A friend asked me if I'd ever heard of Blue Rectangle (www.bluerectangle.com) for selling used books. It works like ebookdrop.com. I checked it out, entered the ISBNs for my books currently listed at half.com, and saw that they would buy three of my books for a whopping 62 cents. Oh well. I thought I'd pass along the URL in case anyone else wanted to try it.

As a result of calling about our home and auto insurance policies and getting our rates reduced, we got a partial refund in the mail today for the 6 months we'd already paid for our cars. The refund is $49.76,and I'll add it to my challenge total at the end of the month. A very nice surprise!

I finished one of the leg warmers for DD today. I now know how to knit with double pointed needles, which was the whole point of the project. I'll work on the other leg warmer whle I'm waiting for DD at ballet. That time alone will give me about two hours a week to work on it.

My auction ended today - $17.51. Not bad for $20 face value. I haven't gotten paid yet, so I can't come up with my net proceeds, but here's what I have so far:

+17.51 final total
-1.27 eBay fees
-.81 PayPal fees
= $15.43 to add to challenge

I will fill in the rest once I get paid.
Edited to add I got paid, so totals have been updated.

Money spent today - $4.25 at coffeehouse
Money saved - carpooled

Dinner will be on the run this evening - we go from ballet to picking up DH at work to school for a parents meeting.

My gift card auction is going well. The cards are valued at 50% of face value with about a day left and eight watchers. Net proceeds will go to my challenge account. Still waiting for my fourth offer to arrive in the mail.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by all there is to do. Committments I've made, things to do around the house, things I want to do for myself... I think I need to make myself a list of current to-do's and then start prioritizing those items. I think it will help me feel less overwhelmed and get back into the swing of things.

Spent some time working on the boutique this morning. That is one of those things that feels like there is still so much to do.

I cancelled three of my four trial memberships today. It was fairly easy and quick, but I wanted to mention something for others trying this out. When you call, the customer service person will try at least once, sometimes up to three or four times, to leave your account open. And they will say things like, "I'll send you some more information about the benfits that you may not have realized you have with us and leave your account open while you have a chance to look through it." Just keep saying, "No thank you, I'd like to cancel," and eventually they do give you a cancellation number.

The Lowe's cards we will definitely be able to use. The Bed Bath & Beyond cards can be used too. The Circuit City cards? I decided to list them on eBay. Even if I only get 50% of their face value and PayPal fees, I still come out ahead over $8 for the deal, and shipping for this auction is a piece of cake.

If the cards sell, the net proceeds will go into my challenge account.

Other financial plans for the day:
*Buy cat litter and dog food (if needed) done
*Cancel three trial memberships done
*Set up savings at Affinity Bank for DD done

The applesauce cake turned out great! My muffins stuck to their paper wrappers, so I'm going to need to spray the muffin cups and skip the paper cups next time. I can't believe how easy it is to make tasty baked tofu. Slice, blot out excess water, marinate it in some soy sauce, sprinkle on some ground ginger and garlic, bake for about 20-30 minutes on each side. Easy!

After adding in AsSense and cc round-ups, plus earning a little bit of interest, my balance is now at $134.43. AdSense was almost $16, which is decent considering how little traffic those two sites really get.

I have 14 books listed at half.com for a total of $37.50 and 2 DVDs for a total of $18.70. I may go in and adjust some prices.

I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but my AdSense revenue for today for my tutoring site is great. I'd love it if it could continue on like this as a result of those site submissions I made last night! We'll see....

I made a few changes to the text on my tutoring web site, hoping to get it picked up ina few more ways by Google and such. I also went into my listing at dmoz.org and submitted an updated site description there. More traffic to my site means hopefully more business and more AdSense revenue too, which gets added to my challenge money each month.

I have a new student to tutor online. I installed a phpBB board at my tutoring site and am using that to work with this new student. (The board is not public; one has to contact me and pay for time in order to get the link to it.) She paid for 30 minutes of my time. Yahoo!

Also adding in 32.79 to my challenge total, which includes half.com money, tutoring money and cc round ups for 2/1 - 2/8.

That brings my challenge total up to
$67.30 + $32.79= $100.09

After adding in cc round-ups and such, my challenge total is now up to $67.30.

I need to move money between accounts less often, as it gets to be confusing remembering what I've moved and what I haven't, as well as time-consuming. I'm being very passive in the challenge, so I think I'll scale back to updating the actual ING account once a month. I can record things that happen here (sold a book, whatever), but I don't think I'll update totals any times other than when I'm adjusting the actal ING total.

I got my Rite Aid rebate today, so I'm adding $14.50 to my challenge total. I've decided to pay more attention to the rebates at Longs and Rite Aid, and if there is something on the list that we need anyway, I'll get it and add the rebates to my total here.

Previous total: $38.66
Current total: $53.16

My current total is $38.66. Income thus far has come from sales at half.com and saving virtual change - rounding up credit card purchases and moving the difference over to my challenge savings account. I spent 90 cents listing some things for sale, so any proceeds there will be added to my challenge balance (I don't have high hopes, but you never know...)

At month's end I'll add in AdSense revenue that isn't from DivaTribe, as well as interest earned on my challenge savings.

I listed two more books last nght and sold one of them already for four dollars. I'll add the money in once I get it from half.com, and I'll subtract out the postage once I've sent the book on its way.

Payment coming from half.com: $9.20
Maileed book: -$2.07

Current total: $34.80

"Change" from credit card last 7 days: $3.71 (if we use it today I'll update, but I don't think we will.)

1/8-1/14: $3.71

Current total: $27.67

I sold a book today for $8 and sent in for Rite Aid rebates in the amount of $14.50. I'll update my total once the money is in my possession.

I'm going to go through purchases each week instead, for now. More instant gratification, I guess.

1/1-1/7: $3.96

An idea inspired by the change jar thread - I am going to go through my CC purchases and round them up to the nearest dollar, moving the difference to my ING challenge account. I don't spend a lot of cash, so my change jar doesn't fill up nearly as much as it used to. Tthis way I can still reap those benefits.

How often to go through purchases...I think I'll do it the 15th and the last day of the month.

I'm tentatively in - whether I aim big or small, I honestly haven't decided yet. I won't carry over my 2005 challenge earnings, but I will continue some of the thigns from that challenge. I will count AdSense earnings from my tutoring and homeschooling web sites, and I will count sales from half.com.

I'm starting a new business this winter/spring, selling my own handmade items and possibly buying a few things wholesale to resell as well. The DivaTribe boutique is currently closed, and when it reopens it will feature these things. Jeffrey suggested that I track my progress here so that others can see what I'm doing, offer advice and constructive criticism and learn from my experience.

I have certain advantages. I already have my web sites, so I don't need to pay for domain names or hosting. For what I'm making, I already have some in stock and have yarn purchased that needs to be used. I also have money in DivaTribe's coffers to spend on advertising and purchasing wholesale.

So my dilemma here is two-fold: what to do specifically (if anything, right now) with the $20, and how transparent am I comfortable being with putting my business' income and expenses out there for all to see.

I won't be counting other sources of DivaTribe income (AdSense, advertising, affiliates, etc.). For this challenge, I'll focus specifically on the boutique as best I can.

On a separate note, I think I'll count money I save on dining out and groceries. I have amounts budgeted for each of those categories; any money I save will go to my challenge total. Likely won't be much, if any, but I'll count it nonetheless. I'll also count interest earned and have started an ING account with $20, especially for this challenge.

So there you go. Starting off with $20.