Making Money by Paying Your Bills

For over 20 years now, I have made money paying my bills. It started when I got a Discover Card and they gave cash back when you would use their card to purchase things. The more you used their card, the more money you would get back. It was a small amount but any money back was good in my eyes. 

As they years progressed, other cards started offering cash back for using their cards. There were several I really enjoyed that gave 5% on everything you purchased. I made lots of money during those years. 

Fast forward, they were giving away a bit too much money so the credit card companies made a stupid move (in my opinion) by making you have to call in quarterly and you will get 5% on one through four different catagories for that quarter. However, I don't use rental cars or hotels often so some of the catagories don't really do much for me. 

American Express, not wanting to lost its customers, followed suit but I am THRILLED with their options to keep the same categories and not rotate them as the other credit card companies do.

I have one that pays 3% on gas all the time and a few more percent on a few things and another one that pays 3% on groceries all the time. Of course, I use those cards for those items unless the cash back bonus catagories happen to be 5% on gas. 

I have all my cards in my wallet upside down and I use a small piece of masking tape to write what the cash back bonus is for that card on the tape. That way, I can see at a glance which card would be the best to use for that purchase. 

Sometimes they will give a 1/2 percent back on-top of all purchases for a month. Or, Discover will send me notices saying if I use the card at two different stores in the next month, they will give me $20 bonus, or some other great offers. 

As you can see, I have almost enough here to pay for the girls dance fees at the school. I used to pay my house taxes every year by using the cards in the right order, I could build up enough for that at Thanksgiving when the taxes were due. 

Some cards have a limit on the cash back rewards you can earn in a year. One card will only allow you to earn $300 for the year. I keep track as it will tell you what your rewards are each month on your bill. When I reach the $300 mark, I just start using a different card. 

I have two other rewards checks that come as checks to a specific store. You can also buy gift cards for forty dollars that are worth $50 to the store of your choice. There are also some cards that allow you to purchase items through their "redemption store."

I always take the cash back as we don't have many restaurants around and don't eat out much. 

I laughed to myself today when two checks that came from Chase had 111 in the item numbers. 

I had another Chase card with money on it that has almost $100 cash back but if I order it now, I only get $50 as they only do $50 incraments. You can see that Citi Card will send you what you actually have in the account. So, I am using that particular card this month to get the reward up to the $100 cash back and will then order my check from them. 

With that $100, and the American Express Checks, along with these, I am close to $1,000 cash back. I am going to be using it to help pay off the girls dance fees. I love that my Heavenly Father has shown me ways to make money to help pay for my girls to be able to develop their talents. I am so GRATEFUL that I have been able to pay off my credit cards monthly and that He blessed me with the knowledge and talents of being good with finances. I have been so blessed over the years to always be able to pay my bills. 

If you have read this blog, you will know that many times He sheds His miraculous blessing on my family in ways no one could foresee allowing us to be able to make our payments and bills on time. I am GRATEFUL I have this blog that allows me to share HIS blessings to me with others. 

I know the "111" in the checks were just for me. I called on the other cash back bonus checks about two weeks before the others, had I called on that same day, I doubt I would have had those number items. I am so blessed that He loves my girls enough to show me how to get enough funds for them to participate in the fun camps, missions, tours, choirs and teams that give them the confidence to face the world head on.

What a Week - Don't you Forget About Us - Part 2

This week started with Princess Five's friend staying for four or five days while her parents picked up her brother from Basic Training out of state. She left, I get the house back to order and get a call that night from a friend who moved away a year ago saying her brother is in the hospital. She stayed for three nights and left the day we left to move Princess Three into her new apartment at school. We arrived home late and got calls early the next morning as it was my nieces wedding. We got up and drove to the city of the wedding, did the luncheon and hurried back to get the reception ready. 

While setting up the reception, I get a call from one of my best friends who was here from Iowa dropping her daughter off at school. I was trying to hurry so I could visit with them at dinner but by the time I got things done, they had finished and my sister needed me to go to the hardware store here and help her get some paint I purchased for her retinted. My friend met us there with her daughter and we visited while she was getting the paint tinted. They left, I dropped of Princess Four at a Back-to-School sleep over at a friends who never gets sleep overs and then rushed to the reception to help serve the food etc. I was the last one cleaning up at the reception at my sisters late that night and got a text from my friend saying she and her son would be at my house the next morning to stay the weekend. 

The saddest part of this crazy week was that at the reception, we got a text that my Aunt S had passed away that evening just before the reception. "Thank you" to all who said a prayer in her behalf. 

I was on the phone most of the day on Saturday with my cousins and Uncle working some things out and with house company, it was a bit crazy. 

My friend was sick today, I had her son and took him to church and we arrived home to do lunch, then we had an orientation this evening for Princess Five going into High School Seminary and two men from our church came over after that to give my Princesses some back to school blessings. 

