Up until last payday, I was just a lowly hourly employee. I live paycheck to paycheck like most people my age, and two of the other girls that traveled with me, and you would think that my employer would realize that and give us a cash advance or a company credit card to use while we’re at the convention. Payday Cash Advance Loans may be the only option some people have to get the money they need to do the things they have to do. A trip for emergency payday loans may be in some of our futures!

I don’t consider myself an overly thrifty person. I buy generic, save plastic bags, and clip coupons, but I’m not a scrounger (unless there’s something I really want to splurge on and dig deep to come up with the cash).

That’s why I’m surprised that I steal hotel toiletries.

When I leave my room for the day before the cleaning lady comes, I take all the toiletries and stash them in my luggage so that they all have to be replaced. Nothing is being wasted. I take them home and use them when I’m in a pinch or on my next non-hotel trip, but there’s really no reason to make the hotel replace them every day.

I guess that’s why the hotel room is almost $300 a night.

I’d take a free trip to Hollywood no matter what, but throw in a date with a celebrity and that would make one memorable trip. GoFish.com is running a contest called Seduce a Celeb and there is still time to enter!

Watch Free videos at GoFish.com and enter to win a date with Mirelly Taylor, who has been in Kiss Me Again, Serving Sara, Las Vegas, and Numb3rs. Now, I have to admit that I don’t really know who she is, but a celebrity is a celeberity, and even though I’m a girl, I’d still enter! The contest runs for the next 14 weeks and a video entry is your ticket to a night out with Mirelly.

Here’s what you have to do…

Step 1
Watch the Seduce a Celeb introduction, and Mirelly will explain how it works.

Step 2:
Watch Mirelly’s videos where she will call out three specific actions. Complete each action as creatively as possible.

Step 3:
Upload your videos!

If you’re not up for entering yourself you can always watch and vote for your favorite video submissions and decide who will win a date with Mirelly Taylor.The winner gets an all exense paid trip to Hollywood where they get to stay at the Chateau Marimont before the big date!

If you don’t think Stud Muffin should end up with Mirelly, go and vote!

I’ve arrived in Las Vegas, and I paid $3 for a bottle of water…with a credit card. That’s right. The vending machines accepted credit cards.

I met some ingenius highschool kids selling cold bottles of water on The Strip. They buy cases of water at Target for $4 each and sell the bottles of water for $2 each. Still a rip-off, but a full dollar cheaper than anywhere else, and those kids always appear at the exact moment that you think you’re going to die of dehydration.

They said that on a hot day, they can sell a case of water in a half hour. That’s like being paid $88 an hour. That’s one hell of a job for a 17 year old kid.

 

I love sharing the story of my student loan consolidation because it was so quick and easy.

I had accepted my first real job offer a few weeks before graduation, and I knew I would have a steady paycheck coming in and that the interest rates on my student loans were at record lows. It was the perfect time to lock in my interest rate for the life of my student loan.

I did my research and found the best student loan consolidation program available, and signed my name on the dotted line. Payments began immediately, I had forfeited my deferment period by consolidating, but the interest rate I had locked in more than made up for that fact.

The payments were reasonable and I was excitant that only a month out of college, I was well on my way to tackling my student loan debt and paying for my education, while my friends were wasting away their deferment time spending their money on frivolous things and still working a part time job.

Five years later, and the interest rates have steadily increased, making me very thankful that I took the bull by the horns and signed up for a student loan consolidation program when I did.

I leave for Las Vegas on Friday morning, so I’m giving fair warning that I may be MIA for about a week.

I’ll be attending a conference and taking care of other unofficial business *wink wink*, but my boyfriend will be meeting me there, and he is armed with my laptop.

I’m looking forward to a very busy, funfilled, and cheap week in Las Vegas. I will be saving any and all receipts to include in my next expense report…within reason of course. I don’t work for Enron.

I love being the first to have something, but I hate being the guine pig. I don’t want to be the person paying good money for the newest gadget only to be the one that has to work out the kinks, call the manufacturer when there is a problem, and learn the hard way that I just wasted my money.

TestFreaks is a new website that works out all the kiks for you, and reports back, giving their recommendation for digital cameras, like this olympus digital cameras. Recommendations are based on price, performance, megapixels, size, optics, and a bunch of other stuff that we probably don’t understand, but without it would be disappointed in our purchase.

The website is still in beta, so the current TestFreaks site is just a sneak peak and what is to come, and already there is tons of useful information about Canon, Casio, Fuji, HP, Kodak, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, and other digital cameras.

My sister and I just bought our mom the Canon Powershot A550 for Mother’s Day, and TestFreaks is spot on with their description and review.

Since I’m a blog lover, you know I ended up on the TestFreaks Blog learning about their website progress and the trials and tribulations of being in beta.