I'll Be Back!

First of all thanks for all the love on my blog, ya'll are the BOMB DOT COM. I have reached over 2,500 views on my blog in just a couple months and it's because ya'll are reading my posts. Prior to this year I think my blog only had 1,000 views at most and that was after years of being up so thank you for your support.

Anywho I wanted to let you know that I am taking a hiatus on my blog for the next month and half to work on my 1st E-BOOK. I'm so excited!! It took me awhile to be okay with this decision but after receiving advice directly from several successful online business owners this must happen so I can take my business to the next level. So I'm stepping away to create my first digital product. My e-book is about saving money and in it I will share tips on breaking the debt cycle and building wealth so stay tuned for that!! 

In the meantime, catch up on my old posts, follow me on IG (akaye143) or find me on FB (Amber Kaye) so we can stay connected. As always thanks for reading and I'll see you guys in October!!

Goodbye Netflix, HuluPlus & Amazon Instant Video

Gone are the days of cord cutting and believing that Netflix, HuluPlus and Amazon Instant Video are your cheapest solutions for home entertainment. Yes they sure do beat paying a cable bill of over $100 or more but there's a better way. Especially if you are like my hubby and I trying to find ways to decrease spending in order to pay off our debts. I have great news if that's you. Today you can find free home entertainment that will practically eliminate your spending in that area and you may already be a member. The resource I'm referring to is your local public library. I know pretty cool, right? One word of caution I'm not sure if all public libraries have these services but for sure Las Vegas and Los Angeles have them.

Originally I had a friend share with me that the Los Angeles Public Library aka LAPL offers e-books that you can access via their website. You use your library card number and last 4 digits of your phone number to check out the items just like you would in the physical library. That excited me because I recently had a trial of the e-book program called, Audible and felt it was a great service but I didn't want to pay for it. No reason in particular I just felt that at this point in my life I wasn't into paying for books. Sorry authors. I know as an author it sounds weird to me too. Forgive me.

Anywho, I meant to check it out but just kept forgetting. Well last month while visiting family in Las Vegas, my sister who works for the local public library there, told me about all the free e-media resources her public library offered. I knew about the free e-books but didn't know music, movies and tv-shows were available for free streaming as well. I thought that was cool but wasn't sure if my my local library offered the same free services. Low and behold I checked and the LAPL does!! Los Angelenos if you are looking for a way to cut expenses you may be able to get rid of your Netflix, HuluPlus, Amazon Instant Video and Audible accounts as well as limit your Itunes music purchases.

Here's a quick overview of the LAPL e-media resources

(Please note this info was copied right from the LAPL e-media page but I thought I would include it to give you the overview of everything that is available. It's amazing, right?!)

e-Media by Format

e-Books: 

OverDrive - Downloadable, available formats are ePub, PDF, Kindle.
Axis360 - Downloadable, available formats are bLio, ePub.

e-Audiobooks:

OverDrive - Downloadable, available formats are wma (PC) and mp3 (Mac, PC).
hoopla - Streaming, some titles download to mobile devices.
OneClickdigital - Downloadable to Mac and PC.

e-Magazines:

Zinio - Read online or download to mobile devices.

e-Video:

hoopla - Streaming movies and tv shows, some titles download to mobile devices.
OverDrive - Downloadable to Windows PCs.

e-Music:

Freegal - Downloadable mp3s that you keep.
hoopla - Streaming files available for 7-day checkout.
OverDrive - Downloadable for 7 to 21-day checkout.

Podcasts:

ALOUD - Audio podcasts of the award-winning ALOUD series.

Alright I hope that helps. I was extremely excited when I got on the site and started exploring. There are so many books I just haven't had a chance to buy and as I embark on the journey of going from full time employee to entrepreneur there are so many rich and valuable resources that I now have at my fingertips for FREE. I hope you enjoyed this post. I appreciate you all so much. Please leave me a comment and let me know what other free services you are using to cut down on your home entertainment spending. I'd love to hear from you and as always thanks for reading!

Staying the Course

July came with some unexpected turns. We had to spend money that we did not plan on spending and thus our debt carving was a little less than expected. I don't regret it. I'm actually very impressed with the progress that my husband and I have made on our debts. If you look to your right you'll see I've added a debt tracker to the sidebar to help you see how far along we are with paying off our debts. As of July 2015 we have paid off 1% of our total debts. We paid over $600 towards our debt! Woo Hoo! That makes me very happy. Extremely happy that we have made necessary sacrifices in our life in order to make this happen.

What's even more exciting is that we are learning to stay the course. Although we paid less than what we wanted towards our debt we still stayed the course. An important lesson that is going to help us out in the long run. We could have given up and said oh well let's just push our debt repayment plan to August and use the "extra" (it's not really extra) money to have fun this summer. You need new clothes, I need new clothes. Let's just splurge! Nope. We didn't do that although the Camarillo Outlets are not that far we said no to our fleshly desires and we pursued our financial goals. Because this is what's going to matter in the long run.

As hard as it is to think about 3 years from now it's really not that hard. Time flies these days, it felt like only yesterday I was in college and before that in high school. Now I'm married (4 years in...Sheesh!) and working a real world full time job for a big corporation. Sometimes I do want things to slow down just a bit. However these are daily reminders that one day I won't be in debt and I'll look back and remember the sacrifices that we made for 3 years so that we could have the life we really wanted. The house we really wanted, the freedom to work for ourselves for lesser money because we don't need as much since we don't have debt. That's what really matters.

And as always I want to encourage you to stay the course with whatever goals you may have for yourself. Whether that be to pay off debt, start your own business or whatever, just remember that this is a very temporary situation. It's not going to be like this always. You will struggle and sacrifice for a little while so that later you can enjoy the results of your hard work. Keep your mind stayed on the goal and if you get off track just remember you can always start again. Alright guys thanks for stopping by and as always thanks for reading. Leave me a comment down below about where you are in relation to meeting your goals. I really do enjoy hearing from you guys. :) Have a great day!