My husband's paycheck is pending in our account, so I started paying bills. All of them are online!

I paid off the Southwest Rapid Rewards Visa card in full. I pulled money from savings for this one since it was the card I put my daughter's new computer on. The statement ends on the 23rd, so I should see my Rapid Rewards points soon after. Then it will be time to redeem more gift cards!!

I saved $57 in my Capital One 360 Savings account for the 52 Week Savings Challenge. That means I have now covered Weeks 1-19, and Weeks 38-52. This money is going to that band trip in the spring. I will easily have it funded by November!!

I paid our Target Red card that we put all of our groceries on, in addition to the Chase Freedom card that we put other expenses on when we aren't working on a particular bonus card. Chase Freedom is offering 5% cash back on gas stations this quarter. Our reward for this statement was over $15. We cannot redeem the rewards until they are over $20, so we have to wait awhile longer.

I also recorded the automatic savings for our Roth contributions of $458.33 each and $167 to each of our daughter's college fund. It is so easy to keep investing when the money is transferred automatically. I don't have to think about it much, except to record the transaction in our check register.

I paid an additional $275 to our mortgage, which is planned on the 15 each month. I added $40.64 in snowflakes for a total principal reduction of $315.64. Less debt! Yes.

The other good news is that I was able to set aside $231.78 in savings for this pay period. It may get pulled back out for some upcoming expenses, but it is there for later and that feels good.

The weather is cool, and way less humid this week, so I'm going to try to keep the windows open and the air conditioning off as much as possible, so save a few extra dollars. It does make one of my cats quite frisky smelling all that fresh air!

Did you pay extra on your mortgage this month? Are you using a rewards card to get cash back on gas this month? Are you still participating in the 52 Week Savings Challenge?

We paid $1015.16 towards the principal balance on our mortgage in the month of June. Considering we are looking to pay down nearly $14K on it this year, I feel really good about that much debt paid off in one month!

The debt paid off made up of the principal portion of our regular payment which was $464.60. At the same time I send in an extra $103.72 each month to round up the payment to an even amount. Later in the month on the next payday, I send in another $275 towards the principal. All other funds come from snowflake money which this month was $171.84.

So far this year, in just six short months, we have paid down $7,872.29 on our mortgage balance. That is 56% of our pay down goal in 6 months!! The goal is moving right along as planned. I'm kind of looking forward to seeing how much beyond the goal we will get.

How much mortgage debt did you pay off in June? Or other debt paid? Are you ahead of your debt pay off for the year?

If you are looking for extra cash to apply towards your debt or savings, I have found that selling things you no longer need can provide that extra cash.

Since the beginning of 2014, I have sold books, cds, a couch and loveseat, kitchen table, side tables and a tv cart. I also had a garage sale in May, and sold all sorts of various items, including clothing and tools. In all, I've sold over $500 worth of our used items!

I would much rather get rid of something I own than be in debt, especially credit card debt. The interest these cards charge when you don't pay your balance in full is your hard earned money! I personally like to keep as much of the money we earn as possible.

Everybody has something they can sell. I have a friend, that last I knew had six shelves full of DVD movies. My guess is these were bought soon after a movie came out, so likely nearly full price. I know they watch them and have been generous with loaning them to people, too. I look at those shelves and think CASH! Sure some of them are dated and not likely to fetch much money, but at $1 each they easily have $180 worth of movies they could sell. My thinking is that one can still find plenty of free options for entertainment. The library for one has just as many movies that one can borrow for free.

A few years ago, I had a challenge on this blog to make $100 a month selling on Ebay. I think my average was less than that in the end, maybe $80, but it challenged and encouraged me to find things in our home we didn't need. At the time, I think the proceeds were applied to a car loan pay down or a home equity loan. I didn't sell anything unique. My kids had outgrown jeans, shoes, toys and books. I sold (and still do) Box Tops for Education, and old army paraphernalia. Anything I found that I was done with I checked Ebay to see if there was a demand for the item. If there was I sold it. If it didn't sell on Ebay I would save it for a garage sale, which back then my neighbors and I would have two times a year. If items didn't sell at the garage sale I would donate them.

