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Debt Free In June

June 1st, 2015 at 02:05 pm

Closing on the house is scheduled for June 12. Since the lending process didn't start until Thursday (because of delay by the buyer's agent) it could get delayed. I would guess it will still get done by the end of the month. The appraisal is today.

Once the house closes, our mortgage will be paid in full! And we get a check. Smile I plan to settle up getting all of our bills and credit cards paid in full. We will be debt free again! And expect to be debt free for the next several years since we are renting.

We are still waiting for the Citi card we applied for. It seems it should be here any day now. I hope it comes before we move! We would like to use it to put some repair expenses on and the charge for the furnished apartment we are renting for 30 days.

I'm setting up an allotment from my husband's pay to our savings account at Navy Federal Credit Union. It's a requirement for our newest CD. The amount has no minimum and I have read some people just set one up for 2 cents. I figure I'd pick a little larger sum that will add up during the year. It will be $25 a month, so a total of $300 a year.

We are still working on using up food in our pantry and fridge. The freezer is pretty much empty except for a loaf of bread, a partial bag of fruit and a container of crushed tomatoes. I plan to make a soup today for dinner which will use up some lentils and the crushed tomatoes. I have some bananas to make banana bread that my daughter can take to her early morning library club on Wednesday. I can see several things being tossed unfortunately (think rarely used seasonings and oils). And why is it that the pasta and the pasta sauce can't be used up at the same rate. We have this same problem with salsa and chips, too!

Will anyone else find themselves debt free in June or finishing a debt paid off in June? Are you using up food in your pantry, fridge or freezer this month?

January Citi Balance Paid Off!

May 27th, 2015 at 12:49 am

We began the year with a balance of $686.27 on our Citi card. Luckily it has been at zero percent interest. My goal was to use extra funds/snowflakes to pay it off. After some recent Facebook sales, I had the money to make the final payment on this portion of our Citi credit card debt which was $47.20.

I used the extra money earned from these Facebook sales to pay $10.80 on my oldest daughter's glasses which were also charged on the Citi card. I know only need to pay $12.80 to have those paid in full.

And yes, there is still a balance on our Citi card from more recent purchases which I will write a post about at another time.

Facebook Sales

May 26th, 2015 at 01:47 am

For the first time I have sold some of our household items on Facebook! I made $33 selling a patio umbrella with stand, a leaf blower and a push broom. It appears I have another possible sale tomorrow night that should net another $10 for a dresser.

The cash from all these sales should get the balance on the Citi card from January finally paid off. Smile

Selling on Facebook is still just as difficult as selling on Craigslist. People are still flakes about committing to an item. Don't say 'interested' if you don't at the same time tell me when you might want to pick it up!

I've given myself a limit of a week to get some of these items sold. If the items do not sell, I expect to donate or possibly trash the items. I don't want to move things I don't want anymore!!

Do you have any tips for getting people to commit with Facebook sales?

I Should, But I Didn't

May 18th, 2015 at 12:49 pm

I have just over $1000 from this past payday that I should have sent in to our Citi credit card balance. It would have brought the balance to around $500. But I didn't do it.

We have a rather large repair coming up on the home before we can close on our home. It was definitely unexpected on this new home, but it may cost us $1500 to $2000. And I'm not sure they take credit cards. So in an effort to have enough cash on hand that I don't have to move from another account I'm holding on to this cash.

I'd really, really like to pay it on the credit card, and maybe I still will.

Husband Sees Credit Card Statement and Says...

May 13th, 2015 at 01:25 pm

My husband mentioned the other day he wants to see the account balances when he returns home (just days away now). Our Citi credit card statement just closed and was about $500 more than the last balance I was aware of. Some of it is my spending, but most was my husband. And yes a little bit is even from last month.

So this morning I sent him a PDF of the statement. I just said he could add up his own spending portion and left it at that. I didn't even add it up myself because what is spent is spent.

