Cha cha can bite me. I got an email today saying my account had been deactivated for "engaging in frivolous chat." Apparently you aren't allowed to have a conversation with the people who are searching. Even if they want to have one with you.

On top of that, I put in a lot of time and had over $50 worth of searches. They won't even pay me for that. I am furious.

Here is more detail about what a cha cha guide is for anyone interested.

"Cha Cha is a new search engine. What makes it different from other search engines is that the users have the opportunity to search with a guide. The guide is a real person in real time that communicates with them via chat and finds their results for them. Many times we may perform a search and instead of getting the results most relevant to what we are looking for, we instead get whichever pages hold the keywords and are ranked the highest. Just think, when this happens you can now communicate with a real person who is an expert in the topic you are seeking and have them direct you to the site you are looking for.

I did a few searches with a guide when they first launched and the process is slower than when you do it on your own. However, the results are more relevant so I think it balances out with the time you would spend tweaking your keywords and doing other searches.

A Cha Cha guide gets paid anywhere from $5-$20, or even $30, per hour. You can work whenever you want as much or as little as you like. You can also earn from your "downline," people you invite to also work as Cha Cha guides. You can earn up to 10% of what they make. So, it is like an MLM in that way. And it is a new MLM. New MLM's are good because if you are one of the first, you will have many people working under you.

Don't fret if you are interested but do not know anyone who works as a guide to invite you. I added a Cha Cha section to our new forums just for this purpose (and for Cha Cha guides to shoot the breeze, vent, or what have you). You can also find guides ready to offer you an invite on just about any of the active work at home forums on the web.

Once you have your invite, the process is a little intimidating (or at least it was for me) because you don’t find any information on the job. Instead, you are immediately thrown into the application process. You fill in your personal information, your tax information, and you download an application onto your computer to be used in your work. You also choose three keywords, things you are pretty well versed in, to start out working with. You then fill in your personal profile (should you want to) and you have access into the training section (finally!) where you can watch videos that teach you the ins and outs of working as a guide. Once you reach Master Level Status, you can then invite others and create your downline.

If you haven’t already, visit Cha Cha and try out their guided search!"

www.chacha.com

I have a few invites if anyone is genuinely interested. They don't give out invites much from what I hear.

I am challenging myself to only spend $250 this month on groceries. If I find that its very easy, I will lower it for April. I have been budgeting $100 a week, but I don't need that much. I am going to try to add whatever extra I have left over to the challenge.

(If you should happen to read on the frugalvillage boards, this a copy of what I posted there.)

I had the BEST day today. LOL I shopped at two Goodwills and got some pretty good deals.

First store in Mooresville: (This store is brand new and was WAY overpriced on a lot of stuff. Some stuff was the same price or higher than it would be new. And then there cookbooks were $3 each.
- 3 Road Sign Adhesive Hooks. These match the road sign curtains I got at another Goodwill on Monday perfect. I have a pair of curtains I didn't list on ebay that I may hang in my son's room and use these hooks.
- A new with tags t-shirt for me that says "Trust me. I'm a lawyer."
- An Adidas t-shirt for me
- A new with tags shirt for DD with The Beatles on it
- Two more shirts for DD, one from The Children's Place (Other is Sonoma. I think that is Target??)
- A very nice pair of dress shoes for DD
- A like new pair of pants for DS with an adjustable waist and cargo pockets
- A Starter Athletics pullover for DS

Total: $19.22

Second Store in Cornelius:
- Pokemon book for DS
- Book for DD
- A cute set of magnets my DD wanted
- An adorable black and white skirt from Oshkosh for DD
- A really pretty Healthtex shirt for DD
- A Hulk shirt for DS
- A Batman shirt for DS
- A Guinness shirt for DH
- A really funny shirt for myself, looks new. I won't write what it says LOL
- A reed diffuser from Pier 1 (smells so good)
- (SO proud of this!) A BEAUTIFUL Easter dress for my daughter. Nicer than the one I bought at Wal Mart for $20. I will take that one back and put the money in my savings.
- And my favorite thing, a wooden folding TV tray that is the prefect size and height to hold my laptop while I am on the couch

Total: $27.02

On top of these great deals I did great on my grocery shopping. My total was $289.56. With my bonus card and stack of coupons I spent $158.24 (before taxes). I got a TON of stuff too. (I will list in another post some of the deals I got.)

Then as if it could get better (LOL) we had been searching at Goodwill for a nighstand table for my side of the bed. We had just got home and were putting up our groceries when my MIL called and asked us if we wanted a nighstand table she had! It has a magazine holder on one side, a little slide out table, and plenty of room to hold my junk.

Days don't get much better than this one. LOL

I spent just about all day listing stuff on ebay today. I started everything at .99 hoping that this will cause more bids, and also this made the insertion fees a little lower. Wish me luck!

My Ebay Auctions

We got our insurance cards in the mail today. I haven't had insurance since I was on my parents. LOL Well, other than pregnancy medicaid. The copays seemed kind of high to me but what do I know? It feels great to know that I can go to the doctor without having to make payments on it. Or if something happened and I had to I could go to the ER. It might cost me $150 but that's better than it would cost without insurance.

I entered all of my info at turbotax.com and it says I should get back $5242 from federal and $670 from state. I was going to go ahead and file with them but I am afraid that I may have messed something up. When we go to file our taxes tomorrow if they tell us something much lower than that I am not sure I will get it done there.

When I went to pick my son up from daycare today my car wouldn't start. It started fine when I took him this morning. I am off on Tuesdays and I didn't go anywhere other than his school today. It isn't even making noise like it's trying to start. I am 99.9% sure that I cut it all they way off this morning and my lights weren't on or anything. I am praying that it is just the battery and my DH can jump it off when he gets home from work. If it's not than I don't know what I will do. I don't have the money for car repairs. I haven't been having a good week.

I haven't had any money to add to the challenge lately but wanted to write about Saturday. We went up to Maggie Valley and took the kids Snow Tubing. (There was no snow on the ground but they had man made snow to tube in.) At first I didn't want to go because I wanted to save the money, but we ended up having a great time and got out pretty cheap.

We drove up there and bought the kids tickets to tube ($5 each for 1 hour and 45 minutes). Then we went to a local pizzeria and got their special. They had a 12" cheese pizza for $4.95. We bought two of those and drinks ($17.00). Then we took the pizza to a park in Lake Junaluska, which is absolutely beautiful. We walked on the rose walk beside the lake and behind the lake you could see the mountains. It was so pretty.

Lake Junaluska


I was so proud that we didn't blow money just because we had it. We drove the 2 1/2 hours home so we didn't have to pay for a hotel room, we didn't buy anything in any of the little gift stores, etc. We ended up spending $65 total which includes the snow tubing, lunch, drinks, gas, and snacks on the way. Here are a couple of pictures (if it works lol).

Here are the kids right before they told us tickets were sold out until 6:00 (which was 3 hours away).


Here's my son Tre tubing. He is 7.


Here is my daughter Maleah tubing. She is 3. She only did it a few times and then decided it was too wet in the tube to sit in it any more.


Here they both are about to come down at the same time.