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Friday Wrap Up: Packed Edition

November 1st, 2013 at 08:32 pm

My only intentional snowflake goal was to save $750 toward Christmas. We met this goal back in June. In the meantime, we have take advantage of some credit card rewards. Those snowflakes and snowballs have been applied to our new goal of reducing the debt on our mortgage. I think I initially defined that goal as $1000. And as you can see from the side bar, I more than doubled that goal. As of the end of October, we have $2077.73 that has been sent in to pay down debt. Those two goals combined and accumulated in just 10 months equals $2,828.99.

I might as well shoot for an even $3,000 in snowflakes by the end of the year. That leaves me with $171.01 to go. I'm pretty sure I can do it! In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll exceed it. Smile Thanks Be A Wealthy Warrior for the idea!!

My first snowflake for November are: $48.22 for the Lands' End return I made yesterday and $0.44 from Capital One 360 for interest. That money is already pending payment on the mortgage. Ya know, so the snowflake doesn't melt!

I did a return at Kohl's the other night and got a merchandise credit since the purchase was on one of those gift cards I had. I then asked for a price adjustment to my Kohl's card for the amount of the credit. They couldn't apply it directly, but since I had the receipt of a recent purchase I charged to the card, we did a return and applied and reapplied the merchandise credit and another gift card. Now my balance owed is less!! In the process of repurchasing the item, I earned $10 Kohl's cash. Bonus!!

I did purchase the Ooma Telo. That's a VoiP (voice over internet protocol)phone system. There was an offer to purchase it for $99.99 with free shipping. Once we have it up and running and test it for a few days, we will notify our phone company that we want to cancel. This will save us about $27 per month.

Although, the savings won't really be saved as I expect to upgrade to a smartphone soon, and a new data plan will likely be another $30. We are going cell phone shopping this weekend. We want to check out the 97 cent smartphones at Walmart. We will check directly with Verizon, too, so we know which plan we will have and see who really has the best deal. I do know that I likely will be able to save more by having a smartphone. I can pull up coupons, use Target's cartwheel for discounts, and compare prices when I'm out shopping. That alone might lower the true cost of the data plan. I'll let you know what I get.

I was reminded on the forums about buying gift cards at discounts. I think I even mentioned a deal I did on cat food awhile back using a discounted gift card. I purchased mine from

Text is Cardpool and Link is http://www.cardpool.com/
Cardpool. However, there are many more sites. One is
Text is Gift Card Granny and Link is http://www.giftcardgranny.com/
Gift Card Granny which combines the gift cards at many sites into one, which is great to find the best discount. Be sure to read ALL of the fine print. Generally, electronic gift cards received by email can only be used online. These discounted cards save you money before you even make a purchase. And if you combine it with a store coupon you save even more!

Our Halloween night ended with just 8 pieces of candy left. I began the night handing out two per kid because last year I only had 10 kids show up. This year was closer to 25! Big difference. I even gave away some plastic rings/toys that we found in our decluttering. Big hit!

I think I packed enough content into one post for today. Do you buy discounted gift cards for regular purchases? Did you end up with more or less candy that you started with last night? Will you make a snowflake goal for next year?

5 Responses to “Friday Wrap Up: Packed Edition”

  1. beawealthywarrior Says:
    1383339588

    I'm sure you will surpass $3k with no problem Smile

  2. pretty cheap jewelry Says:
    1383341413

    we had about the same crowd as last year 50-100 and I gave out 2 little + 1 larger bit of candy to each (mint cocoa hard candie plus a little skittle bag).

    my daughter was with a group of girls at a friends neighborhood but it was practically deserted so they ended up carpooling over to our house where it was lively.

    I ran low near the end and decided to raid the mini tootsie roll bag which was supposed to be reserved for family poker game 'chips' during upcoming holiday times. Good thing!! cause I remembered my son is not allowed tootsie rolls with his braces this year!! In a couple days I'll go scour the grocery / drug store sale for a different suitable poker 'chip' candy.

  3. Wino Says:
    1383361450

    Go to ClarkHoward.com before you complete the cell phone changes. He is somewhat fanatic about keeping up with which plan saves the most money. About how much time have you put toward earning the snowflakes? I know it takes research, applications, deciding what to put on the cards, and of course, making sure you do the due diligence to cancel before any annual fees come up. Have you worked out an equivalent "hourly pay rate" for them?

  4. rob62521 Says:
    1383362177

    We had between 50-60 kids last night trick or treating. Fortunately we had plenty of candy although DH has been hitting it hard. I thought buying one kind would keep him out of it, but he went and bought more, especially stuff he likes!

  5. Robert Wilson Says:
    1505820193

    Yes, I used to buy discounted gift cards from https://www.giftcardspread.com.

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