His response was 'Ugh. It's like an intervention. I'm trying to reduce my spending.' And I literally laughed out loud. I had no idea that just sending him one credit card statement would be considered an intervention! Smile

He did just buy new running shoes for over $130. He runs nearly 5 miles a day, so they wear out pretty fast. I did encourage him to buy them when he said his feet hurt. We don't need foot or knee problems to deal with. Of course, he didn't have the coupons I have here at home, and he did throw on three more t shirts for $9 each. I think if he can get his eating out under control it would be good.

So now he knows. The more one knows the better one can do...at least let's hope!

Mother's Day & More

May 7th, 2015 at 01:01 pm

I purchased four Mother's day cards the other day. I paid about eight dollars at Hallmark. I wish I had looked for a coupon before, but I didn't know I would be even buying cards. Most of the cards were $.99, but the one for my sister was more...it's her first Mother's Day with her foster daughter (who they are planning to adopt). I wanted to acknowledge it with a card.

I think last year I actually skipped Mother's Day gifts. This year my mother will be at our home. I purchased her a scarf and a bottle of Mrs. Meyer's hand soap (which darn I had a coupon for!) The scarf was $9.99 at JC Penney's. I had a $10 off a $10 purchase, so I found a pair of $2 baby socks and my purchase was $2.13 after the coupon. I will donate the socks. Smile

I instructed my husband to buy his mother a card. If he's deployed it is find if I send the card, but he does need to sign if he is in the states. I texted him her address, too. He told me last night he may just call her that day instead. And I'm sure she would like that just as much. It feels good to delegate some tasks.

I received two deposits into my PayPal account yesterday: $15 from Pinecone and $5.10 from Ebates. That means $20.10 I can send off to the Citi card to pay down some more beginning of the year debt.

Not sure I mentioned this, but I found a dress to wear to graduation and possibly a wedding. It was marked $38 at Kohl's. I had another item for $13, but also a $10 off a $50 purchase. So two items for about $43 with tax. I do now need shoes. I think I can get quite a bit of use out of the dress.

Do you a mother to buy for? Are you giving her a gift of any kind?

Less Citi Debt

May 5th, 2015 at 12:29 pm

The original balance on our Citi card is now lower. I sent in $20.52, which was the difference between our actual water/sewer/trash bill and what I usually budget. It sure helps to have one less person taking showers!

The new balance from the original debt is $90.35! I actually think I can get this paid off this month with snowflakes. Smile

Credit Card Debt Balance

May 3rd, 2015 at 03:16 pm

I've mentioned we have credit card debt that is rolling over month to month, with no interest accruing thankfully. I have always been able to pay it off, but since I'm not a fan of using savings, I'd rather just cash flow it when the interest is 0%.

Our debt has been as high as $3,000 at different points in time this year. Yesterday I made a payment of $910.75 and our new balance is now $1136.45. Of that amount $110.87 is from our original balance. $120 is the remaining balance of my daughter's new glasses. The rest is just overspending as far as I can tell.

Yesterday's payment did include snowflakes, 52 Week Savings money I'm applying to the glasses balance, and extra money because there will fewer flute lessons in the next two weeks.

I'll be sure to tell you when we are back to a point of just paying off our current spending. That is where I would much rather be. It feels like that could be months away! Frown

Paid Debt

April 28th, 2015 at 03:30 pm

I've mentioned a few times how we are spending plenty of money. We've been putting it on credit cards to earn rewards and help with cash flow a bit. Today I paid off over $650 for hotel costs, and $340 airline ticket. I used savings to pay these off. Eventually, I'll pay ourselves back. It just might be a bit and I'm glad it is there for these unknown kind of situations. I also paid some other charges accumulated in the last two weeks with current paycheck funds to the tune of over $600.

We earned $31.72 in Discover Cash Back rewards. I requested a credit to our balance, but then used the money I would have paid on Discover to pay to the Citi card 2015 beginning balance . I also had $40 in Amex rewards for those Amazon purchases (I thought ahead and bought gifts for my daughter's July birthday!). Between those two rewards, I reduced our beginning Citi balance from $212.59 to $140.87. Progress!

So I'm down to $20 for the next two days. And then payday. I will then pay off some more debt! It feels good to get some of those balances to zero. Smile

Made A One Cent Payment

April 24th, 2015 at 07:13 pm

First some home news. Our radon levels on the house came back lower than the amount that would have required us to pay for mitigation. This means we don't have to pay a $600 bill to have that kind of work done. That makes me happy!

