$1,631.88

So what's been added to my savings account lately?
First there was $35.00 from selling off my arcade machine and I put some of the money in savings. Second my monthly $30.00 in savings. Third I earned $50.00 from another birth control study and fourthly I got $100 from a "focus group" on craig's list. Fifthly I got $35.36 from selling a $50 gift card I won minus shipping and eBay/paypal fees. Finally I earned $1.24 in interest for June.

The "focus group" is a story. So I responded to an ad on Craig's List looking for people for a focus group on an electronic device weeks ago. I kept seeing the ad although no one ever called me. Bah a scammer looking to collect e-mails and phone numbers thought I.

Well three weeks ago, I got a call about it asking what time I wanted to come in. After setting up the appointment for the next day, the woman on the phone started asking me all these weird questions. Did I have any heart problems, did I have any mood or mental problems, etc? She stressed that I would have to go through several security screenings in order to get to the focus group. Oh and by the way the people putting on the focus group are a branch of the government, you don't want to mess with.

At this point, you can imagine I was freaking out. Why would this government agency need a focus group? Why would they be worried about heart and mental health? What the heck was I getting myself into? My husband and I started joking about it being like in a movie, I would go in and they would brainwash me. I knew one thing for sure if the security screenings involved any anal probes, I was out of there.

Well it was good money for just a couple hours work. I decided to go in and check it out. So I enter where they told me to go and it's bland office with one woman and desk. No other people at all. The woman gave me a manila envelope containing some instructions and directed me into another room with a metal desk surrounded by doors that contained only a People and a Newsweek.

Well the instructions made me feel better about the whole thing since the instructions were all about the security screening and said nothing at all about the focus group and I had seen no other people come into this office, it was pretty obvious that the study was about the security screening and not a focus group at all. I signed my paperwork and gave it back to the woman and she had me wait back in the little room reading about Kate Gosslin in People. Sitting there, I was tempted to write "The Cake is a Lie" over the crossword to mess with other people.

After a few minutes, I was sent up to the security screening room. I can't go into the details due the agreement I signed. But no anal probes or brain washings occurred, thankfully. In fact I've had much worse security screenings at airports. Also I guessed right in that there was no focus group. A little more than hour later, I got $100 from my efforts and a little closer to my goal.

$1,415.28

I currently stand at $1,415.28. My goal is to get to $10,000. Since I'm a student in a professional program having to put in 45 hours of clinical work a week minimum for school starting July 1st. Getting there is not going to be easy. The goal of this blog is to share how I'm getting there since I can only work a minimum number of hours. Really I'm setting aside extra money

Granted I'm taking out student loans to almost cover all my living expences. The few hours I work make up the rest plus I put $30 a month into savings. It means having to live pretty frugally. My husband works and gets grants through his school to cover his half of living expenses. So most of the money I'm saving is from "extra money".

So how did I get here so far? Where is this "extra money" coming from anyways?

From smallest to largest here is where my savings came from:
$4.28 or <1% monthly interest from my savings
$35 or 2% of closing out a savings account I already had, but never used
$65 or 5% selling stuff in my parent's garage sale and my dad sold a larger item for me at work
$115 or 8% from my yearly work bonus and the bonus from opening my account
$180 or 13% from part of my tax refund that I saved
$181 or 13% from winning contests and selling the prizes (a hobby of mine)
$195 or 14% comes from saving $30 a month plus $15 extra from spring break
$270 or 19% come from money I got as a gift from birthday, christmas
$370 or 26% comes from signing up for research studies

Can't wait to get more to save!