We had a rummage sale this weekend. So far we made about $30 selling our stuff and about $40 in the FREE stuff we got from my friend. We will be open for a few more hours today, so hopefully will make a little more. But it just hasn't been very busy, and we didn't have any big stuff....mostly just clothes, books, and misc junk.

Also DH and I are on 2 coed softball teams, and had already paid the fee for both of them, $20 a piece. One of the teams couldn't get enough girls, so we got our money back from that, $20 for each of us, plus $20 that we paid for one of our friends cause he didn't have any money with at the time. So $60 total and I will just be adding that into our checking cushion, we are getting very close to meeting that goal!

Current Balance $12,660.00
+$15.00 Recycling
New Balance $12,675.00

ING $8115.00
Home Improvements(cash) $160.00
Cash $300.00
HSBC $4100.00
Total = $12,675.00

Another productive day, went to work and then......

Took in our pop cans again
20lbs at .55/lb = $11.00
Piece of siding = .41

Total is $11.41. So I transferred $15 to savings.

-Went to the bank
-Got the battery changed in my car starter remote ($8)
-Picked up a ring that I had taken to the jewelry store to get saudered together ($40)
-Bought a case of beer for our friend that did all of those home repairs ($20)

Normally we have several rummage sales every year, usually 3 or 4 between May and September. But this year due to the flooding in the area we weren't able to have any in May or June, and then by the time July came along my parents were in the middle of renovating their rental property so too busy to get everything ready for a rummage sale then.
Now that everything has settled down we are getting ready to have 2 rummage sales in 3 weeks at the end of August, beginning of September.
My friend who gave us a TON of clothes she did not want back in January was displaced due to the flooding and so had gone through all of their things again and had a bunch more to "donate" to the rummage sale. I always tell her she can put whatever she wants in the rummage sale, but she would just rather not mess with it at all, so she drops it off, we seperate everything, clean it up, mark it and store it and then we get to keep anything we make off of it. Back in January she brought almost all mens clothes and after everything was marked we would make about $70 if we sold all of it. This last week she brought a bunch more stuff....books, toys, more clothes, shoes, VHS movies, Christmas decorations etc. I marked everything and if we sell all of it that would be another $75...so almost $150 in free merchandise for the rummage sale!
We are also thinking about selling snowcones at this rummage sale in addition to the pop, juice, cupcakes and brownies that we normally sell. I have a snowcone machine and our freezer has an ice maker, so the only cost would be for the syrup.

July 2011 Mortgage Payment

Balance $130,300.00
+$407.19 Interest
+$307.59 Escrow
-$1311.16 Regular Payment
-$503.62 Principle Payment ($34.45 from recycling and $80.00 in change)
New Balance $129,200.00

YEAH WE ARE INTO THE $120's!!!!!!!!

$129K = 129 months = 10.75 years!

I took in our aluminum cans today. We had 53lbs at .65 a lb = $34.45. I will hold on to that check to add to the mortgage payment for July. Doing pretty good on my list, sad that my time off is almost over! This afternoon I am going to clean out the hot tub, I already drained it. Also planning to file and maybe work on the garage.
My Birthday was on Tuesday, my Mom and Dad got me a new softball glove which I really needed and also a new chest freezer since ours died. In the process of moving the new freezer in I found out that we have 4 sets of outlets in our house that do not work. Hoping my brother or a friend we have that is good with electrical can fix them for us.

(X)1)Dentist Apt
(X)2)Donate Blood
(X)3)Take in recycling
(X)4)Take back library books
(X)5)Clean out car
( )6)Organize garage
(X)7)Call chiro to check on DH's bill
( )8)Clean out study
(X)9)Wax eyebrows
(X)10)Laundry
(X)11)Clean bedroom
(X)12)Organize Tupperware cupboard
( )13)Clean out kitchen closet
( )14)Clean out hottub
(X)15)Boys Softball
(X)16)Girls Softball
(X)17)Go to BD lunch with Mom
(X)18)Go through purses for rummage sale
( )19)Work at trailer
( )20)File
(X)21)Create resume for Dad
( )22)Clean out new freezer

We stopped at a rummage sale today. Didn't find anything for us, but they did have a lot of books. I bought 24 books for .25 a piece, and 1 book for .50. So $6.50 total. The .25 books I know I can sell at our rummage sale for .75 a piece, and then the .50 book I can sell for $1. That would be a profit of $12.50. This is an easy way to make a little extra money. I only buy popular series that I have sold before and know will keep selling, and also make sure they are always in nice condition. The ones I bought today were like brand new, and the were Goosesbumps, Fear Street and Babysitters Club books. They always sell whenever we get any and are easy to store.