We did have to have a roofer out AGAIN to fix a leak (same issue we had in the past). He said he's 99% sure that the problem has been corrected. Gee I hope so. That cost was $85. This was in our original disclosure, and this new issue is being disclosed as well. Buyers inspection is Monday. We may have a possible drywall repair, which I'm fine with...but of course not happy about. It's a pretty new home!

I have a penny in our US Bank Checking account. Since I want to close that account, I made a $0.01 payment from the checking account to the US Bank Visa. This seemed easier than have a check cut for a penny (not sure if they would even do that).

I have confirmed that future deposits of my husband's pay have been cancelled as I requested. Next step is to request cancellation of the actual account. I'm hoping a simple email will do it, but US Bank isn't exactly easy to work with online from a customer service stand point.

Have you ever made such a small payment to a credit card? Do you know about Radon Gas?

Snowflakes & Extra Money

April 23rd, 2015 at 02:06 am

I accumulated $100 in snowflakes this week. I received those Target gift cards (total $75) in the mail this week from Citi Thank You Rewads. I have already used more than $50! The other one will get used up next time I get groceries, probably Sunday. I also redeemed $25 from Swagbucks with has been deposited into my PayPal account.

The girls flute teacher is not giving lessons next week, so that saves me $40. I figure this is money usually spent so I'm sending it in with the $100 to the Citi Thank You card balance. I'm considering it applied to the money we spent on my oldest daughter's glasses and charged to this card. The glasses were originally $354, but I now have those paid down to $237. There were other payments already applied to those previous to this one. I expect to pay another $117 on May 1 toward that portion of the Citi card balance, leaving just $120.

The original balance on January 1 for the Citi card was $686.27, with all the snowflakes applied to that portion recently the balance is now at $212.59! I really hope to have this paid off before we move. Smile

I can't wait to get some of this stuff paid off. I probably could be doing it much faster under normal circumstances, but there has been a lot of outflow recently of cash for home repairs, hotels and airline tickets. It is what it is. It will all balance out eventually. And the debt will all get paid off. I'm just glad we aren't paying any interest!

I do have some other sources of snowflakes on the horizon, so I'll have more to report in a couple days!

$119.19

April 19th, 2015 at 12:38 pm

My dad has been getting creative with his numbers in the past for birthday's giving us $100.40 to represent our fortieth year. My parents have gifted us every year for our anniversary also. It has almost always been $100. This year the check was written for $119.19 for our 19th wedding anniversary. He's getting a little more generous!

Our anniversary was last Sunday. We were actually together that day. It didn't really feel to special as we were looking a rental properties in our new state. But we were together and that always feels better!

The check was given to us just before my trip to the east. I tucked it into a drawer knowing we would be having showings for our home. Until last night I had completely forgotten about it which I knew was a possibility when I did it. Luckily, I happened upon it last night. I will deposit it this morning.

For the sake of simplicity and to make some more debt payoff progress I'm counting it as a snowflake. It will further reduce the debt we have on the Citi card, which is a good thing. The beginning balance on the card was $686.27. This snowflake will bring beginning year balance to $337.59.

What do you think of my dad's creativity with his gift?

About the Second Offer

April 16th, 2015 at 03:28 pm

The second offer that came in Tuesday morning as we were preparing our first counter offer was interesting. It was a full price offer, asking for $2500 in closing costs. However, the buyer wanted it contingent on the sale of their home which had not even been listed. They indicated it would be listed by May 1 and requested a July 15 closing date. Our realtor didn't like that they weren't yet really in a position to sell. I do like their closing date, although really much farther out then we were looking for. It would have meant longer time away from my husband by another month.

The first offer already has a solid pending offer on the sale of their home which they close on May 28. This was the date they wanted for closing but did then change it to June 8 when we indicated our daughter didn't even finish school until June 5. We then countered back with a June 12 closing.

I think the buyers got a little nervous hearing another offer was coming in and agreed easily to our June 12 closing in order to secure the home. It sounds like the couple has four young kids. They will definitely fit into this neighborhood well as they are many young children around us.

