Out of the 5 classes I am signed up for, 4 of the classes have a very large online component. For 3 of those classes ALL of the homework and quizzes are online.

And I hate it. The ONLY upside is that for those 3 classes, the textbooks are also online. I spent $251.95 on those 3 e-books, as compared to $551 on the paper versions. I ended up spending about $500 on textbooks this semester- the 3 ebooks, 2 books that I rented from Chegg (great deal too- renting the two cost as much as buying one used!), and 1 book that I had to buy from the bookstore (first edition and it came with a special code for online work). I am in the process of putting the ebooks on my Kindle.

I get that there are a lot of advantages to doing work online- less paper wasted on turning in assignments, the teachers don't have to spend hours grading papers, etc. But I don't seem to do well with online assignments. I can complete them, and get a good grade on them, but I just don't seem to learn the material as well as when I have to write it by hand.

It is going to be an interesting semester for sure. I have to spend about 12 hours at school every Monday and Wednesday. I do have breaks in between my classes so I can get homework done while I am there. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have only one class so I plan on going to school early to practice racquetball by myself. Fridays I have off!

I have several recipes I am gong to try this week so I can bring the food to school. Since classes started on Tuesday, I only had to spend one 12-hour day at school this week. And I ended up going to the vending machine (Pop-tarts). I don't want to get used to getting food at school as it will get very costly, very fast.

Speaking of food, I entered a recipe contest! I already submitted my recipe and now I am just waiting. The deadline is Feb. 1 and winners won't be announced until October. I plan on entering more contests as it was a lot of fun making the recipe. There is even a cash prize (not going to lie, good motivation!).

I have sold 6 textbooks the last couple weeks. A little over $300 made. I am going to use the money to buy a cheap pair of boots (mine are following apart) and then put the rest in savings.

That is about all for now. I am going to finish the reading and then make some lunch.

On second thought, not so patiently.

Tomorrow is payday and I'm almost tempted to count the hours until I can go pick it up. Sad, huh? But it has been a month since my last paycheck and I'm itching to boost my savings!

I went grocery shopping today. I was hungry (bad idea!) and gave in to buying hot pockets. But I got some ground beef, chicken, bread, milk, and lunch meat and cheese as planned. We have enough fruits and veggies (frozen and non) so I think I did pretty good. I forgot to put up the menu for this week last night, but I finally did it today! The menu is loose and I might change some of the meals around.

I got the book list for my summer classes. For my CH class I think I have some of the books already so I have to double check that. There is only one textbook for that class and the other books (4) are reading books (ok, all books are "reading books" but I'm sure you get I mean). I'm thinking no more than $100 for all the books I need this summer (thank goodness!). I'll begin shopping for the books after dinner tonight.

I received a check from OpinionOutpost today. I don't think I'll be continuing with this survey site. I get so little surveys and most of the time I don't even qualify for the ones they give me. I'll stick with mysurvey and if I feel the need to join another survey site, I will.

Tomorrow I'm going to look at a couple more apartments by myself. Boyfriend is busy with school projects. If I like the apartments, we'll visit them again together. If not, we'll look at other places.

My inventory was getting low on half.com so I went through my stuff and pulled out some old textbooks and books and movies I wanted to sell.

I listed everything but the last textbook I tried to list created a problem. Turns out the book I want to sell isn't listed on half.com. So I started to do a catalog request when I remembered something: I had already submitted a catalog request for this book a few months ago! That explains why I had never sold it- I was waiting for it to be "approved" by half.com.

If half.com doesn't approve the book within the next month, I might try to selling it to a few used book stores in town. I wish I could sell it to the university as this book is needed for a class everyone has to take, but I didn't buy it from the university. Maybe I should put up a flyer offering this book for really cheap.

I hope everyone had a good "Earth Day"! Does hallmark make cards for this holiday? Who knows, Earth Day may become as commercialized as other holidays.

I finally remember to do what I needed to do at the bank but I have to go back tomorrow anyway. For something entirely different.

I just realized how close it is to finals! Finals begin May 8th and end May 11th. Eeek! It is getting down to the wire.

So my hours were changed on Saturday, but it worked out for the best because I'll be working longer on Saturday. Sunday my boyfriend and I are going to drive to the state capital. We keep on saying we will, but have always found an excuse not to. So we are going to do it this weekend as it might be one of the last weekends we have the chance to for a month.

I just realized it has been a few weeks since I've done a survey. Hmm.. I used to get a lot but now nothing. Oh well.

I bought a small carpet cleaner today because I was tired of having small spots on the carpet. The carpet spray that we have isn't working well and I wanted to get rid of the spots.

I got a lot of the stains out, but I think I also created some stains when I accidently spilled the dirty water on the floor. And this is why they tell you to open it over a sink.

We had to take one of my kitties (the one who was in the dryer some posts back) to the vet today. She has been throwing up the past few weeks so I made an appointment to have her see the vet (actually, this throwing up is the reason I bought the carpet cleaner- she threw up today and the spray didn't get it all out). The vet did some blood tests and said one of her white blood cell counts was a little high. He thinks it might be an anti-inflammatory infection.. so he gave her a shot and told us to call in a week. Vet visit was $200 but well worth it.

Do you think cats need to be in a pet carrier when traveling short distances in the car? I don't have a pet carrier for my cats. The vet is a ten minute drive from my place and that's the farthest they go in the car. Both cats stay relatively still while in the car. They sit on the passenger seat (sometimes in the lap of my passenger) and meow at me. They don't like to move around the car. At the vet today, while waiting in the lobby, my cat sat in my lap and looked at the other animals. The vet staff didn't care that she wasn't in a carrier but one lady made a rather rude comment about it. My cat wasn't bothering anyone and wasn't climbing on the furniture. I guess I don't see what the big deal is.