Princess Four hasn't seen her best friend but once this summer with all her fun activities and tonight her friend came over to see the finished product of her amazing talent. Her best friend drew this cute logo for the shirts this year. If you remember, Princess's theme for running for Student Body President was, "Don't you forget about me." and she told them in her speech that she didn't want anyone to be left out and that this years theme was, "Don't you forget about US!" so she had her friend draw this cute logo for the spirit shirts for the year. Her friend hadn't seen them yet and so she came over and tried on the sweat shirt and I took a picture of the two of them and then one of the shirt. Here is a link to the post about her campaign.

Forgive me if the posts this week are a bit lame. The kids starts school soon, we have the funeral, I have about five birthdays in my family in the next two weeks and  most of the things are out of town for me. Princess Four is working on driving hours for her license and I think I have heat stroke from moving Princess Three and helping set up for the wedding etc. 

I sure hope next week is better. I am glad I have lots of friends and that they come visit me but I think I am ready for some down time after such a crazy summer. I hope to post about some of these events during the week in more detail but who knows how it will go with everything going on this week. I hope your end of summer is calm and that the start of the new school year is a pleasant one!

Mastermind Word Game

While we were camping last week, it rained one afternoon. We had the pavilion to sit beneath and play games while it stormed. 

My oldest brother got a group of the kids together and played a game using words.It is similar to hang man and mastermind.

The person that is "it" picks a word. Write the alphabet across the top of the paper. 

The people playing, take turns guessing words that it could be. The person that is "it" tells them how many of the letters are in the word he chose out of the word they guessed.

You can see that someone guessed the word "Shark" and there was one letter in the word "Shark" that was in the word the "It" person picked. 

The game continues with people guessing words and deducing what letters are in the "word" the "it" person picked until they have all the letters in the word circled in the alphabet. The letters that they know are not in the word slowly get crossed off the alphabet at the top of the page. 

In the end, there are only the letter in the "word" left. Then, they need to figure out what the word is by putting together the remaining letters.

You can see to the right that the letters that were left were ptrni. In this case, the word my brother chose was "print." 

I thought it was a clever way to play a game with just a paper and pen and a group of people. Whoever guesses the "Word" gets to pick the next word and the game continues.

Fun Day at The Water Park for Cheap

Prince and Princess number one bought our family a city pass. I have mentioned it before and one of the fun places on the pass is a large water park.

We decided since we were all together, we would spend the day at the park. We went in the afternoon after Prince one got home from work.

You can't take in flotation devices so when there, you have to get their tubes. They had one, two and three person tubes. They are quite expensive to rent. Since we went in the afternoon, we were able to offer two or three dollars to each person returning their tubes. They don't get anything for returning their tubes and so they were happy to get a few dollars for them and we got tubes for all of us for about $15.

I wish we had more time at the park but we had fun until it started to rain towards evening. It was quite hot for most of the afternoon and we found a cool spot in the shade of one of the rides. Some of the princesses wanted to be in the sun so we enjoyed visiting while we shared a snack.

One of the girls won a gift card for the food area so we shared a few orders of fries. All in all, it was a fun, yet fairly inexpensive day at the water park.

Pray For my Aunt - Hospital Visit

I have a wonderful Aunt that has been diagnosed with some major Cancers. She has been fighting it the best way she can but has had a few set backs. 

She was in a hospital for a few weeks so she could overcome some of the problems and while there, I visited her a few days in a row and was able to give her leg and foot massages, sing to her with Princess 2 and on my last visit, I was able to give her a pedicure.


I wish I was able to do more for her as she is suffering through this difficult time in her life. 

I would ask that you send a prayer her way if you are willing. 

She went home yesterday and had a fall. They have taken all the precautions with hand rails etc but she is still so weak from everything that she is having a hard time.

I will thank you in advance for your prayers in her behalf. 

I love you Aunt S. Get better soon! 

A Day at the Lake - Reunion - Part Something

I've written several posts about reunions in the past, but I have to say, this was probably my favorite. It wasn't the activities so much as the location.

We usually go to a site hours and hours away and the lake was a long walk and the water was so cold you couldn't stay in long. 

There were biting flies, sand fleas and flies and mosquitoes along with an outhouse and a hand pump to round things out. 

The group site was slanted and there were no hook ups for electricity so we had to use the trailers or out houses. 

On the occasions that it rained, everyone was stuffed into the trailers or in the tents and it made us sad to drive all that way to not be able to enjoy each others company due to rain. 

We did have fires there and that was something that was missed at this new site but I will give up the fire for the other amenities for SURE.

When looking to see if I posted about the other camp site, I found that I have never posted about it other than this one the first year I started blogging. It is about cooking over the camp fire. In 2010 we tried another camp site and it was worse than the one we went to for years. Here is a link to that post where you can see a bit of the site. .