So there was no bidding war exactly, but all potential buyers were notified that offers were coming in and given a chance to produce one. Which did prompt the second offer. While the offer was good or maybe slightly better financially, it wasn't as solid as the offer from the buyers that already have a pending sale on their home.

We are very happy with the outcome. The only caveat our agent mentioned was that at full price and a recent sale down the street we could have an appraisal issue. The comparable on our street sold for $260K is the exact floor plan as ours except they have a sunroom addition. Our home has sold for $255K. We priced it at $255K expecting some negotiation and more likely to land at $250K. Of course, I'm thrilled with an extra $5K! Fingers crossed it can appraise at that value. Smile

Time to pay bills!

Counter Offer Accepted

April 15th, 2015 at 12:36 am

Our counter offer which basically changed the date was accepted. It did seem to help that we found we had another offer coming in at the same time that we were sending the counter over to the buyers. We made sure to let them know. Smile It was a fair offer too but in the end they were too late.

It feels good to have that piece hashed out. Next up are the radon test, home and pest inspections. We expect them to go well as the home is pretty new yet.

We did get full price, paying $2500 in closing costs for the buyer, leaving our new fridge, and paying $300 towards carpet cleaning. If the radon test comes in high we will pay around $600 to mitigate. The house is pre-plumbed for this. Our realtor sold nearly all the homes in this subdivision for the builder and has only had one come back high after being pre-plumbed, so the chances are slim we will need to pay. We also did a self test in January where the test came back under the limit that is considered hazardous. The closing date is currently June 12.

More later!!

Mortgage Pay Down Progress

April 9th, 2015 at 02:20 pm

Although I knew we would be moving this year, I still made a goal to pay off $5000 before the end of June on our mortgage. I actually hope the house will sell and close in June, which will bring us to a zero balance rather quickly.

The balance is lower by $2,351.63 as of April 1. I expect another $1179.88 to be paid off as of June 1, which will bring the total to $3,531.51.

I decided not to send all the extra I could have been sending in. I have been setting it aside though. Right now that amount is $744. I also expect to set aside another $620 by June 15.

All together that is $4,895.51. I was surprised I was short! I might have missed setting extra money aside one week. I'm going to count it as close enough since I do expect to get our escrow funds back which will be at least $1900.

It sure helps to make a goal and stick to it. If I didn't we wouldn't be in as good of position selling our home. I'm definitely happy about that!

Debt Free In 2 Months with Cash in the Bank

April 9th, 2015 at 12:47 am

If we don't take on a new mortgage when we move and our current home sells, we will be debt free in 2 months. Of course, it doesn't seem the same as if we were debt free owning a home free and clear. We will still have an outflow each month on a rental, so renting doesn't free up any cash.

Fingers crossed we get a rental. The area we want is in high demand. I expect we could easily find a home for sale, but we really don't see the housing market as being in our favor in three years in this particular area. And we don't want to be landlords. So we are going to be renters for the first time in 18 years.

The money we have set aside for a future downpayment and the equity we expect to walk away from with this house will likely be invested to keep up with inflation at least. It would be nice to get it into something that would grow. Once we get past the move, I'll start looking more diligently.

I mentioned to a friend that it was tempting to invest, but thought it seemed wrong to put it into the stock market for such a short time (three years). What if it goes down? Her thought was then we just keep renting and wait to buy when the money is at least equal or greater than our initial investment. And actually, that could be a good think to continue to do until my husband retires...just keep renting.

What would you do with our future house money?

Our Recent Citi Charges

March 28th, 2015 at 04:05 pm

I started the year with a balance of $686.27 on the Citi card and managed to get it down to $636.27 making minimum $25 payments in January and February. Then in March we started using the card as our primary and have added quite a bit of big expenses.

Two airline tickets $638.40
Eye glasses DD1 $354.00
Eye glasses DD2 $214.95

And lots of miscellaneous to the tune of at least $800. The current balance is $2,789.75. That is after making several payments totaling $905! I have plans on payday to pay DD2 glasses in full, $145 in snowflake money towards the original balance, plus another $785+ towards the miscellaneous. I may also pay the airline tickets out of savings...and eventually pay that back when we get our Dislocation allowance money from the government, which won't likely be until after the girls and I move.