As consumers, we are bringing in new things to our home on a regular basis. I think of selling the old kind of like getting a rebate on the original cost of the item, or a discount on the new item I purchased. If we never get rid of anything when we bring in new, we get overrun with our own stuff! I challenge you to look at your stuff in a new way. It can be turned into cash to help you with your financial goal of paying down debt or saving. You will feel less stress with less debt and less stuff. I guarantee it!!

Do you have a habit of selling your old things? Do you sell on Ebay, craigslist or at garage sales? What do you do with your proceeds? Anyone interested in an Ebay challenge for the remainder of the year?

I used up the $60 in referral credits that were applied to our USAA credit card this weekend. We originally had $7.70 charged before the credits were applied. That left $52.30 that I was able to spend!

I spent $39.58 at PetSmart for cat food. I was very tempted to adopt a 10 week old kitten for $25, but decided now isn't time for a kitten!

We also stopped at Subway for lunch today. I spent $18.46 for that splurge. We also like our trips to Subway.

($52.30)
($39.58)
($18.46)
__$5.74

It looks like I will still owe the credit card company a little cash. The money that I spent and I would have owed except for the credit will be sent to our mortgage as part of our pay down goal.

We used $6.98 in Amazon credits (earned from Swagbucks and Bing) for some movie rentals this week. I'm matching those purchases with cash towards the mortgage as well.

That makes for a whopping mortgage snowflake payment of $66.98. Can't complain about less debt! I'm mean who would!!

Well, all in one day we are done spending on both credit cards we have been working on. A little crazy, but I did know we had some big purchases and expenses coming up.

The transactions are still pending, so I don't know how quickly the rewards will post, but likely by the time the statements close. For the Southwest card that should be in the next week or so, but the Wells Fargo Amex just closed two days ago! We will have to wait another month to get that reward, which is $400. The Southwest Rapids Rewards card will be worth $500 in gift cards.

The rewards are going to the mortgage as part my snowflake goal this year, which is $4000. These new credit card bonus snowflakes will put us to goal and we are really only half way through the year. As a result, I'm revising the goal to $8,000. This does seem like a stretch, but I'm willing to reach for it. There is no downside to not reaching it, so I might as well go for it, right?

The new goal will likely make me look for other offers I can take advantage of, participate in Swagbucks more, try a few bank checking offers, sell more things, and I'm sure another credit card or two. (I have decided that DH will not apply for any more cards until after our next move). Here's to a new goal!!

Our oldest daughter is an artist. She has taken classes at school to learn Photoshop, Illustrator and other programs for which she has earned college credit. She was given the opportunity to borrow a drawing tablet from school this summer, so this moved up our time line for getting her a computer. The original plan was to get one before she left for college NEXT year.

We purchased a Mac Book at the local community college, which has discounted new Apple's computers. They were having a sale and took another $50 off, and the store doesn't have to charge sales tax. Our outlay for the computer was $1239. On Apple's website this would have cost us $1499 plus tax.

This is the most we have ever spent on a computer, but we feel this is a great investment for our daughter, it should allow her to use her graphics programs (which she is purchasing) with plenty power and amazing picture quality. We are excited that she has this tool that may be a key to her future career.

I put the purchase on my new Southwest Rapids Rewards card for which I need to spend $2K to get the 50,000 rewards points worth $500 in gift cards. I also charged the Adobe Creative Suite that my daughter is purchasing for $240, so clearly we are getting REALLY close to meeting that spending goal. In fact, by this weekend we should have that complete since my husband is charging some travel expenses. Easy!

This is our first Apple computer. My daughters use them at school. Are you a die hard Apple computer owner, or do you own a PC?

It seems I have received the cash for the last Ooma referrals. I had three at $20 each, so I have a credit on our USAA card in the amount of $60. They don't ever really tell you when they are going to pay out, so it is a little bit of a surprise. Money in our pocket is always a nice surprise! I will likely use the credit for basic expenses, probably one tank of gas! Since the $60 is a snowflake I will then get that money sent to the mortgage.



My husband had some Army travel a little while back and has been reimbursed. Some of his expenses went on our Wells Fargo American Express card, so I need to get those paid off with the cash received from the Army. There is more travel coming up soon for him and I'm going to make sure he uses the current cards we are working on for bonuses. We might as well get benefit from spending that is going to get reimbursed!

I received our first Verizon bill. I have only seen the balance, which seems a little high, but I think it is likely a prorated thing. I will double check before I pay it. I think making this payment on the WF Amex card will put us VERY close to meeting our $3K spending requirement. It will then be time to switch to the Southwest Rapids Rewards card.