I have obscene amounts of clothes (girl - duh!) so everytime I get any new clothes I try to follow a rule to keep my closet from getting too out of control. Whenever I get any new items I take out the same kind of item from my closet, usually I put in the rummage sale box, sometimes throw away if it is something that died and I was just keeping cause I loved it at one time. So since I went shopping this weekend I went through and took out 2 tanktops, 1 shirt, a bikini and a belt for the rummage sale box. Those items covered the new ones I bought, and then for good measure I also added another tanktop threw away a pair of jeans that had been patched one too many times (seems to be a theme with me!) and a belt that was ready to break in half. This helps me a lot so that purging doesn't have to turn into a huge project, you can just do a little at a time.

At home sick again today. My cough and nose are still annoying, but overall feeling better, and my attitude has definitely improved..
So I decided to actually get out of bed and be a little productive today. I put away all of my 2010 papers that were in my file, took them all out, stapled everything together and put it in my long term file. Also stapled together all of the 2010 tax papers and put them in the long term file too.
Then I tackled my bedroom which was a total disaster. I had clothes everywhere. I am NOT good at putting away my laundry. So I spent a good 3 hours folding clothes and organizing my closet. I will admit, I am a clothes horder. I find all kinds of reasons to keep clothes that don't fit me, or that I haven't worn in years. I could probably purge 50% of my closet and not notice. Well I couldn't bring myself to do that, but I did get some things pulled out.
I threw away a cardigan that was my favorite cardigan for work when I worked at JCP (in 1999!), it had a hole in the shoulder seam, my favorite jeans from highschool that I have had patched at least 3 times and have a hole in the crotch again...and a belt, also from when I worked at JCP and it was cheapy and the backing was completely unglued.
I found several things to put in the rummage sale, 2 pairs of sweatpants, 7 shirts, 2 tanktops, 2 bras, 1 book, and 1 carabiner (which I found in my bra drawer...have no idea where that came from??).
Being productive definitely helps me feel better when I am feeling sick. When you lay around all day then you just feel worthless and that makes me feel worse. So I am glad I got something done today!

A friend of mine had clothes of her husbands that he no longer wanted. She knows that we do several rummage sales every year and asked if I wanted the clothes to sell at the rummage sale. She does not want any money back, she just wanted the clothes out of the house and said if I store them and mark them I can keep any money we make from selling them. Well I *finally* finished marking them all. There was a lot more then I expected! It was almost all mens XL, XXL, and XXXL polo and dress shirts. All in very nice, new condition. There were also several coats including a brand new (tag still on) Columbia fall jacket and a leather jacket from Wilson's Leather. I marked most of the shirts at $1.50 and the coats at $5.00. I am not sure yet what to put on the leather jacket.....it is kinda hard in the elbows like maybe something got spilled on it? I am going to have my Mom look at it and see what she thinks. All total there were 47 items, and if I sold all of them it would be $70 - that's not counting the leather jacket since I haven't marked it yet. Hopefully we can make a few bucks off of it! There was also 1 shirt that I gave to my Uncle (Steelers), 1 for my older brother (Jeff Gordon) and 1 for my little brother and 1 for my husband. None of them are XL+, but there were a couple of styles that would work for them.
ETA - Here is how we have done on this stuff in the sale:
8/27/11 $39.25
9/10/11 $56.10
5/18/12 $17.00
6/23/12 $2.00
8/24/11 $3.50
9/7/12 $10.00
6/15/13 $10.50
Total $138.35 FREE!!

Current Balance $6,805.00
+$50.00 to EF from DH's Paycheck
+$50.00 to Vacation Fund from DH's paycheck
+$100.00 to Anniversary Cruise Account
+$250.00 Rummage Sale Money to New Car Account
New Balance $7,255.00

The rummage sale was C R A Z Y Busy! The street I live on is like "rummage sale central" in my city and this weekend is the big rummage sale weekend of the year. It was so ridiculously busy all weekend and we are exhausted! DH and I made $350, $100 of that was sportscards my husband sold, and about $80 was snacks. The rest was "junk", books, clothes, and misc house stuff. I sold everything from the box of bathroom supplies I just marked including a shower cady for $1, shower curtain - liner - rings for $5, cup - toothbrush holder - soap dispenser for $5, bathroom rug for $2, and a few misc for another $3. So I am really glad I marked that box, cause that box alone made us $16. DH also sold the dartboard from the garage that wasn't for sale....lol. But it has been sitting in the same spot on the shelf since we moved in 3 years ago, so I am glad someone wanted to buy it for $5! The rummage sale as a whole made a little over $2800!! Outrageous! Most of that was my Mom's stuff, but my brother, SIL and my Mom's friend also made a couple hundred between them. I told DH he can do what he wants with the $100 he made on sportscards (he will probably buy some more, like he needs them!) and I am putting the other $250 into savings for a new to us car. Glad to be rid of some junk and very happy with how the sale went. We are still getting everything seperated and packed back up that was left, but have already put 4 boxes together for Goodwill as well.

