The Toyguy's Blog

I got a Pinecone check for 3 dollars in the mail today. I haven't been doing very many surveys. I somewhat lost interest a little since they changed the payment from 5 to 3 dollars.

I sort of splurged today. Had to buy some stuff like toothpaste, mouthwash and laundry soap. And bought a bunch of clearanced candles.
Still with as much as I bought it only came up to 17 dollars. I felt like I got a great deal on everything.
Also bought pop at a different store. I really have a terrible pop (Diet Mt. Dew) addiction. I spend way too much on it plus its horrible on my teeth. Tried cutting down for awhile but didn't do too good. I need to cut down again drastically but just ain't ready to.

I'm considering joining a caving club. Its something I'm definately interested in and its not a terribly expensive hobby. But I'm not completely sure about it because most everything I've tried out is focused on weekends. I literally work every weekend. That makes it very hard to
do most social functions. Thats probably one reason I don't date. Although thats a whole other story. I'm going to check further into the caving thing and see what I can do. If they have any events I'm able to go to it will be well worth
joining. But if everything they do is like 500 miles away on Saturdays its not worth my bother.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my nephew thought he was on a verge of a heart attack on Friday night but wouldn't do anything about it. So, when we left the concert he said he would call me to let me know he got home ok. Of course he didn't. And still not hearing from him Saturday I started to panic a little bit. I tried calling him and tried calling everyone that might have made contact with him. I sort of stirred things up and didn't get anywhere. Fortunately, my neice finally got hold of him and he was ok. He still has the chest pains though so thats not good. I'm not so sure its a heart attack anyway, but its still something that needs attention.
I'm just relieved I didn't have to go looking for a body or somthing. That was my fear most of Saturday.

In other not so dramatic news, I had a no spend/no drive (but very productive) day at home a few days ago that I haven't had a chance to mention till now. I rarely if ever have a totally no spend day and usually don't even try. I'm pretty much a low spend day kind of guy all the time as it is. Just staying home and working on projects without spending a penny was a very nice change. I need to try for that more often. The thing is I hate just staying home. I'm somewhat antsy and always want to be somplace else no matter where I am. LOL.
So I'm giving myself a big "THATA BOY!" for succeeding at least one day of just staying home. It felt good but it may be awhile before such a thing happens again.

I was one of the many people in Ohio that was at risk sometime last year when a government laptop was stolen that had information about me on it. The state of Ohio couldn't recover the laptop and because they were not sure if the people's info was safe from identity theft, they provided me with a free year od Debix credit card protection. I didn't do much with the protection but it was nice to have under the circumstances.
It seems to be a good service although normally I would have never even tried it.
Now my year is about up and Debix as a nice gesture provided me with an extra free month. But now they sent me a letter saying I can re-new the service if I want to for about 25 bucks a year.
It seems to be a great service but I don't know if I really need it. Do any of you think its something that would be smart to keep? The price seems very reasonable but I don't know if its best to keep it or not.

Well Friday was my last day of vacation. Not totally true. I have 2 more weeks of vacation that i'm taking in October.
Went to a free concert in Akron. It was an
Aerosmith Tribute band and I thought they were really good. Didn't have the greatest time though. Its so hard in this day in age to have fun anymore. It must be just me but I really don't think anyone knows how to truely enjoy life anymore. Sorry unintentially this post has now turned into a rant of sorts. I went with a friend and my nephew.
They both in truth got on my nerves. My friend instructed me the whole way on how to drive. I was a little too far to the right and a little too far to the left. I should have taken a different route. I drive too fast. I jerked the car. SHEESH.
I was a nervous wreck with his silly backseat driving. Then my nephew who was meeting us there calls and says he is going to the concert but he thinks he might be having a heart attack. He was having pains although I'm hoping its just a muscle cramp or something. Then neither of them were really all that interested in watching the concert. They were really like 5 year olds with short attention spans. And this part is where I really may be in the wrong. But I was also very annoyed by people playing football next to the concert stage. I mean I never see people playing ball in a regular park or their own back yards. But get them inside of a Wal Mart store or a Concert where they can annoy the hell out of people that are trying to enjoy the show and they have to "entertain" us with their athletic prowess.
Despite everything I still liked the show and had a relatively good time. Ok i'm done ranting for now. Kind of makes me feel better anyway.