I'm trying to sell some furniture on Craigslist, but so far no interest. The spammers aren't even interested. I think someone will want them, but it may be not the right time or the price is a bit too high. Worse case they items will be donated. I will not be keeping these items around indefinitely.

I have another post up on

Your Organized Friend. I'd love you to stop by over there. Share the site with friends, too!

We did some spending at Lowe's yesterday. Well first I returned a $25 item I didn't need. Then we went looking for curtain rods for our master bedroom. We found what we were looking for and used up the rest of our Lowe's gift cards we received from our spending a few months ago on one of the Southwest Rapids Rewards Visas.

This whole year I have been matching money we spend on 'free' gift cards with a payment to our mortgage. The thought is that we would have spent this money anyway on the items. I can't send a gift card we earned toward the mortgage but I can send cash. This latest Lowe's gift card we used in full was $50.

I'm counting this $50 as a snowflake too. This puts our total snowflake earnings for the year at over $3K, specifically $3,033.82!! The goal is $4K for the year so I'm clearly WAY ahead of schedule. I'm not sure if I will revise the goal, or just see how far I shoot past it!

How far do you think I will get on my snowflake goal considering I'm already 75% to the goal 6 months in?

I made a large principal payment on our mortgage debt yesterday. My plan this entire year is to send $275 each time we are paid on the 15th of the month. So far I have been able to do this every month this year. I added $18.86 to that payment, which is money I have accumulated in snowflakes this month. Not much, but it adds up!

We made a purchase on Craigslist last night. I have wanted an entertainment center for our basement television since we moved in almost two years ago. We have tried many different pieces of furniture we own and currently have the tv on a too small cart. It works, it is free, but it isn't quite right.

We purchased this upgraded entertainment center for $125. It is only six months old according to the previous owners. It is not solid wood, but for our needs it is perfect. I'm not even bothered by the little water damage on the top. All other entertainment centers I've been interested in were over $300 so this is a significant savings. Once we are feeling better we will make the switch.

Despite being sick, earlier this week, and still recovering today, I have been able to stay a little organized. I wrote about this on

Your Organized Friend yesterday.

Did you make an extra payment to your mortgage this month? Do you sell on more on craigslist or buy?

I checked the spending progress on our Wells Fargo American Express card, we have spent over $2200 of the $3000 requirement. I like that this card actually tracks the progress for you on the promotion. I was not able to use the card for a couple of our regular bills. They process Visa, Mastercard and Discover, but not American Express. Boo. However, I'm not too worried about meeting the requirement. My husband has travel this month and we expect to buy a new or used Apple Mac for my artist daughter. She will also be getting Photoshop.

Once we get to $3K on the American Express, we will start using the Southwest Rapids Rewards Visa. That should be arriving very soon. I'm glad I decided to apply when I did, as the timing will be perfect.

How are those of you doing with your new Wells Fargo spending requirements? Has anyone received their reward yet?

I received an offer from US Bank to open a checking account with direct deposit of at least $500 and receive $200. There are a lot of details and deadlines. For example if I don't open the account by the end of this month the offer drops to $150.

I might actually do this offer because I think that increased income that will come with promotion could easily be the direct deposit! For now, I'm going to wait until promotion comes through and I hear when the new pay actually starts. This may mean I miss out on $50. I don't have to keep the account open very long either, so it would be in just long enough to get the bonus money.

Our mortgage payment for June posted. Our principal portion was $464.60. We also include $103.72 towards principal. The number is odd, but the whole payment is even! We have now surpassed paying down more than 50% of our $13,992 goal for 2014, with $7,425.45 paid towards principal. It is nice to see the plan working!

Have you dipped in for a checking or savings account offer recently? How much debt have you already paid in June? Are you exceeding a financial goal you have for the year?

I wrote about my plans for running errands on

Your Organized Friend, but make sure you read the comments on that one, too! Tomorrow I will have a post about getting organized as school winds down for the year. Remember you can sign up to get email updates for my blog at anytime!

I closed my Capital One credit card. This is the one which was upgraded to Quicksilver offering 1.5% rewards and no annual fee. In an effort to reduce our open lines of credit, we decided to close my account and leave my husband's open. I am an authorized user on it, so we each have a card. Right now we aren't using the card since we are working on obtaining the bonus reward with the Wells Fargo American Express Propel World card. But it is a good 'go to' card for earning rewards. I like that I don't always have to track the 5% categories like some cards.

