MarksvilleandMe takes on the 52 Week Savings Challenge

I was saying I would like to save a little something this year and while scanning Pinterest I found a great way to save that I think even our family can accomplish. It is the 52 week savings challenge and MarksvilleandMe is ready to take it on.

Here is a look at what it looks like. I am sure several sites have the charts available to print but I chose the site below. You can click on the picture to reach the page or go to Easily Save Almost $1400 in 2014 – 52 Week Savings Challenge.

I know I have heard family, friends, and have seen other bloggers wishing they could just save more this year so if anyone else wants to take on this challenge, why not give it a try, if all works out we will all be $1378 richer by the end of 2014.

Goals for 2014

As usual I thought I would put my goals to pen and paper or in this day and age computer and internet. We start this year with our bank account at 83.11 and our savings 0.00. Would love to work on the savings a bit more this year, but first and fore most is paying down our debt which isn't much at all. We have been credit card free for about 7 years now and have paid most of them off. We have a few more bills we owe and would like to see them all paid up before the end of 2014 putting us completely debt free for the first time in a long time. We have done it before and we are close to doing it again. This time we are not going back unless we buy a home of our own. It just is not worth it to have anything hanging over your head when hard times roll in, which is hard for us because we are spenders rather then savers.

I was able to hit my goal of making $1000.00 last year online topping out at $1545.41 so I will set this years Goal at $1,500.00 and see where it goes. You may ask how do you make money online? Well for me it is a few sites I do here and there on top of surveys which I have been doing way before I had a computer and they use to come in the mail. I haven't made a dime blogging yet, but others say you can so I would like to see if I can make that happen too, but for those keeping tabs my goal is for online sites not blogging. If I make money blogging I will fill you in at years end. I will also post over the year about sites where I make my online money which in our house is used for birthday and Christmas presents, and really helped out with our budget, in case anyone would like information and would like to do the same.

For me personally I would like to shed some more pounds the numbers on the scale have been up and down all year. Mainly from being on and off of the medication that makes me able to do things I normally don't have the energy for or because I am in too much pain to get much done. Such is the life of living with Fibromyalgia. Always a surprise to find out where you have pain from day to day and the  days there is none while both having energy is even further in between. This is why when I am feeling well I use it while I have it, like yesterday I used it all up and today I am hurting all over, but I was able to get a lot done and the family had a blast ringing in the New Year, well worth the pain I am in now. You can follow my weight loss over at the above tab Pam's Fight to Lose Weight.

As a family we thought we would like to start a once a month family dinner night where everyone is invited in our family. Those who come can enjoy time together with us and those who don't can always come the next month. The door will be open either way. I have to iron out the day and it has to be soon so I can let those who would like to be a apart of our dinner nights know so they can plan accordingly. We sit down almost every night as a family for those who are in our household but having extended family and our children who have grown and flown the nest would really be nice.

As a blogger I am going to work on game reviews with our family over the year, and also branching off to do a blog about places in the area where we live which is called the Tri-State area. New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. I will base it in the nearby towns near where we live and if all works out well branch out even further as time goes by. Not sure if I should open a new tab for that or list it right here under a Heading stating something like MarksvilleandMe visits ________.  

Of course I have tons more planned like my daughter Dennise's Sensational Seventeenth Birthday in April, Dorothy and Deanna's combined  half Birthday's Candyland style between May and June. Working on getting a new vehicle, purchasing new living and computer room furniture, painting our bedroom, the bookshelf in the hall upstairs, and the neat rolling doll house bookcases we picked up for free a few winters back. Growing a bigger garden this year, painting and making our enclosed porch a nice retreat to entertain guests during the warmer months, maybe even add a fire pit outside if our landlord ever fixes the railings on our front porch. A trip down south to see my sister and the colleges Dennise would like to attend, which will also double as a much needed vacation we haven't had in about 8 years. I might even be able to visit the ocean for the first time ever in my life which would be awesome.

The biggest thing this year for me is that I am here, alive, and ready for God to lead me, which I know may be on a totally different path then what I would plan, but something I am willing to do for him, even if I do kick and scream a bit along the way. Here is to a New Year and all of the possibilities it holds for my family and yours. Let's make it the best year we can.

Full of energy on New Years Eve

So thankful for the energy I have today. Been taking advantage of it while it lasts. With Fibromyalgia you just never know when you will both be pain free and have energy. It just does not happen that often.