The store I work for gives a 15% discount on ATT cell phone bill.
Unfortunatly they don't really tell you what things you are entitled to so I went a long time without knowing I could get a discount. AND to be very honest when I did find out a couple of months ago I was too lazy to actually sign up for it. BAD me. Think of all the money thats spent (wasted) on laziness sometimes.
Well I finally just signed up for my discount. I think I'll save 5 dollars or so a month. Not a huge amount but its still nice.

Went to ball game and it was a lot of fun.
The traffic wasn't bad at all.
It was a beautiful warm day but not ridiculouly hot. And the Indians won.

Then I went to dinner with some of my family to a nice Mexican restaurant. It was so good. But I don't know what I was thinking. I drank 5 margueritas. Lucky I was able to walk out of the place. I paid for that the rest of the night too.
Good news I woke up happy and feeling pretty good this morning. From now on my limit is 2 drinks.

Well I've had a very long tiring day off.
But the good thing is that my roof is repaired and it didn't cost very much. It was like $94 for the roofing materials and I rounded it up to $200 cause my nephew worked hard. I got off cheap. I think I saved at least 300 if a roofer had done the job.

OK so one more "TO DO " item off my list.

Its a rainy and somewhat cool day here today. We probably need the rain right now cause it hasn't been raining as much as it was a couple of months ago. Anyways, I'm getting a section of my roof repaired on Saturday so I sure hope the rain is done by then. Its a relatively small job so I just want to get it over with as quickly as possible. The good news is that my nephew is doing it so it wont cost very much compared to hiring a roofer. Even paying him I'll save at least a couple hundred dollars.

Then Sunday we are supposed to go to a Cleveland Indians game. I kind of forgot about it till my nephew reminded me today.
He got free tickets from his job or something. I'm kind of excited cause I've never been there before. The only game I've ever been to is the Akron Aeros and on that occasion I was only there because I was doing some volunteer work.

So I have a pretty full weekend ahead of me that will go a lot smoother without rain.

I really do have the travel bug right now and need a scratching post of sorts.
I do have a fairly good travel fund saved but for reasons above and beyond my control I can't use it right now. I'm going to continue saving in it so that I can eventually have a grande vacation somewhere. For now I'm just dreaming a little of far off places.

So I was wondering (as a means of scratching my itch a little) what interesting far off places have you all been too? And most of all where are you saving up to go? What sort of things are you hoping to someday see?
I enjoyed Christina's blog about her trip to Morocco. That kind of fueled my fire a bit along with my "stay at home" vacation coming up this week.

My "DREAM" trip right at the moment would be to go to Antarctica. I've seen some amazing pictures from there.
So far I've been to Egypt,Italy, briefly in Switzerland, Greece, briefly in Turkey,
Uganda, Romania, London and Paris.
I'm not quite as brave as Christina was. I travel mostly in tour groups. There are so many ways to travel and I think everyone has their own preferences of how they feel comfortable. I am traveling a bit more on my own and have been to London for example a number of times on my own. Its probably the easiest to go without a tour group.
I'm looking forward to hearing any adventures or dreams of travel that you all have to share.

I've been encouraged by some recent posts to start writing a bit more. Financially I'm doing ok. I am (have been, am, and will continue to be) debt free except for my mortgage. I don't owe very much for that and I'm quite a bit ahead. Although I'm not much into details so I don't know how far ahead I am on it. I've been thinking a lot lately about making sure its paid off before I turn 50. I think that is a very reasonable goal for right now, but I probably can do even better than that.

My little goals on my sidebar are going good. I actually have a lot more to my goals than what I posted but I made them pretty complicated and I don't think posting them on here would make much sense. Mostly right now I'm trying to save up enough for next years IRA contribution. I want to put $4000 in it for next year. Its coming along somewhat slow but sure.

