The Capital One 360 offers are now up on their website. My referral link is

here. Remember to read the fine print for all offers so you know what is required of you. There is only one offer available per person. No double dipping!

Here is a screen print of the offers available. You can get $100 for opening a checking account. You must use the debit card at least 5 times for any amount within the first 45 days. The $100 is deposited to your account on Day 50 automatically. I opened mine with $50 so that I had money to spend once I received the debit card.

If you open a Savings account with Capital One 360 you must deposit $500. The cash will earn .75% interest beginning on day 1. You will earn $76 immediately upon opening, but you cannot take it out for 30 days.



Here is what you will see when you click on my link:



Are you planning to sign up for these offers? Have you participated in Capital One 360 offers in the past?

I just found out this morning that Capital One 360 is running a sweepstakes where you have the chance to win $1,776 each day through July 14th. It is a way to share what you are doing to declare your financial independence. I entered using Facebook, but you can enter through Twitter, Instagram and Email also.

I know we all have ways we save and improve our financial lives. We might as well share and have the chance to win some cash!

Check out the sweepstakes and enter if you chose

here. I do not get anything for passing this information along. Just thought I'd share...since it would be fun if one of us here were to win!

Don't forget to come back to my blog on Monday for information about the Capital One 360 Independence Day Sale that begins on Monday through July 3.

Do you enter sweepstakes on a regular basis, just on occasion or never?

Remember to stop by my blog on Monday for the Capital One 360 Independence Day offers!! I will have more details then. Here's the post I wrote last week about it:

Just giving those of you who do not already have a Capital One 360 Checking or Savings account but are interested a heads up. You will likely want to wait until June 30 to take advantage of their sale they have each year.



As you can see from the ad, the sale runs from June 30 to July 3rd. In the past the bonuses for signing up have been up to $100 for a savings account which is double the normal bonus. They have even larger bonuses if you open a Sharebuilder account. My understanding is that you cannot double dip on these offers.

I would appreciate it if you would use my referral when these bonus are announced if you heard of this great deal from me. I will likely get a bonus for referring you. And you know I like snowflakes!

The nice thing about the Capital One accounts is there are no minimum balances or fees. There is usually no direct deposit requirement, although you may have to deposit some cash to qualify or make a few debit purchases on the checking account. The details will be announced soon so stay tuned?

Does this offer interest you? Did you take advantage of Capital One's sale in the past?

In keeping with my theme of introducing you or reminding you of different types of snowflake sources, I have another one for you. Clicking for snowflakes!

If you have a few extra minutes of time, you can earn gift cards and cash for free! I have used these small bits of cash and gift cards to help meet our financial goals. Right now, the goal is to pay down our mortgage. Our mortgage doesn't accept gift cards of course, but when I spend them on things I would be buying anyway, I send the cash I would have used for the purchase to our mortgage.

The main site I have used to accumulate the most money is

Swagbucks. The site lets you earn Swagbucks points for watching videos, using their search engine, shopping, taking surveys and more. In 2013, I earned over $600 from Swagbucks. I have scaled back my time on the site so I can be more productive in other areas, but I still hop on nearly everyday to click some of the easier tasks. Once you sign up, feel free to read my post about How to Swag. It is a little outdated, but it should give you enough information to get started. Their Facebook page is also very helpful.

I'm currently active on Bing as well. This one is a straight forward search engine that provides you with results and points for a certain number of searches each day. It only takes a few minutes to complete each day. I'm able to accumulate my points(known as Swagbucks) to redeem a Swagbucks code that I use on their site to redeem for Amazon.com gift cards. If you are going Swag, you might as well Bing as well!

Another legitimate site for earning gift cards is MyPoints, which also lets you do searches, participate in special offers, click on emails, take surveys and more. I have fallen off the wagon on this site, but I have earned gift cards with them and it is pretty easy to do.

There are probably plenty of other sites you can participate in to earn gift cards for doing free tasks. The key word there is FREE. Do not pay to join any site. EVER.

Do you Swag, Bing or use MyPoints? Do you have another free site you use to earn gift cards and cash? What do you use your earnings for?

The links for Swagbucks and Bing above are my affiliate links. If you are interested in being referred to MyPoints, you are welcome to leave your name and email address in the comments. I will enter your information on their site and they will send you a referral email. I will delete your personal information from my site for your protection. You can also send me a private message on the forum section of Saving Advice.

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 use

Ebates, when I remember, when I'm doing any online shopping. A little rebate for going through their site as you shop on another site is EASY!

This week I purchased two t-shirts for my youngest daughter for her birthday next week. I purchased from RedBubble, but not before I went through Ebates to get 2.5% back, which amounted to $1.15. I also used a coupon code that gave me 10% off my order so that helped defray the cost of shipping. I still spent $50, but she will be VERY happy with these as they were specifically requested and on the top of her list.

I also purchased a family photo we took last year on my parents land. We used it on our Christmas card. As I was taking it off my fridge, um this week, I decided it was a really good picture and we should have it enlarged to put on our wall. I logged on to Ebates and found that Snapfish offers 10% rebates on their orders. I ordered an 11x14 print that I will pick up at Walmart today for $6.86 plus tax. Ebates is giving me $0.69 back.

Right now I only have $3.04 in rebates, but over the last couple years I have been using them I have earned over $65 in rebates. Those small little rebates add up!

There are other shopping sites that offer cash back, but Ebates seems to be the one that works for me. I think I have used Shop At Home in the past. It is a good idea to check another site to see if the rebate is larger or if they have a store that one site doesn't have. And if you use a rewards credit card for making these online purchases you are getting even more benefit for your purchases online!

Do you use a online shopping rewards site? Do you use more than one? Which one is your favorite?

I received $3 in my PayPal account for completing a survey from Pinecone Research earlier this week. That's another snowflake for June!

I was proud of myself yesterday for waiting to go to the grocery store. I was able to find lunch and dinner for my family with things we already had on hand. I wasn't sure I could as the cupboard and fridge are getting bare! My daughters had pancakes for dinner. My husband and I had eggs, turkey bacon and toast. I may have that same thing for lunch today.

I will need to get for the store today as I keep finding things I need to get...coffee, toilet paper and more! I hope to get everything I need to make it through the weekend. We are having guests one night so I need to plan for that as well.

I had to go to the store to buy a specific item this morning. I ended up buying three because I could get a $5 Target gift card if I did. This is something we will definitely use, so not a big deal to stock up.

I will count that $5 gift card as a snowflake and send that $5 to the mortgage since Target will give me $5 off my next purchase!

Snowflakes are all around us if we take time to notice! I hope to get a post up this week about my sources of snowflakes and other ideas for you to look into. Did you find any money recently that you can put towards your snowflake goal?

I put a new post on

Your Organized Friend about my new cleaning task today.

I sold some pretty inexpensive furniture on Craigslist this morning. An end table, a coffee table and tv stand that we originally purchased for $70 at Walmart. I had them listed for $35, but lowered the price to $30. The man asked if I would take $20. I said yes, since I was ready to have them moved on. Now I have $20 cash and less clutter!

We did some decluttering in my daughter's room yesterday. There is more to do as she is a little slow in going through things. We found a few picture books and trinkets my sister can use with her kindergarten students. I have a new post up on

Your Organized Friend about a quick clean up I did with pictures.

I'd really like to get some items posted to Ebay tonight. I let you know if that actually happens! Are you selling or decluttering right now? Where did you get your last snowflake of money?

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!!