So far today we have gotten the Christmas tree is down, decorations are packed away, the  laundry has been washing, the rest of the clothes have been being sorted and folded as they come out of the washer, the living room is back to normal, dishes have been washed, downstairs has been vacuumed, cleaned the downstairs bathroom, went through the sock drawer, bathing suit drawer.  Dennis, cleaned up down in the basement, pepperoni has been in the crock pot all day for subs, and I am still going strong.

Dennise, Deanna, and Dorothy have even helped out a little here and there. Waiting right now for the laundry to be done so I can change it out then mop the bathroom floor. Not sure what I will do next maybe vacuum upstairs, clean the upstairs bathroom and put away our clothes. Plenty of more hours until the New Year is here might as well use up all of the energy I had left over from this year. No sense in wasting it all.

Who knows I might even be able to get a few more blogs up before the end of 2013. So excited to see what the New Year has in store for our family. If you stick around I am sure you will catch a glimpse through my blogs, not only on this page but any of the above pages which you are all welcome to visit anytime you would like. Ok break over, not back to work.

New Years Plans 2013 reviewed.

Since the original site I used to blog at is having technical difficulties I thought I would share here how our family has done with the plans we had for 2013.

In red will be the updates. I will up date any total on the 31st.

Originally written by me on January 01, 2013 09:05 AM EST on Gather.com

First day of the New Year and I am just sitting down to write our goals out for the New Year, which is alright because I have been thinking of them, just haven't sat down to write them. So here I am.

This year we will continue to pay down out debt, we made a huge dent last year and we are nearing the top of the mountain. We are starting the year with 2.00 in the bank, 0 in savings, unless you count our container of change, but then again Dennis is unemployed at the moment so the only income we have is the money I make from doing child care, which doesn't cover much. He is yet to get a payment from Unemployment but talking to others they haven't had one yet either. When Dennis does go back to work they were already told there would be another lay off in the summer but that is subject to change depending on how many orders they get for the machines to run.

My husband did return to work but it was short lived because he was injured at work when he fell on February 12th, 2013. He had a total quad tear. He is currently still considered 50% disabled and has so many restrictions he will be lucky if he ever finds another job, but it doesn't stop him from trying. While out on Workmans comp which he still receives along with he was laid off so now that he is not a 100% disabled he is able to collect unemployment as well. Also because of the kind of job he had he was offered 20,000 dollars to return to college. We don't get the cash or course but it is in an account to pay for college for him for up to 2 1/2 years which is awesome if you ask me and when the spring semester starts he will be in the computer security/ forensics field, which is right back where he started almost 20 years ago when he entered college. 

We finished one bill and are well on our way to paying yet another one off which should happen sometime in 2014. Yippee.

I do child care only a few hours a week as well as a merchandising job I picked up when my husband was injured that I can work around my Fibromyalgia that I was diagnosed with around the same time my husband was injured. When it rains it pours in our lives. Currently I have a lawyer working on a Disability claim for myself. 

Amount in Bank  83.11           Amount in Savings 0.00

With those warnings we will be very careful with our money, to make sure we can make it through the next layoff when it comes, God willing anyways. We look forward to the taxes coming in this year. As most of you know almost all of the taxes went on fixing up our van last year, so we weren't able to add a second vehicle. So if all goes well we will this year. There are other things we need like a Refrigerator, and Stove. What our landlord put in here is junk, and I don't know if I want to trust that he would get something of better quality so we might just go ahead and buy our own which we will know are of good quality and then have his men come and get the set that is here out. I could think of lots of other things we would like to have but those will be our main focus this year.

We didn't add another vehicle since we were not driving as much because of my husband injury, but we did get the Refrigerator and Stove. The taxes were used wisely to pay off bills, and get things we needed for the house, which came in handy when insurance checks were late. 

I did really good last year with making money online, I was keeping track on my computer trying to reach 1000.00 but not sure if I made it because in June and then again a few months later my computer crashed so I lost all of the information. This year I will keep a hard copy, which I had last year and then Dennis thought I should keep the information on my computer. We see how that ended. Keeping hard copies are still good to do, you just never know when something like that will happen.

I lost my information again this year a few times but got smart back tracked and was able to keep records of most of it. Pretty sure I got most of anyways. My goal was a $1000 my grand total so far has been $1545.41. Not sure if I will make my goal bigger then I made or just round it to $1500 for next year.