I work on Sunday. It doesn't sound like it will be a long party though. I am crossing my fingers that next week is busier.

I tried a few new recipes last week. Most turned out pretty good but I didn't cook the salmon right the first time. Oh well. I'll try the recipe again in a couple weeks when I go through the rest of recipes I want to try.

The other week I bought a video game called "Wedding Designer" for the Nintendo DS. It is a really stupid game. I can't bring it back because I bought it new (I know, I know) so I will sell it on half.com. I hope I can get a good price for it.

This month is the first time I would have received a payment from half.com to my new bank. According to half.com, they paid the deposit on 3/8 (yesterday) and it is not showing in my checking account.

At my old bank the money was in my account the same or next day that half.com showed they paid.

I double and tripled checked my account and routing number and it is correct. So I guess I just have to be patient and give it a few days. I just worry that for some reason I won't receive the money. Silly, yes, but I do tend to over worry.

For those who have half.com, how long do you wait for your payment? Like I said, at my old bank I received it almost instantly, but obviously it is different at different banks.

I have most of my IRA money in a MMA right now. I do plan on getting some CDs and putting money in the stock market in a few years when I have a higher balance.

Anyway, last month I earned 23 cents in interest. So far for this month, I have earned 3 cents in interest.

I knew with Feb. being so short I would make less interest, but why so little when Feb. is almost half over?

One the 10th of January I had already made about 7 cents in interest. Big difference between that and 3 cents as of today.

I suppose it doesn't really matter. But it is weird and it is bugging me.

The leak was fixed yesterday. So I will be hanging out today at home waiting for the other repair men to come and fix the drywall and put my appliances back. I like how they assume I will be available all week without actually confirming what day they are coming. Tricky buggers.

I will be going to the bank today. I have a check to deposit and I want to ask them about the fee changes they sent a letter regarding. I want to make sure that none of the accounts I have will be charged any fees.

Half.com paid me today so I will also be transferring $30 from my checking to savings (the payment was for $40.39).

I convinced my boyfriend to open an IRA. He will be opening one next paycheck (in two weeks). I don't know how much he plans on contributing to it each month. I think he will be putting between $20-40/month into it (he makes around $300/month).

I sold a whopping $201.18 on half.com this month.

I never expected that I would make that much! I am very pleased.

I have another rant about a buyer. A buyer bought a textbook from me on Saturday and even though I do not offer expedited shipping, asked if I would be able to ship the book faster than Media Mail because of a test.

I found a Priority Class flat rate envelope for $4.95 and since it was only a couple dollars more than what half.com reimbursed me for, I shipped the book in the flat rate envelope. I still made about $20 on the sale.

I got the book to the buyer within two days, before the buyer's test (test was on Friday). It is now Saturday and no word from the buyer! It drives me nuts that buyers/sellers do not leave feedback! Especially in this case because I did not have to ship it in the flat rate envelope but I did so anyway.

I sent a message to the buyer asking if she has received the book and if she has, to let me know. I hope that is a big enough hint to leave feedback but I didn't want to come outright and ask her to leave me any.

I have not received any mysurvey.com surveys in the past week. It is so frustrating because I am only 70 points away from cashing out! I'll hopefully get a few more this upcoming week.

ETA: I have been thinking about what I will do with the $200 from the pet deposit that I will be getting back. I have decided that I will put it into my IRA- even though work knows that I am able to work again, there are few banquets with construction going on and it being winter. My birthday is coming up so I really don't need to be buying myself anything right now.

Ugh.

I ordered my book for Linear Algebra 11 days ago (On Jan. 6th). Sellers on half.com are supposed to mail the item with 4 or 5 days of the purchase.

The seller shipped my book today! TODAY!

Argh! He shipped it Media Mail too. Didn't even have the courtesy to apologize to me for sending it WAAAY past when he was supposed to and wouldn't send it First Class or Priority to get it to me on time. I need it for my class on Wednesday.

Someone will not be getting a positive feedback.. which means that I may not be getting any feedback from this seller.

One of the risks of doing business on half.com, but I would be more forgiving if the seller at least apologized and sent it First Class or something.

I am a Borders member. I don't really like Borders, but I signed up because the membership was free and I got a discount.

Today I received an e-mail from Borders offering me a 30% off coupon if I answered a few questions. So I did and then I was asked if I wanted to join a survey group to earn "Borders Bucks".

Free money to Borders? I'll take that.

I currently have a gift card to Borders that still has some money on it. I will go down to Borders this weekend and buy something with the coupon.

In the past five days, I have sold 2 textbooks and one DVD.

The items total $69.28. After shipping, I have made $52.97. The reason shipping cost almost $17 is that I always include insurance on items costing more than $20. Just in case.

It has been a good five days.

ETA: I wanted to include a breakdown of how much each package cost to ship.

Textbook #1:
-$2.93 for postage
-$1.70 for insurance
-$.99 for the envelope
Subtotal: $5.62

Textbook #2:
-$2.58 for postage
-$1.70 for insurance
-$.99 for envelope
Subtotal: $5.27

DVD:
-$2.23 for postage
-$1.70 for insurance
-$1.49 for envelope
Subtotal: $5.42

Total shipping: $16.31

Opinionoutpost I am not liking so much ( I don't get a lot of surveys), but I love mysurvey!

I get 4 or 5 surveys a week from mysurvey and half the time the survey asks me if I want to continue and earn another 100-200 points.

I have cashed out twice and I am halfway to cashing out again. Yay!

I got some film developed today. Cost me about $1 because I only had a handful of photos from my digital camera that I wanted developed.

ETA: Quick question: My license expires in March and I just got a notice from the DMV reminding me. Am I able to renew my license before it expires? Could I go down sometime this week or do I have to wait until the day it expires or closer to when it expires?