We are having one more rummage sale this weekend. Today it was rainy, but hopefully it will be nicer out this weekend. I finally unpacked a box of old bathroom decor from when we moved into this house 3 years ago, toothbrush holder, cup, rugs, shower curtain, shower cady etc. Everything is nice, but did not match the color scheme we picked when we moved in. So got all of that marked, plus our old printer, lots of books and clothes. Hopefully we will make some cash and get rid of some junk.

Our total for the rummage sale came out to $47, so I transferred $50 to ING. Also had interest from ING.

Current Balance $7,575.00
+$30.00 Random Deposit
+$3.45 ING Interest
+$50.00 Rummage Sale
+$21.55 Even Out Amount
New Balance $7,680.00

We had another rummage sale this weekend. Did not sell too much, only about $50.00. But we did not put anything new out in this sale, and this is our 3rd one this summer. So I am still happy that we made something. Once we get paid from my Mom (she keeps everything organized for who sold what) then I am going to put that towards my Maid of Honor expenses. Then we will have $175 towards my $500 MOH goal! Also that is about 15 less books, couple less misc and couple less clothes we have to pack up.

Well we had a very successful rummage sale weekend. It had been raining here for the last 3 weeks and miraculously it was warm and sunny Friday - Sunday! So that was surprising and awesome! Friday we made $34.50, Saturday $37.75 and Sunday $9.00, plus my husband made $39.65 on his sports cards. So DH and I made $120.90. The rummage sale as a whole made $1114.75, my brother, SIL, Mom, and 2 friends were in the sale too, most of the money made was my Mom's as she has never ending stuff to sale. She really could have been on that "Hoarders" show at one time. She is doing a lot, lot better now, but still has garages full of stuff to sell and is working on getting items cleaned up, marked and boxed for the next rummage sale. We will probably have another one in a month or so. Our goal was $200 which we did not make, but I am happy with the $120 considering the most expensive things we had in the sale were only $5, most things we had were $2.00 or less. We put the .90 in our "pig" to add to our house payment (our pig is very full right now so June should be a good payment!) and I am saving the $120 for our trip to Deadwood in 2 weeks.

We are having a rummage sale with some family this weekend. We are hoping DH and I will make $200 for ourselves. We don't have much for big ticket items, mostly just books and clothes. We are also going to sell snack and pop. Usually there is a good turn out and $200 is pretty average for us. So hopefully it doesn't rain and we have a good turn out. I will keep you posted on our $200 goal!

Today was the 1st day of can season! It was finally nice enough out for DH and I to go for a walk outside. We go for walks a lot when the weather is nice enough, and we always bring a grocery bag with and collect aluminum cans as we go. I know some people may find this "below them" or gross or whatever. But I actually look forward to it. I am getting excercise, helping the enviroment, and also getting a little more money for savings. It's like an enviromental scavenger hunt! We don't get a lot of money for cans, but it is still free money. Anyways today we got a lot of cans since the snow has been melting here and uncovering them. DH also found 2 pennies, so they went straight into our piggy bank for the mortgage principle! Feed the Pig!

Ran some quick errands today and got some amazing deals.
First I got bags of frozen chicken breast for 50% off, limit 2. Also Progresso soups $1 per can s got 10 of those. I see that sale frequently, but it really is a good deal for very yummy and healthy soup.
I had another free coupon for VS undies. This is the 2nd free pair i have gotten in a month and I NEVER shop there?! But free undies I will take, so picked those up for free, reg price $8.50.
Lastly DH got a coupon for $5 towards a $5 or more purchase from Famous Footwear. We have gotten these in the past also and try to find cheap shoes or socks that we can get for free since we have no need to spend any money with these coupons. Well we found some $5 shoes in the womens, but nothing that I would have wanted and could not find any sock packs for around $5-$6 so we ended up buying some boys sport cleets. They were regular $45, on clearance for $5, so we did not have to pay anything! We do not have any kids, but we can sell the cleet in our rummage sale. Brand new $45 cleets still in the box I am sure we can get at least $5 - $10. Feel like we did really good with the free shoes and free undies!

We put our heated blanket away today. We keep our heat VERY low all winter (around 55 degrees) and use the heated blanket to help at night. I love it! It's a lot cheaper to use the electricity of keeping the blanket on for about 8 hrs then to keep an entire house heated to an "optimum level" 24/7. According to the weather report we should only have a few more really cold nights so should be able to wear warm enough clothes and cuddle enough to keep cozy!
I also cleaned my bedroom (4 socks under the bed, guess it's been awhile since I cleaned under there!) I pulled 3 pairs of pants, 1 skirt and 1 jean skirt and marked them and put them in the rummage sale box. I have so much more that I could put in the rummage sale because a lot of my clothes are too small....but since I am working on losing weight I am not ready to part with them all yet. But the items I pulled I would probably not want to wear even if they did fit. So at least my closet is a little lighter!