I'm also going to look into closing my husband's Chase Freedom account. We only have one card for it and I don't think we have used it since he received his bonus reward months and months ago. It may have 0% interest, but I don't think we need to keep it open even with that offer! Hopefully you saw my previous post about a limited time offer to open a Chase Freedom account to get a $200 bonus for spending $500. Best return I think I've ever seen!

Have you reduce any of your credit cards lately? Did you open an account lately?

I have several new posts on

Your Organized Friend if you are interested.

I applied last night for the Southwest Rapids Rewards card. My husband has applied and received bonuses for two of their cards. Now it is my turn. I was approved for $23K limit. The card has crazy high limits!

The offer is for spending $2K in 3 months to receive 50,000 bonus points, which is equal to $500 in gift cards if one doesn't use the rewards for airline tickets, which we likely won't. There is a $99 fee, which will be refunded if we close the account within the first two months.

We are still working on the Wells Fargo Propel Amex card. We have already spent over $1800 of the $3,000 needed for the $400 reward. I decided this time of year is our most expensive and expect it won't take much longer to reach that spending requirement. It will work out well to have the Southwest card on its way now, so it is ready to go when we meet the Amex spending. My husband has some travel this next month and that alone will help us meet both of these goals.

I'm about to close my Capital One Quicksilver. My husband will keep his open. I'm trying to make sure we don't have more cards open then we really need. I have been keeping cards open with 0% interest just in case. Probably not necessary since we don't really need it.

In other news, I now have my first smart phone. It has been quite amusing trying to get used to something new. It feels really foreign. I did figure out how to download My Fitness Pal so I can track my calories away from home. I might have to find one of the apps that lets me make money while I stay fit.

Did you apply for the Southwest card? Are you close to meeting the Amex requirement? Any tips for a first time smart phone user?

I have mentioned before that one of our goals this year is to pay down our mortgage debt by over $14K. Specifically, I have a plan to pay off $13,992 which will bring our mortgage balance to an even number.

This month I sent all snowflakes I accumulated to the mortgage, our regular mortgage payment, and two different principal payments that were planned. One of those additional payments is added on at the beginning of the month to our regular payment. The other one happens mid month when my husband is paid again.

Here's the specific breakdown:
_$461.58 Regular Principal Payment
_$103.72 Extra Principal Payment
_$275.00 Extra Principal Payment (mid month)
_$478.01 Snowflakes toward Principal
$1318.31

That extra money sent to the mortgage means we have now paid $6857.13 towards our mortgage pay down goal! That is 49% of the goal in just five months. We are ahead of schedule which feel really nice.

If you want to see where I found over $475 in snowflakes, just check out my previous post. I'm still blogging some over at

Your Organized Friend, including a few recent posts! And remember you can sign up by email to get notified when I put up a new post over there. I also love comments!!

Are you ahead or behind on any of your financial goals?

I finally got around to paying bills last night. When I paid off the credit cards I used the rewards available on the Capital One cards. Between the two cards, we had $31.89 in cash. I had the rewards applied to the accounts as credits.

I had a non paying bidder on one item last week on Ebay. It has now been relisted. Profits last week were $10.68 on one item. I also had $6 from Pinecone, with another $3 being deposited today.

I added those proceeds and garage sale profits of $141.25 to our regularly planned extra mortgage payment of $275. That is an extra payment of $464.82! Yea. I like less debt. In fact, including our regular payment we have paid down $1,238.21 on our mortgage debt since May 1!

We did spend some of our Lowe's gift cards yesterday. About $65 worth. I plan to match that money spent with an extra payment to the mortgage, too. We bought trash bags, lawn bags, a wheeled cart, four bags of salt and three furnace filters, a pop and a water. I may not need that cart. I have to decide if it is worth the $25 we paid.

Any big snowflakes for you recently? How much debt have you paid down so far this month?

The Chase Southwest Credit Card is again offering 50,000 bonus points for spending $2,000 in three months. I read about the offer on

My Money Blog written by Jonathan Ping. Those points equal $500 in gift cards if you aren't interested in apply the points to airfare.

