Pennies for Debra update

Quick update 

Latest total is 10762.

(If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see www.penniesfordebra.com)

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Pennies for Debra

If you were wondering – Pennies for Debra is still alive.

March 11, 2013 marked the fourth anniversary. And while I’ve had a few contributions this last year – mostly from my husband who would otherwise walk right past a penny on the ground – it might be on life support if one looks at the slow progress compared to the first few years.

I suppose when I was working at Pursuant where the idea was born, the fund was in plain sight and everyone got a laugh out of it. The jar now sits at home – and I must admit, my advertizing has been on the back burner.

We’ll have to wait and see what this next year brings.

It’s been a slow year

I mentioned in my November “By the Numbers” post that it has been slow (work wise) for my husband.  It’s also been a bit slow on the “Pennies for Debra” front.

In January, Pennies for Debra crossed the 10K mark.  I just counted up the pennies since then… 303.  So almost 10 months later, and the new count is 10,353.  ($103.53)

Slow – but we’ll take it! 🙂

October by the Numbers

So… again, a slow month. Not very exciting numbers – however, I guess for perspective, any number above 0 is better than what could have been. We did have someone give us $10 extra dollars for running an errand for them- so there was extra income this month 🙂

We’ve collected a few more items to craigslist or put on ebay, so hopefully we’ll have some extra income from selling those items soon.

Also, for my office Halloween luncheon, my department went as the social network, with all of us being different social media sites. I was Blogger, as in blogspot, where I blogged from 2005 – 2009. I had a Blogger shirt, very orange elements in my clothing and my prop, which was my “Pennies for Debra” jar because my “blog theme” was finances. (Not completely pretend. Ha!) Having the jar meant explaining what “Pennies for Debra” is. Which resulted in some contributions. 😀 So thanks for those that gave once purposeless pennies a new lease on life.

Anyway, here are the numbers:

Extra income: $10

Extra Debt paid: $403

Total Debt paid in October: $649*

Since 1/1/2012 – Total Debt Paid off: $30,768*

*For the purpose of Baby step 2 we are not factoring in our home mortgage

Click here to learn more about the origins and purpose of “Pennies for Debra”

Or, for a listing of all “Pennies for Debra” posts, just go to www.penniesfordebra.com.

Pennies for Debra crosses the 10K mark

Just an update on Pennies for Debra – the current count is 10050.  (that’s $100.50!)

I recently rolled $7 worth of pennies and took them to the bank and it was these 700 pennies that took the count over 10K.

 

January by the Numbers

Here we are one month into our goal to be Debt Free by the end of 2012… how did we do? Did we make any progress? I’m happy to report, yes we did!

This month we paid off $6,740 – which was the total of our 2 smaller student loans

We also made some extra money, which comes in outside of our budgeted income – so it is helpful in applying right to debt.

$150 on Craigslist sales

$7 from Pennies for Debra

$75 from a stack of silver coins we had floating around the house (finally rolled them and made them usable)

$94 in a Cash Back savings from our Energy Company

Totaling $322 extra dollars of income.

In addition to all of that – we also (of course) paid our minimums on everything else – further chipping away at principle of what we owe.

Finally – I’m happy to report an additional, unexpected bonus to living on a budget.

The biggest change is that we are using the envelope system for food. I specifically budgeted $100 less then what we had been averaging on food because I figured if we paid attention to where our food money went – and were a little more strict in our eating out – we would be able to make this lower food-a-month goal.  I’m happy to report that including a birthday party and a birthday dinner for the hubby – we met the new food budget goal no problem!

AND to top it off – we both lost weight this month. Budgeting is good for one’s health. 🙂

Total Debt paid in January: $7,276*

*For the purpose of Baby step 2 we are not factoring in our home mortgage

Closing Down

I’m closing down my bank account today – finally got everything matched up with my husband’s account. Not quite in time though – still charged a $12 fee yesterday. 😦

I also need to take in the most recent batch of rolled “Pennies for Debra” which is around $10. (Almost covers the bank fee.)

The SpamBots are starting to pick up my email address and link it with job finding. Look SpamBots – I am an Email Specialist, I know what good email looks like and I know what junk email looks like. *Reported & Deleted.

2nd Anniversary

We are quickly approaching the second anniversary of “Pennies for Debra” (March 11th). While not as many pennies were brought out of homelessness as I would have liked this year, the current count is 9375.

This is 2625 less than the goal for the year, but I was able to make some progress with the acquisition of www.penniesfordebra.com.

In addition, the number of people who contributed was greater and more diversified which means the word is getting out.

Thank you so much to everyone who has given a once a homeless penny a chance at a new life.

2 months

so… the posts become more spread out. 🙂

Today, on our second month anniversary, I can happily report that thank you notes have all been written. *phew!*

Also, not sure if how much I’ve mentioned this, but at the end of last year, I transitioned to a new position at work. I’m now a Web Developer. It’s been a challenge (and occasionally, easy), but also fun.

This last week I’ve been making huge progress forward in learning and working with PHP. We had a training class (where I got 100% on the worksheet) and a practice project. The practice project is not completely done, but it did give me an opportunity to use “Pennies for Debra” as my ‘client’. (The current count by the way is 9252.)

Other than that, I’m busy looking forward to the Mariner’s baseball season starting. Less than a month until Pitchers and catchers report.

Lastly, no, I haven’t finished War & Peace yet. I did however start reading book 13 in the Wheel of Time series.

OH. one more thing – don’t forget the Shamrock Shake. It’s almost that season again. Please contact McDonalds and help us get the Shake in Texas.

Pennies for Debwa?

Current Count: 8699.

Wondering if we can top 9000 before the end of the year.