I started 2015 with a no spend day. I hope to have many, many more of these. For lunch and dinner we had leftovers of cheese enchiladas and Spanish rice which I had cooked the day before. There are still plenty of leftovers so I will will make frozen dinners out of the rest. I usually have about 20 frozen dinners in my freezer at any time. This works out great for lunches for my husband and is great for those times I don't feel like cooking.

I sold one purse on eBay for a total of $85. I have a brand new Samsung phone listed and am hoping to sell it but all of my best offers are coming from overseas which makes me nervous. I have it listed at over $400 and possibly losing that much money makes me nervous. It is a replacement phone for one that stopped charging and I had already started using a different phone before it arrived in the mail. Hopefully I will get an offer from someone in the US with good feedback and will be able to sell it with no problems.

Has your New Year gotten off to a good start?

As of today from Jan 01,2014 I have sold 254 items on eBay for a total of 12,538. Not bad, with my Dad being ill with cancer and dying this year I didn't really try all that hard so I know I can do much better. I'm going to try harder this coming year and hope to at least double that amount. I'm working on cleaning and taking pictures of 45 purses to list by tomorrow for the New Year 2015. Ebay is having free listing until Jan 4th, so will take advantage of that. For those of you who do list and sell on eBay, how did you do in 2014?

I have sold 27 items for $1291.61. Three weeks of the month gone as of today. I have not been listing much as I have been doing other things. My sister and youngest son are going to start helping me find items, list and ship. We will split the profits 3 ways. I think if we all three work at it we can make some serious money.

I'd like to use my part of the money to put back into the small community in which I live. The ladies group I belong to would like to do things for the children that live there. This is a very poor community. We went Christmas caroling year before last and I was shocked at the state of the homes in which we visited. Windows knocked out, holes in the walls and floors. It truly was heart breaking. When I no longer have to worry about my Father I plan to get very involved with the community and also visit the hospital and nursing home in another nearby small town.

Are there very many very poor people in the community that you live in? When I see how bad some people truly have it I realize how blessed I've always been. Even at my very poorest, which I thought was pretty poor, I was very blessed compared to the majority in the little town that I live closest to.

For the first six days of July my ebay sales are 768.00, that was selling 15 items, I'm just going to guesstimate that my profit is around 550.00 after shipping and fees, including ebay, paypal also.

How's everyone else doing?

I have sold three items in the first two days on eBay, all were purses. Are we reporting total sales or profits? My total sales as of today are 178.00, profits are 148.00. How many people are doing this challenge? How has everyone else started out the month?

We made and sold tamales at church twice this past week. The first time we planned a tamalada we made 20 dozen tamales but we kept getting orders so we made them again a few days later. In all we sold 43 dozen tamales to raise for missions. We charged $7 a dozen so we made 300.00 or so.

Have you ever been to a tamalada? It is alot of fun if you have several people helping and you get to chat and laugh for hours. Good for the soul!

I'm doing great with my grocery spending this month, so far I've spent 134.35 for the month and have 115.15 in the budget that I can spend. I've had several no spend days, but that's easy to do when you live out in the boonies!

I've spent way too much on Christmas gifts, I haven't gone over board but have spent more than I normally do. Oh well, it's a special time of the year!

My mother goes for her very first chemo treatment tomorrow, I hope she makes it through these treatments without it making her so sick that she regrets her choice. She had considered not taking it as she was afraid it would diminish the quality of her life. She didn't want to spend what time she has left being bed ridden and sick. She's lost so much weight now and is so sick to her stomach that surely it can only help. Anyway, please send lots of prayers and positive thoughts our way, we can use them!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week!