I likely will apply for the card within the next week. My husband has had both cards Southwest offers, but I have not yet applied for any. I should review our spending plans first to make sure we can meet the requirement at the same time we are working on the Wells Fargo American Express card. I will skip it if it doesn't seem possible. It would be a waste to apply if we can't spend that much in three months.

I need to pay bills today and get some of those most current charges on the cards we have used recently paid off.

I did get paid for one of my Ebay sales yesterday. I have already mailed it off. I still have one more that I'm waiting payment on. I really do try to be patient with these buyers, but it is hard to wait. I want the money and I want the item gone!!

I did send in a $131+ snowflake to the mortgage on Monday. Mid month is when I normally send another $275 to knock off more principal. Right now I plan to do that, but I do need to pay bills and see where we really stand and if that payment still works. It seems there has been quite a bit of spending lately!

I am prepping for the garage sale on Saturday. I will haul everything I have priced that is in the basement up to the garage today. I likely will not set up until Friday, since I have a trip planned for tomorrow. If you want to see my garage sale piles or the mess that it is making in my basement I have pictures posted

here.

It seems I know many people moving and packing right now. And that always leads to people decluttering. I think that is why I have really been able to dig deep this time and pull out a lot of things we don't use. Clutter comes in all forms too. In fact after reading another blog post I was inspired to do some decluttering that would not have come up in preparing for the garage sale. I have a post on Your Organized Friend today about that!

This is my second post today. I did an update about the Wells Fargo Amex card in my previous post. I also keep thinking there is some else financial to share, but it is not staying with me. If it comes to me, expect to see a third post!!

Our new Wells Fargo American Express card arrived in the mail yesterday. It was shipped from the next state over thus the prompt receipt. We have already used it!

Our gym membership was expiring. We paid $750 a year and half ago and our last day for the membership was yesterday. We finally got a sales person to assist us last night. I say finally because it seemed every time we inquired in the last month, no one was there to help. We had been mailed a renewal offer of $750 for 12 months, rather than 18 months like our original deal. The sales guy tried to offer us two years for $998. Sure that sounds like a better deal, but it is MORE money and the odds are very slim we will still be in this town for another 2 years let alone 15 months. After much discussion and indicating we would go work out and talk about it, the tune suddenly changed to adding 6 months to our current offer. So same deal we had the first time we signed up. Honestly, I was hoping for LESS than $750. I really tried with the guy and I think I did get us what is right for us. I won't need to pay any more money before we move...unless we don't move (but I think the odds of that are slim). At any rate, we charged our gym membership to the new Wells Fargo card. Well on our way to $3000 in spending, with something we needed to purchase anyway.

I do have an email in to Wells Fargo to confirm that previous Amex reward offers won't exclude us from this one. The card is in my husband's name, thus the email rather than a call. I could have him call, but he would just be confused about the whole reason I'm having him call! We decided to use the card even if we are exempt from the rewards. My gut says we will get the rewards since this is technically a Wells Fargo program, rather than an Amex program.

Do you prepay your gym membership? Or do you pay monthly?

We applied for a new credit card. We were approved, too. I was tipped off by Monkey Mama in my last post. It isn't for everyone, but it seems like the right offer to jump on for us. It is the Wells Fargo Propel World American Express card. We need to spend $3,000 in three months to receive 40,000 bonus points equal to $400. We should be able to redeem our points for a credit to our mortgage which is with Wells Fargo. And we all know tha I have been putting ALL bonus reward money towards paying down our mortgage so this really is perfect.

We won't keep the card long term since it has a crazy high annual fee after the first year. I think it is $175! I would never pay that unless I was getting major benefits to offset it.

We have quite a few things we can charge to the card to meet the spending requirement. One is our gym membership which is due any day now (fingers crossed the card arrives fast) and is over $700. We are also in the market for a used/refurbished Apple computer for our daughter. We have a little mini trip coming up, and some home improvements. Those things along with our regular spending will sure have us meeting the requirement in no time.

I'm paying the small charge on my husbands Discover card today. Once that posts, I will be requesting a cancellation of that card. I will also request a card from my Discover account for him. We will need it when the 5% cashback on gas comes up in July!

The money my husband had in his Capital One 360 checking and savings accounts has arrived in our primary checking account. It will get moved to savings. I have sent a request to CO360 about cancelling the accounts. I was able to do the savings when I made the transfer, but that didn't happen with the checking account.

