I suppose I had better just start with the good news. As always, it's almost wholly thanks to CAG and the good people here.
We were able to hit our target for the June bills early this month, so I am already able to start working on July which really should be the last difficult month.
Of course, many people bought from me this month (some bought A LOT!) and also helped out in many different ways, but the final thing that pushed us over the top to be guaranteed to pay everything this month was the lowball sale donation from thebob101.

Now, as I said, I have to start collecting for July! Ai will get her first paycheck on the 15th, but unfortunately it's a training paycheck, so it still won't quite cover even the rent. That's OK though, because we were able to hit June with no additional funds, so I am very hopeful for July. Starting in August, not only will she get a full paycheck which should cover rent and utilities each month, but it's also the month of the final payment to my ex-wife.

I know that I have said this before, but I really don't know how to make people understand just how thankful we are for the great people here at CAG. I will use thebob101 as an example since everyone knows that he created a lowball with 100% of the proceeds going to help my family out. He has been an upstanding member of CAG for many years. Not only that, but he has a very good reputation among his peers and many people believe he is a pillar of the CAG community. All that being said, I feel very fortunate that someone like him would step up and volunteer to aid us. Were you aware that thebob and I had never really communicated before this? I had once bought from him, but that was it. We didn't really speak about anything and we don't really know each other at all. Still, he decided to assist with my situation. What does that say, not only about him, but about the community here that someone that already has a stellar reputation in the community would step up and do something like this with really no reward or accolades coming their way because of it? Really, thebob101 stood to gain absolutely nothing by helping out the way he did, but he still went out of his way to help. Actually, all he got out of it was less games. What kind of CAG is this guy?!?!

In a similar vein, how about CAG callmewoof? This CAG setup a lowball with 25% of the proceeds going to us. A CAG that I had never dealt with before, but someone who saw a fellow CAG in need of assistance and stepped up to help out. I could go on and on about all the different CAGs that helped my family and I out in June (and before), I mean, just look at my list and see the people that still have items donated to the cause on there (Come buy them! ), but I think that the two examples above are pretty telling of the general state of the CAG community.

thebob101: member since 2005 with 230 positive feedback at 100%.
callmewoof: member since 2009 with 5 positive feedback at 100%.

Both ends of the CAG spectrum were amazingly helpful to another of us in needy times.

It's a fantastic thing to see! It's so rare that a user that has been here for so long and a relatively new user both have the same willingness to support the community. I don't know about those of you reading this, but for me, I honestly feel that every single time I think the CAG community can't get any better, they surprise me.
CAG is the best place ever! I don't know exactly how it worked out like this, but somehow Cheapy set things up perfectly. Maybe there was some strange confluence of events... I don't know. All I know is, somehow, we were able to get a community together of many, many great people and relatively few "bad apples".

Now, enough sappiness!

Quick update on the website while I'm blogging as well.
Things are moving right along! I think that we'll be in the testing phase VERY soon and should be able to open up to all of CAG soon after that.
I suppose now would be a good time to outline the basics even though I am still not giving out the URL until things are all set as I would be embarrassed to have everyone visiting a rough draft of it!

The site's main purpose is to do what I have been doing for the past few years on CAG, but doing much more often these past 6 months or so. Here are the focuses of the site;

- Special products available from Japan at lower prices than Ebay, Play-Asia, etc.
- Request services for things you can't find anywhere.
- Request services for things you can find, but can't get shipped to the US
- Package forwarding from Japan
- Yahoo! Auction bid proxy services

That's about it for right now. I do understand that there are many sites that offer these services, but I think the majority of them are just way overpriced. I understand having to make money (Really, I do!), but I think there is a big difference between making a profit and price gouging. I have seen too many sites that offer to get you items from Japan and have service charges of 50% or more of your total purchase price! I think it's pretty ridiculous personally.

As my site will be ONLY for CAGs, I am keeping prices as low as possible while still trying to have them be just high enough to be able support myself and my family.

A lot of time and effort has gone into the site, but even more has gone into the building of the processes and such to get me up to the point where I could even start it. I feel like I have been working toward it for the past three years or so, so even if you are not interested in picking anything up from Japan just now, please still visit the site and have a look around once I get things all finished up! Keep an eye out for a future blog post that will hopefully include a URL to a functional site.