I'm off for a week from work starting this coming Saturday for vacation. YAY.
I had planned on going to Costa Rica but
there are just too many other priorities.
I love to travel and I put that very high on my list but there are just so many other things that get in the way. So, this
vacation will consist of doing some home repairs, cleaning a little, going to a Mexican restaurant with some family members,maybe a night of camping, and going to a free concert in Akron.
A little bit of everything (work and play) tossed into the pot it seems. :-)
I still have 2 weeks more of vacation that I probably will use in October. But thats going to be similar to this vacation. Next year MAYBE I'll be able to scratch the travel bug with a real trip somewhere.

Thats all I got for now.
Everyone have a goodnight and thanks if you took the time to read this.

I made out pretty good today. Someone hung an ad on my front door (which I usually rip up and through away)for a free
$5 Starbucks gift card for stopping in at their new bank branch. I had to go to Aldi's today and the bank is almost next door to it so I got my free giftcard. They didn't even ask me what my name was.

Sorry I don't post anything very often (probably no one notices) but I enjoy reading other people's blogs and occationally commenting more than writing my own. Financially I'm doing pretty well. I'm working on all of my goals although its a very slow process. I also had some medical expenses this month which has set me back a little bit. I don't know how anyone can afford to have an illness. I don't think I'm going to go back to a doctor unless I see blood squirting out from now on.

Well I opened up a sub-account on ING for a car fund. Thanks for everyone that helped me figure out how that works. It was actually very simple once I had the info. I needed.
I only put $10 in there but its a start and its a fairly long term ongoing goal. Plus I still have that first seedling $1
making my car fund a whopping $11. TADA!

And I opened another sub-account for medical purposes. Its basically in case any big medical or dental bills come up in the more distant future. I also funded that with $10.

When I get paid this week I will put a little into my E-Fund but most of the check will go towards my 2008 IRA contribution. I normally put in 3000 and thats what I had planned on doing this year. But, with reading so many great goals on this website I decided I'm going to try to put $4000 in the IRA this year.
Right now I'm about half way saved up for that. So for the next couple of months my big focus will be on saving up for my IRA. Then I might be able to save more into my other funds after that.

Ohhh one other thing. I'm supposed to get another bonus from my job next month sometime. Its approx. $394.
That money will go into my travel fund. I don't get to travel as much as I would like to but its one of my top priorities in life. I went to Romania (to visit with Dracula)for Halloween 2006. It was such a blast I think I'm going there again for this year's Halloween. I have a couple of other possible options but whenever I think about that last trip I want to go back again. Its one of the most fun and interesting places I've ever been to.

Well thats all I got for now. I hope everyone has a good day.

I want to open a second ING savings account. I want to use it to start my car fund that I talked about in an earlier post. I'm just not sure if ING allows 2 of the same kind of savings accounts or not? Especially if I fund it from the same personal checking account as my current one. I think I can do that but its not very clear on their website.
I was also considering using their Electric orange checking account instead of another savings. But I don't really need the features of their checking and the Savings pay more.
If anyone knows about ING Savings or has any better advice for me please let me know.

Thanks.

One thing I'm seriously lacking financially is a car buying or car repairing fund.
I'm very happy with what I drive now but its a 2001 Kia Rio. Its at an age now when it really could break down seriously without much notice. Plus eventually I would like to buy a new car. My real hope is to still be driving this same car 10 years from now though.
Anyways I just haven't had extra money to even start a "car Fund". I've been focusing on other things and my tiny little dollars only stretch so far. :-)

So yesterday was payday and I took a dollar out of my spending money and tucked it into an envelope to begin a car fund. A little silly maybe but its a start. And I'm hoping the little seedling dollar grows healthy and strong.

My next step with it is to have a bank account designated for a car fund and start building it up. But for right now for me it was important just to get something started. I'll try to keep my progress updated. Also I noticed how most people have their goals posted in the sidebar. I'm hoping to post some of my goals like that too very soon.