The three days we were at the lake, I didn't see one biting bug. Not one. I got no bites, the kids got no bites and we had one or two flies. It was wonderful.

The other thing is that the lake wasn't as cold. There were also picnic tables at the beach every ten feet or so, so that everyone could have one to enjoy. 

There wasn't a huge walk to the water from the beach. There was a walk from our group site to the beach but we liked that due to the little children. We didn't want them running off to the beach without supervision. 

I took some fun beach toys and my dad also brought some fun things but this site also had two "diving docks" that were about a 25 foot swim away from the beach edge so that people could safely dive into the water without issue. They were VERY popular. 

There are no motor boats allowed on the lake or any motors actually which made for a quite relaxing time except for the ATV's which roared in and out but for the most part, it was nice.There were paddle boats and canoes for rent. Grandpa and Grandma were amazing, as usual, providing those for the kids use and some fun beach toys.

There was a golf course about a 30 second walk from our trailers and a driving range that were used by the men of our group. Princess Four was at a leadership camp or she would have joined in the golf. Prince number One had fun with my brothers and dad on the driving range while my brothers and brother-in-law enjoyed a round of golf earlier in the day.

There was a mud bog a short drive or a long walk to the other side of the campground and a hose to wash off afterwards. The older kids thought it stunk so the little kids had a wonderful time miring in the mud. 

The pavilions for the group sites were great. They have three or four group sites where they have plenty of parking for cars, hook ups and different size pavilions. I think we may try for a smaller pavilion closer to the water next year. 

The one reason we may want to stay with the larger site was the huge bathrooms and showers that were mostly ours to use. They were VERY clean and well stocked and key codes on the showers made it easy to get in. 

They had plenty of hooks for clothes and lots of hot water. The bathrooms were always just ours. I never went in when anyone was there that was using them that wasn't from our group. 

I liked that I didn't have to dump the trailer as the bathroom was about thirty steps one direction and the pavilion was about the same in the other direction. There was plenty of parking for the kids cars and everything was included in the group site fee.

The kids enjoyed the clean water and I enjoyed visiting with everyone on the beach and did get in to save one of the toys from blowing across the lake. 

I wanted to swim more but really enjoyed just visiting with everyone that we only get to see a few times a year.  The sand was much better than the little pebble sand at our usual spot as well. 

There were trees dotted along the beach as well, which gave shade for those who are now of the age to hide from the sun rather than lay out. 

I laughed when I compare the photo of my dad and step-mom (in name only, she is like a mother to me) with their hats, glasses, long pants etc with the photo here of princess Two laying out. I have one picture with about five laying out but I don't want to offend some of the people in the picture by posting them in bathing suits online. 

However, I think I can share this cute picture of my nephews and nieces building their sand castles at beach edge. They had so much fun and as we were telling my dad (grandpa) about how much we enjoyed the reunion and thanking him for having it, Princess Two said, "Yes grandpa, if we do this again next year, I'll bring a male friend with me!" 

To that, my dad replied, "We'll do it for sure then." very emphatically. He would love to see more of his grandchildren getting married as several are getting older he jokes with them that they need to find "someone." 

I, for one, am going to go camping to this new site again. Just a few days ago, I was telling a friend of mine to rent one of the cabins they have available there. The savings on gas (not having to drag a trailer and a second car to drive her kids,) trailer dumping fees, hook up fees etc probably make the cabins worth the price.

All in all, a wonderful reunion and a great destination. THANKS GRANDMA AND GRANDPA!

Star Tipping - New One For Me

My girls were with their cousins one night and they were discussing "Star Tipping." 

I had never heard of it and so my niece took the girls to the grass, got a flashlight and they were off. 

First, you get some unsuspecting person, you tell them to pick out a star above their head and to focus on that star and then start spinning around. 

After they have spun for a minute or so, they stop and you or some cruel being shines the flashlight into their eyes at very close rang. 

This causes the dizzy person to fall backward and down onto the ground.


Not that being dizzy from staring straight up and spinning would be cause enough to make someone wobble and fall down but, I think if anyone at any time shoved a flashlight into my face, had it on, and shined it directly in my eyes, I would probably fall down backwards for fear of the light hitting me in the face or eye. 


The girls were giggling and laughing as they twirled and fell all over the yard. They thought it was "fun." 

I can think of lots of things I think are more fun, but when was the last time you spun yourself around and made yourself dizzy? Sad in many ways that we lose that need to just be free enough to do things like that. Little children spin themselves around all the time just for the fun of it. 

Maybe they had the right idea. As you can see in the pictures, they are having fun... Perhaps I need to find someone just crazy enough to stare up at the stars and spin with me.... I think I would leave out the flashlight part altogether.;-)