healthier and more energized.  

I can't find any new places to save money, and fear is holding me back from moving on my product idea. There I've admitted it. Now I can face the fear.