Extra Money

I know this looks like a shameless plug and it is. But I really like Inbox and they do pay pretty well. If you do want to join, I would set up a free email account first (yahoo is what I use) and use that instead of your primary email. You will get some junk mail just an FYI. It takes me a few seconds to click on each email and they pay you $.03. The problem is if you save them up and are planning on doing this only once in a while, they expire. So you will need to do this everyday or every other day. If you use my link, I will get a referral(being honest). But you will get a $5 sign up bonus, so it's free money. You just have to get in the habit of clicking.
If you think about it, the rich and famous will sell just about anything for money. I'm just asking for a few clicks and you get paid for your time.
Either way, thank you so much for taking a few minutes of your day and reading my blog,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 5:49 AM 8 comments

laundry soap catastrophe

I think there comes a point in every frugal persons transformation that we realize, I just can't get into it. I've tried, really tried to get along and play nice with homemade laundry soap. I've tried a few times. This tip just isn't going to happen in this house. It doens't dissolve and I end up having to pick off soap clumps and then rewashing. Yes, I know this is my fault. I really do. But I'm at the point of..... what if I just use a little less purchased soap and save a little money that way. I tried using it the powdered way and then I made it into liquid soap. The liquid soap was like trying to pour jello and it still ended up with clumps on the clothes. I give up. Maybe I will never make it completely over to the frugal side. I actually feel like a slight failure. I mean how can I streamline our finances and become a true frugal beacon of hope if I can't adopt all of the frugal tips out there. I think I'm just going to shoot for my own comfort zone. Knowing me, I'll try again and just complain like hell when I fail again.
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 10:22 AM 20 comments

Queen of All Things Awe-Summmm!!!

I feel so loved I just got an Awe-Summm award from Together We Save! and from A.Marie over at My Money Mission! and from Jules @ Lovely Las Vegas! We are passing this around like VD.


The Rules Are:
*List 7 Things That Make You Awe-Summm!
*Pass It On To 7 Bloggers Who Are Awe-Summm!
*Be Sure To Tag Your Awe-Summm Bloggers To Let Them Know!
*Then Link Back To The Queen That Tagged You!

7 Things that make me Awe-Summm:

1. My family
2. My friends!
3. My blogger best friends!
4. I'm honest!
5. I'm an A type!
6. I'm a good problem solver!
7. I'm over organized!

I hope that didn't look like bragging. Hate that!

7 Bloggers who are Awe-summm:

Granny Spice
Raging Bear Ranch
Looking Forward to a more Frugal 2009
The owl's nest
Watch Nena Save
Little People Wealth
Frugal in Paradise
I just wanted to say thank you to all and no tag backs! I've been tagged 3 times and I feel like the town slut. I was going to wait until this weekend to post this but I was afraid of what else I would catch. All said with much love and appreciation!
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 11:44 AM 13 comments

An Oldie but a Goodie

This is an old video but it makes me laugh even though I've seen it 10 times. The quality isn't that hot either but its still worth it! Thanks for stopping by to see me!
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 7:03 AM 16 comments

Our Mexican Restaurant

We are weird just wanted to throw that out there before I started. Since we don't have the money to go out and try restaurants we try to find some fun things to do at home. We had a neighbor come over when we were in the middle of Mexican night and she just stared at us. It's strange, I know. But we have a Mexican restaurant box and a Chinese restaurant box. We just take out our decoration and it seems to make dinner more fun. My kids are going to have some stories to tell when they grow up. We told them we won't pay for college but we will pay for four years of therapy. Just kidding they will get college and therapy. There is also an inflatable cactus that goes with this but it's to hard to deflate and smash back into the box so it doesn't get blown up very often. What you can't see is the chili pepper lights that run under the cabinets. So this is just one of the odd things that goes on here. I won't blame you if you don't come back to visit.
Thanks for reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 6:55 AM 32 comments

Homemade Cinnamon Bread

I really should just stop trying to diet! I'm going to rename my blog! I'm thinking about frugal and fat ass, what do ya think? I should just stop trying with the whole diet thing. I would be much happier if I didn't stress over every bite. I think I'm just going to blame it on my under active thyroid and admit defeat with the diet.
Anyways, I made this cinnamon bread the other night and it was amazing. I'm not trying to brag but it was gone in 5 minutes. So I thought I would pass it along. This is just my $.55(ish) role recipe. I told Den that I could use this recipe to make anything and for my next trick I'm going to turn it into meat. Anyways, make the dough as normal but divide it in two. Roll it into a rectangle and then smash an entire stick of softened margarine onto the rectangle. Make sure that the margarine is spread evenly. Sprinkle half a cup of sugar on the margarine. And then sprinkle cinnamon on the sugar. I didn't measure the cinnamon but I just sprinkled until I couldn't see the sugar. Then roll it up and pinch it all closed. Place it in a bread pan and let it rise for 45 minutes. Bake it at 375 for about 30 minutes. I always check all of my breads 20 minutes into it and then every 5 minutes afterwards. I would kick myself right in the fat fanny if I burned it. If you try it let me know.
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 5:29 AM 24 comments

Bestowed upon me is.......