So that card is a mess! It is a bit stressful too. It is the only card we are using, except for Discover until the end of March for 5% cash back on gas. The Citi card has 0%, but I think just until the end of June. I need to check on that!

I will get a handle on it, likely using some savings if needed. I won't let it accrue interest...because I hate that. Smile I'll update more once I actually get those payments made on Wednesday (payday).

Paid Off Wells Fargo Amex

March 28th, 2015 at 01:14 am

I have paid off Wells Fargo Amex in full! The remaining balance was $44.58. All but $15 of that was from the beginning of the year. I used eBay and Raise gift card sales proceeds to pay off that portion. The other $15 just came from our regular income.

I do have 2488 reward points and expect 15 points to be added mid April for that $15 charge that posted after the last statement closed. Once I have a full 2500 points I will redeem for cash and then close the card. The closing is the most important part because if I don't, we will be charged $175 in an annual fee. I don't want that!

I also paid off the contacts I purchased a couple weeks ago. I did use money my daughter came back from her trip with and some 52 Week Savings money I had accumulated.

We have added quite a bit on our Citi Thank You card recently. All needs. I will update about that card, as well as payments I plan to make on payday. Smile

I Got a Raise

March 27th, 2015 at 02:06 am

That's my clever title to tell you about the check I received from

Text is Raise and Link is https://www.raise.com/raise-rewards/MzoyNCAtMMjgxNDg4
Raise in the mail today for the Build a Bear gift card I sold last week. My net proceeds for a gift card that was worth $2.74, was $2.08. I requested the check since their PayPal option had a $5 minimum.

Our Discover Card statement closed recently. We earned $36.10, primarily as a result of the 5% cash back on gas! All that gas my husband used to travel east and was reimbursed for ended up getting us a little extra cash. A snowflake that will be applied to some of our Citi credit card debt. Smile

I expect to be able to make another large snowflake payment early next week! I can't wait.

Band Trip to Disney

March 25th, 2015 at 04:11 am

My daughter's band trip to Orlando Florida is over. She returned with a smile on her face. It seems it was a really good time and I think she learned some things musically and socially.

I'm secretly thrilled that she returned with some of the cash I sent her with. She took $200 and came home with $121.84! She spent her $78+ on three souvenir pins (one given to her sister) plus water, snacks and a couple meals (most were included in the trip cost).

I can't really call the return of my money in this case a snowflake, but I will be putting it towards some recent costs, such as two new pairs of glasses (one for each of my daughter's) that were charged on a credit card.

In other news...we contacted the realtor we spoke to nearly a month ago to let her know we are ready to start moving forward. She and I are going to talk more tomorrow.

$80 Snowflake

March 23rd, 2015 at 02:41 pm

I forgot about this one! I referred four people to Ooma the last time there was a promotion and I earned $20 for each of them. The credits were applied to one of my lesser used credit cards. In fact there was a zero balance on the card.

The plan to use up the credit is to apply our Internet, Ooma and Netflix bills to the card. The cash I would have used to pay it will used to pay off some of the Citibank balance I need to pay off. The balance on that is about $636.

I like it when I'm excited about something I knew about but forgot! Smile

Snowflakes Applied to Debt

March 18th, 2015 at 03:41 pm

I'm currently working on paying off our Wells Fargo American Express card using snowflake money. The balance at the beginning of the year was $700 which I have been able to pay down to $185.29 using only extra funds.

Today I made a payment of $155.71 towards that original balance to bring the new balance to $29.58! All the money was accumulated from eBay sales, a $15 Pinecone reward, $25 from Swagbucks and a $25 gift card to Target that I used for some groceries (and applied what I would have spent to debt).

Now I have added some new charges to the card in the last couple of weeks in order to get enough reward points to cash out before we close the card. We had 2334 as of the last statement. I charged another $154, which I have paid in full today as well.

