Paying For No Service

When the internet is down with your service provider for more than a day, should the customer have to pay for those days if there is no internet access? I have to say no. But that's exactly what's being expected for some customers who are being told there will be no internet service for nearly 3 days due to maintenance.

Yes, I understand maintenance is necessary at times, but for nearly 3 days? What the heck???? What's your opinion? Should customers have to pay for those days??



Joy Smith also known as The Insane Writer, is the author of the Sci-Fi novel, The Generation. You can email her at silent_beautie@yahoo.com She can also be found on Twitter @theinsanewriter.


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Technology VS. the Old Fashioned Way

I don't know about the rest of the world, but I started paying our insurance online instead of in person. At first my husband wasn't too happy about it since he likes to have cash in hand and see where the money is being spent, but after a while he's decided he doesn't mind not having to talk to our insurance agent when it's really not necessary. It's really a time saver for the most part since our insurance company isn't too far from where we live, but still it's well worth it in my opinion.

I know my family still pays bills the old fashioned way even if it means driving an hour or so away just to pay that bill. Now they don't drive clear to another state if it's hundreds of miles away (instead they send a money order), but if it's near by, they drive there. In my opinion that's a lot of gas money they could be saving. But then again they don't have a computer and I think in a way it's a way of getting them out of the house.

What do you think? Do you pay your bills online or do you still do it the old fashioned way?

2 week Financial Goal Update

Instead of doing a monthly goal update, I'm doing a 2 week update. Part of the reason I am doing this is because I need to put the information into my worksheet and I can't do that until I update here on my blog.

While my freelance writing jobs were short the last few weeks due to, sickness and natural disasters, I did top the $100 mark, but I'm still short by $76.11 in order to pay the bills for October. So, it looks like I'll be working this weekend to try and make some extra money.

September 1st thru September 12th

Google Adsense: $29.30
Kontera Ads: $0.19
Payu2blog: $15.00
Payperpost: $17.00
SocialSpark: $6.50
Private Sales: $56.00

Total Earned: $123.89
Total Needed: $200.00
Total Still Needed: $76.11 (anything over that will be used to pay off debt and put towards a car)

I want to thank those who visited google and kontera ads. It really helped me meet my financial goals for the past two weeks.

An Update on My Kids and My Debt Goal

First off, I must than Bokjae and his beautiful wife for their continued efforts in helping me with my kids. They sent me another $20 last night. They are such wonderful people and two of my great friends. If you have not visited their blog: Listening, Learning, Living, please drop by and say hi. I promise you will not be disappointed.

Donations: $20
Google Adsense: $0.00
Kontera: $0.00
Smorty: $6.00
Payu2Blog: $10.00
Payperpost: $5.00
Associated Content: $4.00

I also met my goal of $12.50 for the day for the credit card I want to pay off. I am very excited about this and will continue to make an effort to meet that goal until that card is paid off. It will be $50 dollars less a month I have to pay towards bills!

Figuring Out Financing and Getting Out of Debt!

Lately I've been thinking a lot about financial issues. Especially after I got caught without extra money to help my kids at the last minute. With jobs around here being far and in between and pay being on the low end for anywhere you work in this town, it's been very tough.

Years ago the option of Credit counseling was available, so I looked into it with my ex-husband. We had piled on the bills and I thought maybe credit counseling could help. As it turned out it wasn't right for us and we ended up paying most of the bills off on our own.

Well, that was the past and even though I still have some bills from the past, it's nothing too serious that can't be handle with some re-arranging. I checked with a program called BillsIQ and found it to be kind of an interesting thing.



My BillsIQ turned out to be a 72% a C. Not bad, but it could be so much better.

I think with that thought in mind, the first thing I really want to do is pay our insurance on a 6-12 months basis instead of every month. It will eliminate the $3 a month fee and we won't have to worry about insurance for another year. We'll save $30 a year that way. Might not seem like much, but $30 is enough to buy groceries or gas for several days.