We only have one Huge milestone this year which will be Dennise's Sweet Sixteen, other then that just regular Birthdays, Holidays, and School Functions. We will have to save for School supplies for the 2013-2014 school year as well as Christmas for next year, but if I do as well as I did last year with earning I can put a big dent in the shopping again.

We did well with everything except Dennise's Sweet Sixteen instead she will be having a Sensational Seventeen Party in 2014.

I have been working on getting down to 350 lbs so that I can start to use the Tred Mill I would like for my Birthday. Samantha said she would help pay for it so that she has something to run on, since she hasn't really been able to because of her work schedule, and of course it would be good for Dennise as well. I am sure even Dennis, and Deanna might use it too, so it would really be a gift for everyone. The gift of health is one of the best gifts we can receive.

I did get my Tred Mill, but I have not been on it nearly as much as I should have but hope to change that in the New Year. When I have my Fibromyalgia medicine I do find but with lots of insurance change overs we have found some will pay, some won't, and I went about 5 months out of the year with none because we didn't have insurance at all. My lowest weight of the year was 360!

We have all been talking and would like to see if we can do the family dinner night once a month that would include my mother-in-law, father-in-law, and maybe even my husband's sister and her kids if they would like to come, and sometimes even Buke and Taylor when they can make it over.

With everything that has gone on this did not happen at all. Maybe we can try for this again in the New Year.

One of the projects our family is working on is going to be playing different games and reviewing them online for everyone. You can see one of our video reviews on my youtube channel MarksvilleandMe. Make sure to subscribe if you would like to keep up with our family over there. I am not sure all games will have a video but there will be blogs done as well. Still working on setting that up over at blogspot, so stay tuned, I will post here when it is up and going.

This is still in the works. I didn't forget just have been busy with everything else that goes on in our daily lives.

Funny thing is now Deanna wants to do reviews. She did one yesterday which I hope to get up later today at Youtube, and maybe even a blog up. Speaking of blogs I use Gather as a Blog site, but would like to do more over on my other blogs. I did get a few more followers last year, but my main base is here. I thank everyone here who has also taken an interest in my posts on other sites, and have befriended me on Facebook.

I have continued to get a fan base but so far I only have 11 followers here. Would like to see that number grow. I did work a lot over on my blogs here which I think have gone well. 

God was very good to us last year, I think that this is more then enough to work on in the next year and will try to keep you all posted on how we do with it all at the end of the year. Happy New Year everyone!

Again God has blessed us and I did come back to post how we did so I got this one done too.

Did you make any goals for this year? How did they turn out?

MarksvilleandMe Purex FELS-NAPTHA Review and Giveaway

Can you believe it?

FELS-NAPTHA has been around since 1894. That in itself tells me that this product has staying power. Oddly with over 23 years of parenting I have never tried this product so I was really glad to be picked to review it for my readers. 

This is the product as I received it.

The inside looks packaged well.

My literature on what I am to do with the product I am to review. 

As you can see I will be having a giveaway for some free product coupons so make sure you enter below.

This is what it looked like before I opened it.

 

As you can see even though it was shipped well it didn't make the trip well. I do have to say it smells awesome and the bits and pieces that fell off became my first in laundry booster trial. 

The directions on the bar state that for Laundry Booster

1. Grate 1/16 of a bar into washer with detergent.

2. Wash as normal. 

When all was said and done seemed to work as well as another product I have been using, so I will be using this more often now that I know how well it works. Still need to try it on my whites for the full test here in Marksville.

You can also use it as a Stain Pre-treater by

1. Wetting stain,, then rubbing with bar. 

2. Waiting one minute and washing as normal.

Don't quote me but I think you also use this as an ingredient to make your own washing detergent as well, which is another thing I would love to try and do and see if the savings are really there or not, but until then lets get on with the giveaway.

There will be two winners. Each winner will recieve 1 Free Purex Fels-Naptha Laundry Bar coupon with a Maximum value of $1.75.

Open to USA residents only age 18 and over.

As always MarksvilleandMe wishes everyone who enters Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway  

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Disclosure
Being a part of Purex insiders I was  provided a full size product of Purex FELS-NAPTHA Laundry Bar in exchange for a product review. With that being said every review I do is done in my own words and also from my own or my families experience with reviewed product.