But then I realized I was $12/12 points short! I went online and bought $15 in Amazon gift cards. Clearly it is enough purchases to get the points, but I think the statement will close today. I wonder if the charge will process in time. If not, another entire month will go by before I can redeem those points and close the card. I will likely use the $25 worth of points to pay the last $25 on the account.

The mid May statement will likely have a charge for the $175 annual fee which I do not want to pay. The card will be closed before that date regardless of the rewards outcome. Smile

So now that I have nearly all the balance paid with rewards I will start working on the Citi card balance that is at 0%. That balance is at $636.27. It would be nice to have this paid off before we move in June. I may need to look for some more things to sell, since we are not opening any new credit cards until after the move.

Wells Fargo Amex Payment Made

March 9th, 2015 at 08:48 pm

If memory and my notes serve me correctly, we started 2015 with $700 in debt on our Wells Fargo American Express card. It is at 0% interest, but we need to pay it off soon so we can cancel the card and not be charged a hefty annual fee.

I have been making payments all year on the card. With a payment of $109.52 which is all snowflakes/found money(primarily from eBay sales), we know owe just $185.29.

I'll be honest this is getting a bit tedious for me. I may just pay it off next week. I do have some more auctions that could net some more cash, so I will likely wait until after that.

Is it bad to say I'd like to find another $150 to charge to the card before we cancel? I think that amount would get me to the threshold with points to redeem $25. I guess I should start using it for purchases in the next two or three weeks. I'm sure I will have expenses that will add up to that. I already tried looking at our utilities but none of them accept American Express for payment.

That's the status! At least the amount owed is going down. I am looking forward to one less card soon.

More eBay Sales!

March 7th, 2015 at 12:18 am

I have more eBay sales in the works. One item sold this afternoon and two that currently have bids will end on Sunday. There could be more. I have my fingers crossed that is the case.

I will likely relist any that didn't sell this go around. At a lower price of course! I'm also going to look in my stash of items to see if there are another couple that I could get listed on Sunday. If memory serves me correct, I may have two. Smile

All sales money is going to pay off the Wells Fargo credit card. I was able to make a payment from one of my accounts to the card for about $78. I want to make another payment, but found out I can only make 5 payments in one calendar month, so I'm waiting a bit longer (after the eBay sales end) to make another payment. My current balance on the card is $294.81. I'm getting there!

Paid off the Tires!!

February 28th, 2015 at 05:00 pm

I got new tires for my van earlier this month. We charged them to our Citi Thank You credit card, which currently has 0% interest. With an alignment we paid $818. I'm happy to report that with payday yesterday, we paid them in full!

We do still have a balance on this card. It is currently at $1,109.59. We started the year with a balance of $636.27 which I plan to pay off with snowflakes. The difference of $473.32 is recent charges, primarily my husband new suit. I expect to get that amount paid off by March 15, our next payday.

In theory we could just pay this card off in full with cash we have on hand, but since it isn't an emergency, we are just cash flowing things. We are spending the money slightly faster than we are bringing it in, thus charges from over two weeks ago are being paid now. I may get irritated with this method and just pay this off, but it seems to be working for right now.

I will have a February snowflake update tomorrow. The eBay sales have definitely helped this month!

Two eBay Sales

February 25th, 2015 at 03:07 pm

I listed four items for sale on eBay on Sunday, and then yesterday proceeded to add another 13 items. And as of last night, I sold two items. Gross proceeds were just over $68!

My husband got a speeding ticket yesterday. I had even said, "don't speed" before he left! Ugh. He got impatient with someone going below the speed limit. He went around, but way faster than the speed limit. The ticket is $114.

So I guess some of the sales will help pay off the ticket in addition to the credit cards we are working on (which are at 0% interest). And I just sold another item while writing this email, so make that $76 in sales!

I'm just excited to finally get some of these items listed. I have more, but need to find some big boxes to put them in! I'll check the free boxes at the post office today when I mail the sold packages.

Have you ever had a speeding ticket? Are you selling anything right now?

A Snowflake

February 23rd, 2015 at 05:55 pm

I earned enough Swagbucks to redeem for $25 in Paypal cash, and it arrived today in my Paypal account. I have already requested transfer to my bank account. This money will go to pay off the Propel Amex card we have a balance on. (No interest is accruing!)