But then again, maybe it would be better to pay off a credit card bill instead? It would save us even more since the monthly interest rate alone is almost $30!

If you had the money, what would you eliminate from the bills in your life?

Update on My Kids

I'm running a little behind on my updates for my kids so I am giving 2 days worth of updates. Thank you to those who have been helping with this. I really appreciate it. To be honest, this has given me the motivation to really pay off the bills I have been talking about, so I am going to start keeping a daily tab of what I make online. For those who enjoy my writing and would like to donate, you can do so by visiting my sponsors, etc. Any help is always appreciated. Anyway, here's the rundown on my update:

July 14th

Google Adsense: $0.15
Kontera: $0.00
payperpost: $5.00,
Payu2blog: $5.00,
SocialSpark: $5.50

July 15th

Google Adsense: $0.27
Kontera: $0.00
Payu2blog: $10.00
Associated Content: $4.00

This and That

Tomorrow is the last day to vote on my story, if you'd like. For more on that, see my Last Post.

Moving on, a few people have mentioned that the purple on my blog is a little harsh on the eyes. Because it has been mentioned by more than one person now, I am considering changing the colors. I am not sure what colors to go with and I doubt I will get to it this week, but I will get it done eventually.

Today has been a very busy day with people coming in and out all day long. I finally managed to get chairs for the wedding and my Aunt has volunteered to bake my cake, so the only thing left to do is to pick up the license tomorrow, get white dress shirts for all of the boys, a pair of black dress shoes for Q and get some decorations. Whew! I still have to find out whether or not it will be raining that day or not.

The interesting thing will be... I invited both of my aunts who have been feuding with one another for several years now. Sigh. I am hoping they will be respectful enough to at least hold the feuding for that day. And I am sure they will. Heck, maybe they'll even get over their battle and forget the past. Of course that is wishful thinking!

I still have to write up the ceremony for our friend who is marrying us. I guess after work, I will do that tomorrow. Speaking of work I just submitted 40 article ideas to my boss. That should keep her busy for a while. HA!  

My goals for this month is to pay off a past bill that my fiance didn't know he had. Not sure what's next after that. I will probably pay off a small bill that I have been paying on from my past. I am really excited to be getting the bills paid off and to be debt-free! This month will be hard though because of the wedding, T's birthday and Q's appointment. Then In September we'll be headed to Oklahoma for my oldest son's surgery.

Well, it's time for me to say goodnight. Until tomorrow......

A Busy, Busy, Day....

It's been a busy day here. Actually to be exact, a busy few days. Unexpectedly I received a phone call from my oldest son who wanted to come down to visit. Of course I was excited to hear that he wanted to come and visit, so I said ok. It was also common knowledge to know that if my oldest son would be visiting, my youngest would want to as well. My middle son was planning to visit as scheduled at the end of this month, but when he came down with his brothers, he made a last minute decision to stay as well. So was I prepared?? Of course not! LOL But I did have enough groceries to tide us all over until next pay day.

To make sure of that however, I decided to drop by our local food bank, just in case. I've used them once before in such emergencies and received enough food to last for a few week.s This time however, they were only able to supply us with about 2 days worth of food. The food bank can only be used 3 times a year and I dropped by not long after Christmas for my first visit. Meaning I have one more visit to go and that's it for the rest of the year. I am hoping I will not need to use it again.

I do know about a program called Angel Foods, but you have to dish out $25 in advance and believe it or not even $25 is hard for us to come by at the moment.

5 kids, a large mortgage payment, bills and a job and a half just doesn't stretch as far as we'd like it to. On top of that, my middle son does not have clothes, so I have to figure out what to do there. Hmmm

Sooo until my boss pays me, we're scrimping big time to make ends meet. We'll be fine though, but I think it has my fiance freaking out. So in the mean time I'll be walking on eggshells...