I have also decided that I will cancel the Old Navy card. Yes, it is my oldest card and could effect my credit score. However, I'm okay with whatever results from that. It will only get worse the longer I wait and I really, really don't want the card anymore!

It feels good to get some of these financial tasks done and have things more consolidated. I like things simple really.

Is anyone else applying for the new Wells Fargo Amex card? Have you cancelled any credit card or bank accounts recently?

I finally got to cleaning up and decluttering in my garage yesterday. I posted many, many pictures of my progress on

Your Organized Friend!

The stack of credit cards we have sitting around was getting out of hand. It really helps to just focus on one card when you are working the reward bonuses. Lately, we have been using more than one card for various reasons. We are both using our seperate Capital One Quicksilver cards for everyday expenses to get 1.5% cash back. However, we also bought paint recently and I wanted the 5% back the purchase, so I used our Discover card.

We have open cards with Chase, Capital One, Discover, and American Express, USAA, Old Navy and Kohls. We also have debit cards with Capital One for our 360 accounts. And I have a PayPal debit card.

Yesterday, I started the process of figuring out which ones we can eliminate. I have cancelled the PayPal debit card and Chase Sapphire Preferred. I requested a new card for me from my husband's Capital One Quicksilver account. This way we have one account to manage. Once I have that card, I will cancel my Quicksilver card.

I was about to cancel (or attempt to cancel) my husband's Discover card, when I noticed $2.51 in rewards. I decided to use those first. My youngest daughter's birthday is in about two months and she has a birthday list going. I used my rewards on Amazon to purchase a cover for her new tablet. I also used some Amazon gift cards I earned from Swagbucks last month! So I will make the final payment on the Discover card and then cancel that one. I haven't completely decided whether to cancel my Discover card yet. I see they have 5% cash back on gas stations for third quarter. So tempting!

I'm also in the process of transferring money that my husband has in his Capital One 360 Checking and Savings accounts. We opened these for a bonus during the Black Friday event I think. The money has been just sitting there earning a little cash. I decided it might as well get moved to another savings account where we earn a tad more interest. Two less accounts to think about. I am leaving my accounts with Cap One 360 as I am currenly adding my 52 Week Challenge money there. I also have my referral information out on the web and have the opportunity to earn a little cash by referring people. I don't want to pass that up!

We have four cards that currently have 0% interest. I don't generally hold a balance on a card, but summer can get expensive and I guess I just want to keep those lines of credit open while they are at 0%. Once they have expired, they will be cancelled. I am putting the dates on my email calendar to remind me to cancel. The first one will be in October of this year. The oldest one is May 2015.

I have decided that we will not open any new cards in my husband's name for the next year. This is because we could be moving a year from now at the earliest. If we purchase another home, I want his credit to look okay. I do realize that the cards opened in the last year or two will show up on the report, and we can explain why we opened them, but I think it might look better to have few cards opened prior to another major purchase.

Now the next big question in regards to credit cards is the Old Navy Visa card. I have had this card since 2006. This is my oldest card currently open. My next oldest card is the Chase Freedom that I opened in 2010. I'm guessing on the actual dates. I can't remember for sure. Anyway. I think I might cancel that Old Navy card. We don't shop there anymore. The rewards are for shopping at Old Navy. It is a Visa and I can use it anywhere, but I would rather use other cards that provide me a benefit. I don't think closing the account will drastically hurt my credit score, which if it does than it is temporary.

It feels good to be getting a handle on these cards. We opened them to obtain cash bonuses. We have paid our balances in full. And we just don't need them. We will still have open credit, and more than we could ever need, so no worries about reducing our available credit.

Have you closed any credit cards recently? Why do you keep cards that you don't use? Has anyone opened a card with a good offer lately? I'm always looking more rewards!

I decluttered my desk recently on

Your Organized Friend.

Time is going fast! We have already made it through four months of 2014. Time for an status update on our mortgage goal. As a reminder the goal is to pay down $13,993 in principal by the end of the year. This would bring us to an even balance on our mortgage of $X15,000.

We are making our regular payment and rounding that payment up to include about $103 towards principal at the beginning of the month. At mid month, we are sending in an additional $275 towards principal. All the extra funds we find, which I call snowflakes, are sent to the mortgage to help us reach our goal. Those snowflakes really add up and make a difference.