Wow I just got my new gas bill and I am relieved that it only came up to 85 dollars. I still personally think thats outrageous since I keep my heat very low. But its still better than most people's
bills that I know. And I compared it to what I paid for the same time last year. Last year it was
$126. So thats a drastic improvement.

I also should be getting a check for $5o soon from doing a beverage market survey.
It was pretty intersting. They sent me a Palm and I had to keep track of everything I drank for 2 weeks. They already gave me $10 cash when they sent me the Palm. I just sent the Palm back to them so after they get it and make sure I did the survey they will mail me my check.
I'm glad I did it but I'm not certain if I would do it again. It got a little boring after a few days. But it was easy money.
I was also offered to do a survey of writing in a little diary everytime I spent any money at all. I think I would have enjoyed doing that one but it only paid $10 and I was thinking it could get somewhat invasive into a person's privacy.
So I turned that down.

There are so many things I wish that I had known at a younger age. I think most everyone can look back and find a few of those things. I know on a more personal level I wish I had told my Mom more how important she was to me. We were very close but we argued and stuff a lot. I wish I showed my appreciation more to her when I was younger.

What I really wanted to write about now though is that I wish I had valued an education more when I was young and had gone to college. I did ok in school but did not like it and couldn't wait to get out. I said from an early age that "I just want to get my high school diploma and work in a factory." Thats pretty much what hasppened too. WARNING: Be careful what you wish for.
I still believe there is nothing wrong with working in a factory. And I know many people working in lower paying factory and retail type jobs with very good educations. But I now know that an education opens up a lot of doors and oportunities that just don't exist with only a high school diploma.
And its not just about money. Money and status are of course the obvious things that a higher education brings. But I'm also thinking of other oportunities that are much more important to me. I was thinking at one point in time (not very long ago) of signing up for the peace corps. They were not very interested in me at all because thet wanted people with college degrees or special skills. I figured the desire to help the world was enough. But thats simply not the case. I still feel thats a little bit backwards. But it shows how important an education can be even if you are not looking to "just make money".

I know its never too late to get started. But for me (in a way) it is too late. I'm almost 45 years old. I'm now working in retail and for the most part I actually like most of what I do. I also am a firm believer in self-education. I believe learning is a life process that doesn't just occur in a classroom. Travel(I sing many praises of),reading,watching educational television,and the internet are all things that can also teach valuable lessons. But until now I never realized how important that classroom is too. So as corny as it always has sounded,
"Stay in School!"

I've been unhappy with my internet service for awhile. I never really cared for it in the first place because of the way it was set up. It had the basic software of AOL that was altered into something else. Plus I didn't have POP email on it. Fortunately someone on this site helped me get a gmail email account which I like very much and that helped appease me a little. I only have kept the same internet service for 3 reasons.
1) It worked even if I didn't like it.
2) it was very low cost ($7.95 a month)
3) I was too lazy to bother changing it. LOL
BUT, lately it has not been working very well. It seems to have slowed down and it
never connects on the first try. I always have to shut it back down and start all over again. So today I finally had enough with it and signed up for a new service. Its still dial up. But it has Pop email and it only costs $4.99 a month. It seems to be working great so far.

I really would love to have cable access but I just can't afford it or justify the price. I'm happy enough with what I got now as long as it works.

Well the end of October started getting
expensive. The heat finally started kicking in and its still quite chilly in here. Fortunately the weather has been holding up pretty good all considered.
Also, my sister has been visiting so I've been eating out more (I eat out a lot anyway)and we went to 3 haunted houses.
I also bought the Palm TX that I have been saving up special for. I really like it but its still basically more of a toy.
Hopefully once I figure it all out it will be of some real use. Ohhh, and even though my electric bill is always very good, I'm expecting it to be higher next billing with my sister visiting and stuff. So yeah, a lot more spending in general lately.

Last year I had a big Halloween event to attend and decided way ahead of time I wanted to be a zombie. I like zombies.
The costume tuned out to be very frugal.
I bought a bunch of makeup after the Halloween before for practically nothing. And I found a perfect suit at a thrift store for $4 dollars. I abused that suit like crazy and did everything possible to stain it up and zombiefy it.
Turned out nice and had the best Halloween EVER last year.

