I like Morgan Spurlock. He was the guy who made the movie 'Supersize Me' and then the series '30 Days'. If you haven't seen '30 Days' he resolved to do something for 30 days just to see what would happen. Once he and his fiance lived on minimum wage for 30 days then after that he found other people to do 30 day challenges and record what happened.

That's how I got the idea to try to change my life for 30 days--I think it is easier to set goals with a definite end date instead of some fuzzy "forever" date.

Thus, starting tomorrow, I resolve to:
--exercise for at least an hour every day (this is important but I never have time because I am usually so busy with work).
--no Starbucks or Baskin Robbins (I stop at one of these places almost every day for a high calorie whipped drink which actually is a big waste of money and is rapidly expanding my waist line ).
--make a significant dent in my debt (starting point is $18,100).
--make a positive impact in my savings (starting point is $0).
--practice Spanish at least 30 minutes each day (I really need to brush up my elementary level abilities because my job basically requires that I speak Spanish to clients almost every day and there are a whole bunch of verbs in this language and knowing only one form of each verb is not a good thing).

That's it. I hope that reporting here each day will push me to stick to my goals for at least a month. At the end of this I would like to be thin, healthy, debt free, have lots of money in savings and speak Spanish fluently!

I know very little about AdSense but decided to add it to one of my blogs since that site gets thousands of hits per month. It is basically my hobby site but it seems that many bloggers have this type of advertising on their sites and some seem to make money with it. Does anyone here have any experience with AdSense? Do you really make money with it?

Friday was a bit of a bummer...no money manifested, had a hideous head cold and just kind of hung around the house all day. Yesterday was a bit better. Things that I will attribute to manifested money (and when I say manifested money I mean something of a financial gain which was unexpected): a frapuccino from Starbucks (hubby was driving by one and thought of me and brought it to me at work--a nice suprise), a beautiful bouquet of flowers from the Pikes Place market (see above) that friends brought when they stopped by, and three small boxes of cereal from the manufacturer that were tucked in with my newspaper in the morning--Cheerios...Yummy!

Today's totally unexpected "manifested money" was a $40 Starbucks gift certificate that a client slipped under my office door as a thank you (for what Im not sure).
~I am a money magnet...I am a money magnet...I am a money magnet~

Entering the contest and venting at the same time...here's my list:

1) Payday lenders.

2) Time shares.

3) Leasing cars, furniture, etc.

4) Multi-level marketing programs.

5) Lotteries.

6) Rent-to-own (furniture, appliances, etc)

7) Credit cards in general, especially those with double digit interest rates.

8) Adjustable rate mortgages (in many cases).

9) Gambling.

10) Co signing for a loan for someone who doesn't have the financial ability to get the loan on their own.

Did I forget anything?

Still doing the money manifesting experiment. Didn't get anything unexpected today. I didn't count the paycheck received from a client because that was regular earnings.

I read more from Steve Pavlina's site on this subject and he said that when you first start manifesting you will see some small immediate results then a lull where you may get nothing for a while then the floodgates open. I will keep concentrating and wait for overwhelming abundance!

One small thing that did happen today is when I got my haircut I noticed a lady in front of me using a punch card. I have been going to this salon for ages and never knew they had a punch card where after ten punches you get a free service. The lady at the desk gave me the card and punched all of my visits for th last six months so that was something nice and unexpected.

This money manifestation thing really seems to be working! Today I got a totally unexpected $86 dollars

Manifested money totals:
Day 1 May 18 used a gift certificate that was donated and found about $2 in coins $47
Day 2 May 19 bus for field trip broke down so will get a $150+ refund
Day 3 May 20 hubby was feeling generaous and filled my gas tank which cost about $42
Day 4 May 21 between coupons and markdowns, saved about $4 when shopping
Day 5 May 22 bought a couple of things for a friend a few months ago and she unexpectedly paid me back today, also found $10 for a total of $86

Wow!

Yesterday I stayed home all day--it was a super busy week so it was nice to just chill for a day. Even though I didn't go anywhere or do anything, hubby took my car and filled it up with gas so I counted that as a little response to my money manifesting experiment.

Today there were no big financial suprises but I was happy to find one of those yummy already-cooked rotisserie chickens for a dollar off because it was after 4pm. Another sign?

Overall Im still experimenting with this money manifesting thing and after reading more of the "how to" about it, I guess it takes a bit of time to get past "little" unexpected amounts of money to the bigger windfalls.

Yesterday's money manifestation experiment went pretty well so I decided to try it again today. I really didn't think anything would "manifest" today because I took a big group to an all day conference where everything was going to be free anyway.

When we were ready to leave the conference, one of the two busses that brought our group was DOS (dead on scene) so we all had to squeeze into the other bus. The result--I will get a refund on the cost of one of the busses. This was completely unexpected but a suprising bit of "found" money. Wow.

I read an interesting blog post last night at www.stevepavlina.com/million-dollar-experiment.htm and thought, what the heck, tomorrow I will try to manifest some money.

First thing this morning I went to do the laundry and found a dime in the bottom of the washer. Now that isn't a big thing but I was doing the happy dance because at least SOMETHING had manifested. Next I was off to the grocery store to use a gift certificate that was donated in order to buy supplies for an event we are having tomorrow. When I calculated what was in the basket, I figured I would need to add another $5 or $8 to the GC but after the checker rang everything up, she gave me $5 back! Next to the post office where there weren't any checks waiting for me but I did get my cell bill and it was $2 LESS than usual.

Hmmm maybe this money manifesting thing works... Anyway, it isn't even 11am yet so I am really excited to see what will happen throughout the rest of the day!

Daily financial update...

Good Financial Move--had a $10 bill in my wallet and was passing by the bank so stopped and deposited it into my savings account.

Bad Financial Move--I'm so addicted to Starbucks Frappucinnos. Of course had my daily Starbucks ($3) and then wondered why I complain about the price of a gallon of gas when I spend the cost of a gallon of gas on a 12 ounce (really not necessary) drink. Duhhh

If I buy stock in Starbucks would that somehow offset the cost of my habit?

Holy Cow! Haven't blogged in a while so thought I would check in and saw that it has been more than three MONTHS since I posted.

It's been a really busy few months. My non profit has been successfully launched and is doing pretty well (the great part is we are busier than we ever dreamed the not so great part is that I am financing it until the grants come in...).

Anyway, now that things have settled down to a dull roar, it's time to get my finances back in order. My goal between now and September is to pay off two credit cards, two personal loans and my back taxes (my tax lady was having a crisis when she was doing my last years' taxes, made a pretty significant mistake, and I got a surprise bill from the IRS a month ago).

This should be quite a challenge since in addition to these debts, I am still waiting for the aforementioned grants to come in, am too busy to get a side job, and generally feel pretty scattered (have a lot of family stuff in addition to the non profit as well as my regular business to take care of). And, like everyone, prices for the basics--gas, food, even postage stamps--seem to be increasing on a daily basis!

I'm glad to be back and have no doubt that all of the great ideas that people come up with here will be really helpful. Thanks to everyone here for all of the positive inspiration!