Arrgghhh

Okay, somehow I was just trying to fidget with my layout a little and then I totally lost all my stuff. I was able to get back to what you see now. I was thinking that I had lost all my widgets....that would have been a total bummer. I will have to play a little more another time to get my blog back to where I want it.

We have been doing good. We have managed to swap some debt around so that we currently are all on zero percent offers....the key will be to pay them off before we get off the zero percent. Emilia got a B on conduct so we are extremely happy. She has only had one A and maybe two B's most of the time she fluctuates between the C to F stage. Her academic grades are great though. We just got a progress report and she still has all A's. We are trying to encourage her to manage her behavior better....but we will see.

5 more ......

When Emilia started school last year it was a struggle to get her out of bed. (Still is) We have tried various tactics, including an alarm clock which she just sleeps right through. Currently it is Steve's job to wake her up. He goes in an tickles her, even when she wakes up grumpy she eventually giggles with him. Then I come in and take over helping her to get dressed. At some point last year we taught her to ask for "5 more minutes" and that after the five minutes she would have to get up without any problems and that worked for a while. Well the other morning I was waking her up, trying to let Steve sleep in because he had been called out during the night. Without even opening her eyes I hear her mutter...."5 more weeks" At this point, I figured she didn't even know what she had said, because she was barely awake. When I got her fully awake, I asked her if she remembered what she had said and she did. Then she proceeded to negotiate....if she wasn't allowed 5 more weeks, how about 5 days..... On the way to school that morning, I told her that if she wanted she could stay in bed all weekend long, she was so excited and wanted to do it. Of course then I mentioned that she wouldn't be able to go to the end of the year banquet for her basketball league, Needless to say she quickly changed her mind.

Skybus.com

Skybus.com is a fairly new Airline based out of Cleveland OH. The offered flights from Cleveland to select cities in the US for as little as $10 for the first ten seat (on select flights). They are able to offer such low rates because they charge for any extra things you need -- checking luggage, blanket, pillow, snacks, priority seating. If you are someone who just takes carry-ons and don't need all the extras then you can really make out. They have recently started to base flight out of Greensboro as well. I have had some good things and bad things in my experience with this airline.

I was able to fly my parents round trip from Los Angeles (Burbank, CA) to Greensboro, NC for under $400. I did not experience any issues when I booked their flight.

I recently purchased tickets for my family of 4 to fly the opposite way to visit them in June. We had to fly seperately because the kids and I are heading out for two weeks and Steve could only take off for one. After I bought the tickets ($120 going out, $120 coming back) for a total of $256.50 each, I went back to buy Steve's ticket and noticed that the day going out for me and the kids was now saying $100. That means that they over-charged by $20 each. When I bought Steve's ticket it was ($100 out and $120 bac) which should have totaled $220, but was totaling $240.

So all in all, it seems like I paid $80 too much. Even with that overcharge I still was way under any prices that were being offered through any other airline. I have emailed their customer service, because they do not have a phone line (one of the ways they are able to save money) so we will have to see what happens about getting a refund.

End of Month Round-up

Okay so it is the end of the month.....here is the total paid off from Jan 1st to Jan 31st. $1,040.46. Now mind you some of this was money from a balance transfer cash left over from Dec, so in actuality about half of that was from our paychecks. Still it is a great start. Looking forward to February when I have three paychecks and Steve has five. We will be able to really knock down some debt. Meanwhile we are trying as much as we can to lower our interest rates.