Here's all the payments that were made to our mortgage in the month of April:



As of April 30, we have paid $5,538.82 towards reducing our mortgage balance. That is 39.5% of our goal so we are ahead of schedule right now! We have just another $8,454.17 to go in order to meet the goal.

Today on

Your Organized Friend, I have another AFTER picture of my basement organization. But you also get to see another pile that is forming! Ack.

What percentage of your financial goal have you completed during the first four months of the year? Are you on track or behind? How did your decluttering go for April? Will you continue in May?

I have begun decluttering the basement this week. Of course, I will have multiple posts this week on

Your Organized Friend to keep you updated on that. I added an option on the right sidebar of the blog to get email updates when there is a new post. I think it works. If you are interested feel free to sign up.

Payday is Thursday. I will use some of the extra funds to pay off the Discover card. I used this to buy all the paint for our living and kitchen area. Actually we have enough to paint our bedroom and bathroom yet. I used the Discover card because they were offering 5% back on Home Improvement stores. I can already see about $17+ in rewards. The plan was to pull the cash from savings, but when their is extra in a current paycheck I prefer to use that money so it doesn't feel like I am touching the savings.

I have two bids on some music I decluttered earlier in the month. I moved them to auctions after two weeks listed as Buy It Now. People do like an auction!

Will you use a credit card at a Home Improvement store this spring for any additional rewards? Do you like fixed prices or auctions?

I made a extra mortgage payment this morning in the amount of $73.68. This includes the $50 Walmart gift card I spent, $3 from Pinecone, $10.17 from Ebay sales, and $7.51 left from a $100 gift.

More later, busy here. Just had to pop in for a moment to say we have less debt!

We are using those gift cards we redeemed from our Southwest Rapids Rewards bonus. I have used $150 worth at Walmart. My husband bought a tablet from Amazon this weekend and used $100 Amazon.com gift cards. The tablet is a splurge, and a promotion gift. He hasn't been promoted yet, but the man rarely wants for anything, so when he seemed to be wishing for one, I suggested he just get it. The price was a lower than we were seeing in stores.

So with those gift cards used, I need to match the spending with money sent to our mortgage. In this case, $250! I will use $150 from current spending and $100 from savings to be replaced with my husband's first check at promotion (which is likely June).

I made another Ebay sale, which I need to ship today. I also made another $20 from a referral to Ooma. More cash!! Love it.

I'm still painting today. It will be a beautiful day, and I hope during coats one and two I can get out and take a walk in honor of Earth Day. Maybe I can take a bag with me and pick up some trash? Will you do anything to honor the Earth on this day?

I closed my husband's Chase Southwest Rapids Rewards Plus card. I just received confirmation by secure email. We received all the gift cards on Friday. We did have a balance of around $150 that I paid late last week. This was after the statement closed and included the annual fee of $69. After receiving the confirmation of closure, I realized I will not get points for $80 worth of purchases. Oh, well I don't think those points could be redeemed for anything anyway! Just something to be aware of. I'm also glad to have that account closed as we had a credit line of $27,900. That is not a typo!

Here's part of the response we received when closing the account.

Please be assured that we have closed the account as
requested. Since the annual fee of $69.00 was billed to
your account within 60 days of the date the account was
closed, a refund of the fee will automatically post to
your account.

The refund happens automatically! I let you know when I see it on the account. I think it could happen this week. When it does I will request a check.

I'm going to tidy up my house, measure for paint and hand wash some clothes. Once I have all that done I might get some decluttering done. If I do, I will have the results over at

Your Organized Friend.

I'm still on a roll with getting my workouts in at least five days a week. I just need to really watch my calories this week so I can see results on the scale!

Have you closed a credit card account recently? What is the largest line of credit you have ever had? Is your house tidy right now? Anyone else keeping up with working out?

In the month of March we paid down $1,081.29 in mortgage principal. That includes our regular payment, two planned extra payments and all those snowflakes we accumulated last month. The goal is to pay down nearly $14,000 in principal this calendar year. We are definitely making progress!

Our April payment and a snowflake payment have already been applied to the mortgage, so we are really down another $762.57. This brings our mortgage balance to $X24,404. Under that $X25K amount!!

I'm just feeling blessed that we have been able to stay on track with our goal. Did you pay any extra on your mortgage in March? Will you pay extra in April, too?