I listed four items on eBay last night and expect to keep adding items everyday this week. Any sales will be considered snowflakes and will help reduce that credit card balance listed above.

I don't plan on opening any credit cards for bonuses until after our move, or at least until we have housing secure. This will likely keep my snowflake progress lower than in the past. At least for the first half of the year. I may also stop working on Swagbucks for a little while,since I have a lot of things to work on getting ready for our move.

Where are most of your snowflakes/found money coming from this month?

Retirement is Up and More

February 14th, 2015 at 06:42 pm

I hadn't checked our retirement accounts since the end of 2014, primarily because the market was dropping. But I've also been busy. I noticed the markets closed at an all time high on Friday, so I checked our balances this morning.

We are up about $9,500 since the end of the year! And about $5,200 from our all time high back right before the end of last year.

I paid $22.75 in swowflakes towards the Wells Fargo credit card. New balance is $393.19. I have a large amount of items to attempt to sell on eBay. Maybe I will actually get those listed on Sunday. When they sell they should make a nice dent in that balance.

All other bills and credit cards have been paid, with the exception of my tires and the balance already existing on the Citi Thank You credit card. I did pay $715 of new charges off. I expect I can pay off the tires on March 1. I could pay them off right now, but since I have 0% interest I'm just waiting for more cash to flow in.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2015 Goals and More

February 7th, 2015 at 04:17 pm

It is so strange for me to wait this long into the year to really post financial goals. However, this upcoming move has distracted me with other things to think about.

As of today, our goals for 2015 are:

Maximize our Roth IRA contributions.
Save 8% to TSP (may actually increase to 10%).
Save $2000 for each daughter for college.
Continue my 52 week savings (which is $57 per pay period, or $114 per month)
Pay down $5000 in mortgage equity end of June 2015.
Use snowflakes to pay off $1386 in credit card debt on two 0% interest cards.

The retirement and college investments are set up on automatic withdrawal, so those are easy. Right now I'm manually saving the $57 each pay period. I did it automatic last year, so that may work out again this year, too.

The paying off $5000 in mortgage equity will be a combination of things. I'm currently adding $104.94 to our mortgage payment towards principal. It makes for a nice even mortgage payment. This means we pay off more than $585 each month. For six months, that pays down $3510 on our mortgage. That means I'm short of the goal by $1490, or $248.33 per month. Last month, I set aside that amount and will continue to do so through June. By the way the end of June is the deadline, as I'm going to guess that is the month we will close on this house when it sells. I do realize that isn't a sure thing, but one can hope it goes that smoothly!

I've mentioned a couple times we have debt on two credit cards. They are at zero percent and resulted from some bigger purchases. From what I can tell the Wells Fargo balance was $700 at the beginning of this year. It is now at $415.94. The Citi TY card was at $686.27 and is now at $636.27. So I have already found $334 worth of found money/snowflakes to apply to this goal, leaving $1052 to go. I may get impatient with these debts and just pay them off, but for now this is the plan! I will try to get better at tracking them and letting you know the progress, too.

The truck is still in the repair shop this morning getting a sensor replaced and a new battery. We are looking at another $300 spent there. With my tires and alignment the day before, we will have spent $1100 in car maintenance in two days. Happy for savings for these types of things. (And thinking my 52 week savings will simply help the savings account recover from this expense)

Am I the last one to post my goals for 2015? How are you doing with your goals? Has anyone had to revise your goals?

New Tires

February 6th, 2015 at 06:35 pm

We had new tires installed on my van today. We also had it aligned since it seemed to have been a few years. The damage to our pocketbook was $818. We did charge it to our Citi Thank You Preferred card which we currently have zero interest on. I expect I will the expense paid off pretty quickly however.

We also have the truck in this afternoon to have it checked for sensor that seems to be coming one while driving. The truck is also getting a new battery, as it is having difficulty starting in the really cold weather.

I did get my PayPal deposit from Swagbucks today. I have now requested a transfer of the money in my PayPal account to our checking. I'm going to make a payment (all from recent snowflakes) to the Wells Fargo card in the amount of $44.15. The card balance will be around $416 after the payment.


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