Too much time on my hands?........................

I am not complianing mind you. In fact, I am loving my new lazy days. Of course I am doing stuff, just not constantly feeding/changing/turning/washing/etc... someone to get to the end of the list and start over with the next one. Instead I am reading, and knitting, to my hearts content. And oh ya... Did I mention thinking?......................

We continue to pay down our debt, aquired from opening our business, and are on track to be debt free (except our mortgage) by next year at this time. Yesterday, I couldn't stop thinking of ways that I could speed up this process even more. I would love to cut things like, cable/newpaper/phone, heck I would even give up internet short term if it ment getting out of debt faster. Problem is, these are all business expenses, so they stay.

I figure we average a cost of about $200.00 a month for the care and feeding of our four pets. That is a lot of money... But when I ask for volunteers to be relocated to a good home, Emma glanced up from her perfectly arranged pillow pile, and gave me a look that said, "You couldn't possibly be talking to me!" Andy meowed, "Hey! I was here first. Pick someone else... And the next time you get up, could you bring me back a kitty treat?" Cecil didn't even bother to open his eyes and acknowledge that I had spoken. Only Ben came over and looked at me with his big puppy eyes full of hope... "Did I hear the word go? Did you mean like out on a walk around the block?" Full of hope, he started dancing around, and barking "Yes! Yes! Pick me!" Both of us gave up hope as I told him to stop barking, and go lay down... He had it all wrong."

Bottom line is, over the past two years, I have already sold what made sense to sell, and cut back what can be cut back. Do you have bricks in your toilet to use less water per flush? It is suppose to make a big difference. I can't remember the last time I paid full price for anything, and I think my family would be the only one in Americia that would be able to say they have not tried eight out of ten, randomly selected, brand name products (the two they would have tried, would have been purchased on sale, with a coupon).

So, dear readers, I am turning to you to help me out. Did you ever hear about that twenty-something woman who racked up a bunch of credit card debt, and set up a web site asking people to send her money to help her get out of debt? Believe it or not, people did, she paid off her debt, wrote a book, and had her fifteen minutes of fame! While I would be more than happy to volunteer to see if this could happen twice in a lifetime by gladly, and graceously accept any cash offered, I actually had something a little more down to earth in mind. Help me out by sending me your tried and true methods of saving money and cutting back. I would love to free up an additional $5oo.oo a month to put towards our debt snowball. I am hoping that some of you have money generating ideas that I could put to good use. My only criteria..... Keep it legal people... I don't want to be having to add legal fees to my debt snowball now, do I? Thanks, in advance, for your assistance.