1. keep better track of my spending- same situation!..I need DISCIPLINE!!

2. Send out at least 15 resumes in January(best time of the year to find a new job in ES!) and, at least one more per week for the rest of the year until I find a job that pays better! done!...believe it or not I have a job offer...NOT from the resumes...from this site!
3. FINALLY decide on a school for Alejandra, AND save money for her enrollment fee, uniforms and school supplies Already paid $100 to reserve Ale's space. Someone from the office has offered to help with $500 towards Ale's education...this takes care of enrollment, books and uniforms!
4. continue to lower my overall debt - I started Jan 05 with ~$17K (out of which ~$4K were for a loan and the rest -~$13K!-pure cc debt) and, am starting Jan 06 with $~11K (with ~$8K for a loan and ~$3K in cc debt)... expect to be able to end Dec '06 with ~$7K, which I expect to be purely for the loan... to come partly from the English classes/$20 challenge. Higher than last month, as now I have the loan for the car!!...BUT! I asked for some "extra" money so part of that is going to go towards the cc's (much lower interest rate!)...real situation is: $7.8K (refinanced) loan, $3.1K car loan, $2.5K cc's

5. Help Ale find a way to earn those $3 she's missing to open her account with HER OWN money...Pending...

Total for April

Challenge statistics:
invested:
$20 gas for cousin
$15 for taxies/April
=======
$35.00

Earned in April: $257.00

net for January: $12.15
net for February: $318.40
net for March:$380.00
net for April: $222.00
Total ytd for 2006 (net):$932.55

I got paid my remaining $10 yesterday!

Today was one of those days when I wished I had worn rollerskates to the office!...I've been up and down, here and there and everywhere...I had to prepare a bunch of payments, was given about 4 new travel expenses to prepare, 8 documents to scan, 1 document to review/fax, 1 message to send, 1 pakcage to mail...had to retrieve 2 letters from accounting (May 2nd is the last day to file your income tax here, these letters are for the owners of some of the houses we rent...sure, now they want ME to hurry getting them! they've been ready since mid February!!!!)... had to deliver some documents for signature....had to take the (company) car to the insurance company so the adjuster could give us the authorization letter for the repair shop...had to make about 4 work-related phone calls...Had to send 1 message to Travel Control because one of the analysts had a travel expense rejected and didn't know why...had to file the house expenses (expat housing) for the past month...and update my excel file with the info...had to rush to HR to be measured for the new uniforms...which will probably arrive in October!!!

Things left undone: data entry/presentation from feedback forms from the latest training...translations...pick up of signed forms...

Then I had to come home and take my niece out to buy her b-day cake...only to realize I had left my wallet at the office!!! ...rush back to the office to retrieve it (luckily, I had sister's car, as she was finishing getting the house ready for my niece's birthday party - only 8 kids invited..they later went to another friend's house, as it was his b-day, too!)

Right now it's 2 am....the neighbors are having a bacholerette (sp?) party...they must have a stripper, because they keep yelling: mucha ropa, mucha ropa!! (too much clothing!)...and "go for it Yani!!!"..."Way to go, Lorena"...they're listening to reaggetton, of all things!!! ((faint))...so I figured I might as well update my blog... ((sigh))...at least, now it only sounds like 5 or 6 women...at the beginning of the night it sounded more like 15-20...

Soooooo....the guy with the car says he'll take it to the gas emissions thing tomorrow and bring the car along so I can take it for a drive....and on Tuesday he'll take it to the Vice-Ministry of transportation for the new license plates (takes a couple of days)...so close now...

Monday is May 1st...the FMLN has already announced they'll have "peaceful" demonstrations...which means they'll close the streets, write on walls with spray paint and burn tires on the streets...it's like a re-run of what they did on the 80's...I guess some people never evolve!!...

Woo-hoo!...one of my "children" (analysts) was recently promoted and left for another dept...today, he brought me 4 movie passes (his family owns a large cinema chain), as a Thank You for the support while he was in our dept...sniff!

...car insurance here in ES is not mandatory, but it's really necessary ...so, for starters, I will enroll it with the company's insurance (they have a collective insurance set up for employees)...since the monthly payments for the loan to the coop will be $79, I can afford the insurance! (I think)

The $170 appear credited to my account now...dated 15-Mar-06, too!!

Case closed! I'm happy now!!

This definetely has been a good day for finances!!!

(oh, and this is entry No 69 categorized as progress, vs 66 categorized as setbacks!!...the scale seems to be tipping in the right direction!!...)

This means: I almost have a car now!!! woo-hoo!!!...it feels sooooo great!!..No more rides!!!

...now, I need to work on my $20 challenge to be able to reach that $4,000 goal by 31-dec-06!!

Finished a $30-job. Got paid $20 already, missing $10.

These count towards my April challenge! yay!

a couple of years ago she had to sell her car, which she hadn't finished paying for. The guy that bought the car basically gave her a lump sum and then took over the payments...but, she never made sure he had changed the documents to his name...and then there were a couple of late payments and we found out because the bank called our house (after all, the loan was in HER name!)...the guy paid up and promised to straighten things out...again, I told her she should press on the name change on the loan papers...a few months later again she got phone calls from the bank...again she contacted him, again he paid and,AGAIN, I counseled she follow up...well, yesterday she couldn't access her salary (direct deposit, but account was showing $0 balance!)...she went to the bank to complain and they told her they had frozen her acct because there was 1 payment left on the car, but that was overdue by more than 90 days....totalling $100....she paid them just so they would unfreeze the account (yes, the loan is STILL in her name!)...she's now trying to contact the guy again!!...One part of me feels sorry for her...but another part of me wants to hit her!!

It's pouring outside!!!...you can't even see the street!!

I just logged onto the Ministry's website, the status of my return is now:

El estado de su declaración número 111020358644 presentada el 08/03/2006 es:

AUTORIZADA : La devolucion esta autorizada y en proceso de hacerse efectiva

Wooo-Hooo!!!..the money should be deposited by next week! (they only make deposits once a week!)....

::doing the happy dance::

So, as of Monday (24/apr), I'm contacting the bank at least once a day. Today, I got an email from the executive stating that, it has been more difficult than normal to find the payment because it was applied to a closed account (?? shouldn't that make it EASIER to find?)...anyway, I sent her a copy of the cheque - front and back, where it shows that my bank released the $$ to them! - to help her find the payment...Now, she made the awful mistake of including the words "I'll get in touch with you once this is resolved"...no,no, lady...I'LL be in touch with you UNTIL this is resolved!!...I'll be on her case until she decides it's better to find that payment than to put up with me!!

and, our IT guy (at home) wants to reformat it...he says we'll lose all our info!!!...our IT guy at the office says: huh??....((sigh))

***
solved! thank God for conference calls! ...we should be getting our computer back tonight!