Today was a great day at the mail box. My free pair of Hanes underwear arrived but the best was the doggie breath treat for our great dog Bogey. When I got out of the car with the mail, Bogey was there to meet me. She was excited when I told her that she had mail addressed to her. Yes, I know she is a dog but she still gets excited when she gets mail. It's nice to get a little end of the day treat expecially on a Monday.

This morning Mom and I got started on her clothes closet's. There were three and they were all full. She was astounded when we were done. She was very good about getting rid of things. Found a few surprises such as a nice London Fog coat and a very nice leather coat that she had forgotten about. At this time my car is full, trunk and seat with clothes that I brought home from her house. These clothes will be shared with out local homeless shelter, some will go through a yard sale and some on e-bay. Mom still kept some things that I think she will part with in the next few months. 22 pair of jeans and she wants to get those pared down even more.
We also cleaned up her ceilng fans and other light fixtures. I have been very negligent in helping my mom with her house cleaning chores choosing to just let things stay the way they were since it was comfortable for her. I find that now she is happy that we are doing some real cleaning. It makes me feel better also. Tomorrow is a stay at home day for me to get my own house in order. We will work more on mom's house after that.

Ok, I finally bit the bullet and paid the POA dues. We were holding off on paying them because they simply increased them to pay for the people that were not paying. DH said this was not a fair way to treat those that were paying so we filed a protest. The dues are $150.00 per year which really is not that bad. The POA is now trying to do a better job. I have been really looking at the things we can use what money we have to go ahead a pay off. Will report on that later.

I took this week off work to spend time helping my mom who is 77 declutter. Today we spent most of the day just going thru her cookbooks. I bet we took at least 110 cookbooks to the city library. She kept about 12. I am very proud of her. I also convinced her to finally let me take the encyclopedias that are from the 1950's. They are all going in the trash tonight. We cleaned up her china cabinet which held more junk than anything else. She is feeling better just being able to let go of some things. She still has about 15 different types of bibles but did let go of a few. Tomorrow we will work on her stuff in the closets and dresser drawers. Her house is not air conditioned so today was also a reminder what it is like to like to live simply with nothing but fans going to keep me cool. I have became very spoiled .

A couple of days ago, I took a day off from work to take care of the grandbabies. I was really looking forward to spending the day with them but woke up with a horrible headache and being sick to my stomach. I did not want to cancel so I kept them anyway. Thank goodness they are both such sweeties so we made it ok. After DH and I took them to meet their parents, DH and I went out to eat. We went to the Red Robin and split and meal and had just one soft drink o was able to spend less than $12.00 for dinner. Yesterday, I did have a co-worker pick me up a boneless stuffed chicken that was $18.00 but it is going to make us several meals so it was not too bad. Today, DH was able to find two paid of shoes on a great sale. One paid was Rockports that only cost him $20.00 and they are new just being replaced by a even newer version. Also got DH to agree to drop the lawn service that we have been paying $50.00 per month for. Every little bit helps.

Ok,so now I am desperate. I have decided to try out this experiment. I know it will sound crazy but I am very interested to see how it works.

Here's my plan: I am going to ask everyone I meet to give (not loan) me one dollar. For those that do, I am going to take their name and enter their name along with why they gave me a dollar into my blog.

This should open some interesting dialogue. Would you give someone a dollar just because they asked for it? Would you want to know what they needed it for? Would you be willing to part with a dollar when you are trying to get yourself out of debt.

If asked why I need the dollar my response will be - that I am conducting a social experiment and seeing how willing people are to give a handout for no particular reason.

How important is that one dollar to you.

Ok, maybe being broke has made me lose me mind.

This Is going to be a very long blog since I have been busy the last couple of days. Friday night was our regular date date. We went out for pizza and actually did pretty well. We normally order a large pizza with multiple toppings for the two of us so we can have “leftovers” we also both order either a beer or a soft drink. Well this time we ordered a medium pizza with only two toppings and both had water to drink. We did get one order of garlic bread to share. We got out of there spending only $16.93 that included the tip and we usually spend about $28.00 when we go there. Felt pretty good about that. Even Saturday was not too bad. The pool at our development has been opened and so spent most of the day at the pool while hubby played golf. Nice thing about the pool is that you can get a soft drink from the grille area with free refills and that was nice can also get free ice water. However, I did get hungry and so paid $3.00 for a hot dog. Not real happy with that. Will take my own food/snacks in the future or just run back to my house which is only a couple of blocks down the street. Sunday was a different story, the cupboards were also bare so grocery shopping cost me a whopping $163.00 for two people. I had several coupons for free and two for one items but still overspent. They were purchases for the grandbabies, needed little swimmers for the 8 month old and a couple of toys and new clothes to stay at nana’s house for their visits. Did get some pool toys but that was at the Dollar Store so smart purchase there. I really did not make a grocery list – no time, but I did not using coupons and purchased as many store brands as I could so should have enough groceries for a few weeks. DH did some yard work for his mom and she paid him $100.00 he worked so hard I told him to keep this money – this is his for whatever he needs or wants. He is the saver in our home and I am the spender. He will probably have most of the $100 several weeks from now. Today is a new day and a new start on keeping on financial shape. Going to cancel the lawn service and have the house appraised to get rid of our PMI.

Finally Friday has arrived. My DH has been on vacation all this week so he has been getting some well needed home time. We often forget that way of the ways to take care of ourselves is to have some time carved out just for us to do nothing but want we enjoy doing. It's also nice that he looks forward to me coming home from work. Today since it has been slow at work, I have been putting all our known expenses for the month on the calendar. Good news is together we have a great income. Bad news is we still spend way over what we make. We are trying to do much better. I am cutting everywhere that I possibly can. One positive thing is I have eaten lunch at work every day this week. I used to eat out every day. I have a really good feeling about that. I also called and cut our cable down to just the basic channels. Now if we can just do more about our gas consumption.