March turned out to be a great money month for me.

Freelance: $1,190
My p/t job: $1325
Unemployment: $503
Credit card rewards: $200
Online surveys: $127
3 rebates: $$34
Product research $30
Total: $3,491

That freelance work was all done all at once in February. It's mostly my one real estate client, with a little bit from my new legal client and also a little from editing the emails of the IT director.

The bad news is, I have no billables outstanding now. That's the problem: the freelance work comes in spurts. The $127 in online surveys is what I'd like to see myself make every month, but sometimes it's as little as $50. I'm so tired of waiting over 6 weeks to get a $25 gift card in the mail. It takes forever, and they often ignore your emails asking where it is. I will be so happy to throw in the towel on those things some day.

I had no major calamities this month expense-wise, and right now, my total March expenses come to $2,094, so my net will be positive $1397 or so. It also helped that March was the second consecutive month where I paid $0 for electricity, part of the deal the state worked out with CL& P for botching up storm recovery of power, twice.

Tomorrow's my work at home day, and in the afternoon, I'll quit early to run down to do another product study. I can wrap up my work on Saturday. On the way home, I'll get another load of free wood chips at the landfill, do a bank deposit of all those checks I got and stop at a good will store to pick up some cheap glass vases so i can play paint a vase as noted in an earlier post. Also want to stop at Staples to get some free-after-rebate batteries, which I mostly use in my digital camera and a few clocks.

I want to buy a $35 water fountain for the cats. It recycles the water and makes it a bit more appetizing to drink than stale water in a bowl. I've had a bit of a scare with Waldo; I thought he might have cystitis after I found he left 2 drops of urine on the bed on 2 separate occasions. He wasn't running to the litterbox and seems fine, but I gave him some apple cider vinegar mixed in tuna juice last night, which he really seemed to like. I tried to give him more again today and tonight when I got home from work, just 1/2 t. mixed in tuna juice and then in his food, and he turned up his nose. I'm going to get tinned sardines at Stop and Shop tomorrow on the way home from the product study to further try to camouflage the apple cider vinegar. But it's going to have to wait a few weeks cus I already blew $27 on black licorice last week (hmmm) and I'll have to wait to save up more Amazon gift certificates.