Last night, I went to a haunted house that had a dress up night and got to wear my costume again. Didn't cost me anything this year cause I still had leftover make-up and everything. Won a silly little award for Best Costume, but had fun. So yeah that was one of the best $4 I've spent.

On a separate but similar note. Its funny about dressing up in a costume. Normally, I'm not at all popular with women. Most seem to think I'm a nice guy but otherwise don't want to have anything to do with me. But whenever I've worn my costume people all talk to me and women want to touch me or have their pictures taken with me. I just find it a funny quark in human nature I guess.
I'm thinking of dressing up like that on a daily basis but then I might just seem weird. LOL.

I probably spend the least on electric than anyone I know. I was afraid that recently I've used a lot more though. For one thing since its October and I'm a huge horror movie fan I started my own little horror movie marathon. I watch at least one scary movie evey night on a DVD or video this month. Kinda silly maybe but I love that stuff and its cheap entertainment. Well anyway I just got my new electric bill emailed to me and it was
a whopping $16.31. So I was very pleased with that. Its usually around 18 to 20 dollars. So far the Gas (heating) bill is very low too but I haven't run any heat yet and winter is on its way. Thats always scary.

In other news the Cleveland Indians won last night. YAY! I'm not a huge baseball fan. I haven't even watched a game in a couple of years. But last night I came home from work and noticed the game was
still on so I started watching it. It was
tied for quite awhile at 6-6. It was so exciting when the Indians kicked butt at the very end and won 13-6. Now if they can just win again tonight.

Not much else is new here. Although that can be a good thing. I'm still saving up
to buy a Palm TX. I'm only about 100 dollars short of what I need to get it.
I like saving up special for some things. It makes it more worthwhile when you actually get it.

I signed up for Pinecone awhile back when I first heard of it here on this site and someone had posted a link to sign up. I really liked it and made out pretty good at first. Then they stopped sending me surveys. I was actually upset about that but got comfort from some other's blogs that they weren't getting surveys either. Anyways last week Pinecone finally wrote and they want me to refer people to them cause they need more panelists. After that I finally got a new survey. I'm hoping that whatever their problem was that they start sending some surveys my way again.

Ohhh and I've been doing MySurvey about the same amount of time and I'm finally
about ready to get my first $10 from them. They take way too long to be able to get anything. I keep doing it though cause the surveys are very easy and kinda fun.

So far today has been un-eventful. I work at one of the "big" retail stores in the evening shift so my day is really just starting.

I sorta started my own version of the $20 Challenge. I haven't worked out all the rules and details for it very well. But so far since I started it in June I've saved over $160.
My goal for the challenge is to save up enough to buy a Palm TX PDA. (about 400 dollars)Its not a necessity, its a want. But it will be very useful.

I was wondering if anyone on here that has G Mail that could send me an invite or whatever they call it? I've wanted to get GMail but on their website it says you either have to give them your cell phone number. I'm weary of doing that and besides a lot of people still do not have cell phones. Anyways, the other option is to get "invited" to GMail by someone that already has it. So if anyone has it and wouldn't mind sending me an invite I would appreciate it very much.

Well I rambled enough for now. Hope everyone has a great day.

Hi everyone. I'm new on here and this is my first blog of all time. Well I'm not really so new. I've been reading all your blogs for a long time now. It feels like I know many of you without even ever having spoken to you.
I have my doubts on how much I'll actually blog. I already spend too much time on the computer so that may be a bad thing.
I'm fortunately not in debt. I only have a mortgage and its a fairly low mortgage at that. I'm also a pretty good saver.
But I do not make very much money so there isn't all that much usually to save. I also hope to use this blog to get myself more organized and de-cluttered. I've been working on that for a couple years and have made good progress but definately need to do more. I figure if it took me somewhere around 40 years to get cluttered that a few more years to get myself de-cluttered isn't so bad.
I really do love this website. Its the only blog I usually read and I'm addicted to it now.

Thanks for listening.
Patrick.