March has been our slowest month so far this year in regards to snowflakes, but I did have plenty of sources of these funds. The little amounts do add up! Anyone can save small amounts and make them count towards a goal. This month those small amounts came to $247.39! And if your read my blog often, you know that this money is applied to our mortgage to pay down the balance. So far this year we have paid off $1,610.88 in mortgage debt with just snowflake money. We are not quite to our goal of $4,000, but we are getting closer to the halfway point. I expect we will get to the 50% point in the month of April.



Have you recently started saving small amounts of money towards a goal? I'd love to hear what you are working towards. Anyone have a new source for snowflakes?

I just sent off two snowflakes to the mortgage in the amount of $201.20! That money combined with our regular mortgage payment and the extra $103+ I tack on each month, will bring our mortgage down below the $X25,000 threshold! Yippee!! That means less than $9K to go to meet our mortgage goal for the year.

That $200+ is my $150 Discover bonus that I had deposited into our checking account and a check for $51.20 which was our Washington DC fundraising proceeds. I prepaid the trip in full, so the fundraising dollars came back once I had a credit balance. That is about the amount my daughter will take for spending money, but she is to take that from her own savings, since we paid for the trip.

I made another BIG payment to our Chase Southwest card today. It was just over $809. That covered a work trip my husband was reimbursed for and some other miscellaneous spending. The first statement has not closed yet, but when it does I will make our final payment. That payment will include the $69 annual fee, which I will pay. I will then close the account and ask for a refund of the fee.

I'm going to participate, as best I can, in the declutter/organizing challenge for the month of April. I did complete my goal of 20 workouts last month. I also lifted weights 10 times. I started counting calories in mid to late February. I have lost 11 pounds since then. I feel great!!

I will detail March snowflakes and mortgage principal paid in tomorrow's post. It will not include the two items mentioned above since those were not allocated until April.

Did your April begin with a snowflake? Are you joining in on the declutter and organizing challenge? How did you do with your exercise goals in March?

Good news. Bad news.

Good news, MY Discover statement closed yesterday. This is the first one since I met the spending requirement and my $150 bonus was awarded! Woo Hoo!! Now I get to decide if I take gift cards or cash. I REALLY want cash, but I know that I get more for my reward dollars if I take the gift cards. I'll be browsing those later.

So Discover seems to be lying! My husband met the spending requirement as of his last statement in early March. No bonus reward applied. I inquired. They stated it would take 8 plus weeks to be applied. I responded that I'm aware others have received it much sooner. The next response was similar but indicated it would be applied the next time the statement closes. This is now early April. The fifth of the month I think. So they are lying...or their customer service is incompetent. At this point, I'm just going to wait. It is not worth the stress and effort to get the reward 10 earlier than I'm currently expecting it. Now if it is NOT applied on the 5th...I will not be happy.

Okay...the good news is there is a reward!! I will focus on the good news.

I received a $3 Pinecone survey payment last week. Just today I requested that money be moved from my Paypal account to our checking account.

I also ordered two $5 Amazon.com gift cards from Swagbucks last week. I got them the next day! I have never received any redemption from them so fast. For now, those are loaded on our Amazon account, until our next purchase. I will officially account for them as snowflakes when used. I also plan to use the $9+ in Discover rewards when I make that next Amazon.com purchase. It is the only way I can get those last rewards off that card!

Not sure if I wrote about this yet. We HAVE met the $2000 spending requirement on DHs Southwest Visa and then some. I noticed my husband put some more work trip transactions on there today. I don't see another worthwhile Southwest offer for me to apply for. I think we are at a little standstill for now with credit card offers. There are not any compelling offers that we haven't already done in the last year. But the cash and gift cards have not yet arrived for the recent cards, so there will be some big snowflakes soon.

I still need to finish our taxes. I'm pretty sure I've entered everything in. We owe $413. I was going to put this on that Southwest card, but we spent up to the minimum before I could get the taxes filed. I expect I will just pay by check and avoid the fee. Is it right that I can file and wait to mail the check by April 15? I think it is and I'm sure I can look that up to be sure.

I did write a post on my other blog today about a discussion we had with our girls the other day. Oh, and in fitness news, I have done 30 minutes of cardio the last two mornings and lifted weights. I feel so much better! I'm on track to meet my fitness goals this month. Yippee!!