The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken - excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all…


I would just like to thank the academy for this wonderful award! Well, how about I thank Frances over at Looking forward to a more frugal 2009! Thank you for thinking of me when you see a dead chicken! And I pass the dead bird to....
Donna Freedman- Thank you for ALL of your kind words and encouragement. I'm glad to call you my friend. And I'm sure that this is your most impressive award as of yet! So for all of your kind words I would like to repay you with a dead cyber chicken. Use it wisely!
Jules at Lovely Las Vegas-I just won't leave you alone, will I? See what you get for being so nice to me.
Donna C- My dear English friend that won't post a comment but I know you are out there! I'm ready for another session.
A.Marie over at My Money Mission- for being so kind and making me laugh with her comments.
Anne at Chicago's CookBook-She's a local gal and she is helping to wean me off of my diet! I also loved the comment from her and everyone on Health Conscious or Broke.
So I pass the creepy bird to you! Hope you are having a great weekend!
Thanks for reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 6:52 AM 13 comments

Friends Friday!

I was thinking about how happy I am that I have all of you for my new friends. (Awwww) I've really been enjoying talking to everyone and venting. So I thought that maybe a good way for all of us to get to know each other better would be for me to have a Friends Friday. I know I'm a dork! I'm going to put a friend's link and some info about them every Friday. If you want me to talk about you and your blog just leave me a comment and your blog address on this post and I'll come back here every week and choose a new person. That way we can visit each other and get to know each other a little more. And we can all sit around, hold hand and hug trees. Well probably not! Anyways this week's Friday Friend is Jules over at Lovely Las Vegas. She was the first person ever to leave a comment for me and I never forgot it. She is sweet and her blog and pictures are amazing.It makes me want to go to Las Vegas to eat and explore! So use this link and check out her blog. And if you want to read my favorite post, read this one!
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 6:38 AM 16 comments

Anna's new paint job

Here are some of the before and after pictures of Anna's car. It's a 1999 Lumina. It had a few problems but for the most part it was in really good shape besides, the couple places of rust, the flaking paint and the long dents down the passenger doors. Maybe it wasn't in as good of shape as I thought. Anyways, the dents were from when Anna went to a friend's house. I told her not to park on the road because a lot of cars get side swiped. So what happened because of my good advise. The mother of her friend, hit Anna's car while it was parked. They were having a rough time financially and its an older car so we said forget about fixing it. I just did the best I could with some touch up paint.

The picture below is of a rust spot just behind the passenger's rear wheel. And so you know that hole is the exact size of my pointer finger. I poked it to see how bad it was and my finger went right threw it.


And another picture of the hole I poked in the metal.
And Tada....Here are the after pictures.

And you can't even tell that the two doors had been hit.

See, no more finger hole. Anna was not happy with me when I did that. And what you can't see in the pictures is that Den added metallic powder to the paint so it's sparkly.
So for a total of $243, Anna gets a new paint job. I just hope that we don't have to put anymore money into this car anytime soon!
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 6:17 AM 6 comments

Thought you might like this!

I love the Darwin Awards! And for some reason, I thought you all might like this! I would have left him but see what you think! Darwin Awards!
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 6:26 AM 10 comments

Poor Man's Panini

This definitely doesn't look as good as the food over at Lovely Las Vegas but it's the best that I can do. We buy cheap lunch meat. Who would of thunk it? Any who, we were tired of eating plain sandwiches so I came up with the poor man's panini.
I toast the bread over the burner on the stove. It's kind of like camping! Then I schmear a little mayo on it and add some mozzarella. Then I fry the lunch meat in a pan with some pepper. Slap it all together and WOW! It really can dress up a plain sandwich.
Thanks for Reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 6:00 AM 15 comments

Health Conscious or Broke?

I have a plan! Usually when I say this, something very funny and then very painful happens but not this time. Here's the story......
I was driving DJ to Karate the other night and we were having the same argument that we always have. He was complaining that Karate was too hard, it was painful (he got punched in the nose by a girl and she was a purple belt) and he didn't think that I should force exercise on him. And then his most beloved of all the gripes that I use his money from his savings account to make him miserable. So my response every week is, its not too hard, block and you won't get hit, we all need exercise(as I pop more of his Easter candy into my mouth, just kidding, I, of course, waited until he got out of the car) and I reminded him that if I hadn't been saving his money since he was little, he wouldn't have a savings account. Anyways, as I mindlessly argued with the boy, I passed a man walking down the street. My guess is he was heading to the stores a good 4-5 miles from where he was. That was a long walk! I felt sorry for him knowing that he must be having a hard time financially if he had to walk that far. He was dressed in gym shoes, a long trench-like coat, blue jeans and a baseball hat. He looked put together but still I couldn't help but pity him. So we continued on our way and we continued to argue. A few more miles down the road, I saw a jogger running down the road. He was running in sweats, a t-shirt, old gym shoes and a reflective vest. I didn't feel sorry for him even though he was dressed quite shabbily. And then it dawned on me, the only difference between looking poor and looking like a health nut was the vest. So for about $25, we could all dress in old sweats and look like we were health conscious instead of having money problems. The sweats would be a lot more comfortable and we could hide all of our money woes behind the shiny vest. What do you think? Wanna join me? I just don't know how I would come across when I'm in the store with a reflective vest on and stuffing my kids candy in my mouth(don't ask about the diet). Just a thought.
Thanks For Reading,
SonyaAnn

Posted by SonyaAnn at 5:40 AM 21 comments