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!

I had another eBay sale last night, which I promptly shipped today. There seem to be quite a few people watching items I have listed. I hope more sell over the weekend so I can ship on Monday! I have at least one item maybe more I need to list this weekend as well.

It's payday, but our day has been busy. I hope to get all bills paid tomorrow and pay down more on our credit card debt.

Have a great weekend!!

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?

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?

Late this evening, after mentioning that stocks were at an all time high, I was thinking about where our retirement accounts might be at the end of 2015.

My prediction for 2015 is that our accounts will exceed $360,000. We ended 2015 with just over $311K. We expect to contribute about $18K this year and based on predictions of 8-10% return in the market, we could easily reach $360K.

So yes, that is my prediction we will end the year with $360,000 or more (of course preferably more!) at the end of 2015.

Do you know where your retirement accounts may end up at the end of the year? Care to make a prediction?

The S&P 500 closed at a record high again today. I can't wait to look at our balances. I look when things are up and ignore it when the are down. So to me it seems like the market is always up when I look at our balances.

My husband ordered another Army Service Uniform (Dress Blues) for work and a new pair of shoes. I was expecting over $400. I was wrong. Just $360 including alterations and the shoes. I like it when things are less than I expect, even if only by $40.

Tonight we need to pick up cat food and maybe pick up more items at Lowe's with our credit. Otherwise we will stay in and stay warm and maybe catch a movie on Netflix. We signed up again, since my husband has found any things he likes during our free trial. I think it has been nearly three years since we had a subscription with them.

Will you check your retirement and investment balances now that the market closed at an all time high? Do you subscribe to Netflix or other services for entertainment?

I worked for an hour yesterday on how to adjust withholding and increase our retirement contributions. It took awhile because I didn't agree with the numbers the IRS Tax Withholding Calculator was giving me. The calculator said to withhold 5 to get a $300 refund next year, it's actually 6 I need to withhold for that type of refund. If I did six the refund would have been much larger and that is withholding far too much. They did have our expected tax correct though!

I was also using Paycheck City to calculate the various net pay scenarios with different amounts going to retirement. In the end we are going to increase retirement by 2% of my husband's basic pay, to a full 10% going to the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). This will be an increase of about $150 a month. We are going to keep contributing to Roth IRAs since we are still in the 15% tax bracket for our taxable income.

We are now contributing 17.5% of gross wages. I think this is the highest percentage we have been at, up from about 16% at one time. I should consider increasing it again to start getting closer to 20%. Especially while we are in my husband's highest earning years. There are only about 8 years left before he retires from the military. We want to make it count, right?

I feel so much better having taken care of these changes now, early in the year. It would be so easy to just say I was busy and then find ourselves owing a lot to the government, or not taking advantage of investing more.

Did you have to change your withholding this year to avoid paying taxes next year, or even over withholding? Did you increase your retirement contributions?

I finally filed our taxes for Federal and State. They were both accepted within an hour of submitting them! We are even on State since military pay isn't taxed here. We owe $638 to Federal. I have until April 15th to mail the money but I expect I will do that the beginning of April. I'm saving $105 each of the next three pay periods to add to the $315 I already have saved for this bill.

The next step is to adjust our withholding! We are at 7 now, I think I need to adjust to six. I will double check and then make the change to my husband's paycheck online.

To make sure I don't forget to pay Federal, I put a reminder on my calendar for April 1. I have my voucher and envelope ready to go. I will just need to write the check...which I could probably do now and just record later.

One less thing on my long to do list! One of our next big goals is to get at least two realtors out here in the next two weeks to talk about what we can list our home for. One just sold the house across the street and was the selling agent for our home when we purchased it, so she knows our builder. The other just sold a home identical to ours down the street. I think they will both have good information about what is going on in our neighborhood!

Did you file your taxes yet?

Hmm. I thought I posted today or yesterday. It's seems I was last here on my own blog on Sunday. Time is flying!

I earned enough points with Bing to redeem for 500 Swagbucks. I now have over 2100 Swagbucks, so I'm close to another $25 Paypal deposit.

I completed a Pinecone Survey on Friday and I was credited my 300 points for that today (three more surveys until I can cash out). It seems I may be getting a sample for that survey as I see FedEx is showing I'm getting a package from them soon. For the life of me I can't remember what the product was I did the survey on!

The bill for our garage door maintenance arrived. I was expecting about $60, it was $104! Honestly, I would have tried another company, but I left my husband in charge on that one. It's done now and I wrote the check. It will be in tomorrow's mail.

The money is going out much faster than it is coming in...at least from snowflakes!

I'm not sure I've been clear on my blog this year about our savings. I am still participating in the 52 Week Savings Challenge. And I do have a goal to increase the equity in our home (up until the point we sell).

We are saving $57 each pay period (twice per month) for the

52 Week Savings Challenge. Clearly I made my own rules. The end goal is the same saving over $1300 by the end of the year. Last years money saved in the challenge wasn't ear marked for anything in the beginning. In the end we used that money for my daughter's band trip this spring. It was perfect because we already had some money saved to put towards the deposit. Then when it was time to make payments we always had money in this fund to cover them. We make our final payment (from last year's savings) on Tuesday.

This year we don't have a plan for the money yet. For now we will save. If we don't have a need for it by year end, I may actually consider investing it! And just start again next year.

I think I may have mentioned the equity goal. Ha. Just went and checked and yes, I have mentioned it.

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'm making a point to save $124 each pay period for the equity/mortgage goal. I currently have $372 set aside. I will be setting up ticker on the sidebar soon to track our progress.

I will admit it was tempting to use some of this money to pay down my tires this last pay period. But I'm standing strong, knowing there will be more cash flowing in that can be applied to my tires. We did jump ahead on getting tires since it is the time of year where good tires are especially needed and my husband was around to do the drop off of the vehicle, while still getting my girls transported. Otherwise, it may have been better to wait for cash on hand. (We do have a healthy emergency fund...but this wasn't an emergency.)

It feels good to save each pay period for our goals. In fact I know we have to pay $638 when we file our taxes. I'm saving $105 each pay period through the beginning of April to come up with this money. I currently have $315 set aside, so we are right on track to have the money when the time comes.

These are just a few items I'm working on saving for, in addition to retirement and college. What kinds of things to do you save up for?

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!

Today was payday. I thought all day that I would get them done! There were several other things that just took priority. I hope I get a chance to get it in tomorrow. I will also need to update some recent snowflakes!

I'd like to say it will be a low spend weekend, but we have plans to see a movie ($32!), visit the art museum ($10) and buy girl scout cookies ($24). I would also like to update our bath towels. Most of them are easily 10 years old. Several have bleach marks of some kind and at least one is beginning to fray on the sides. It's time for towels. Hope to keep to just four bath towels, 2-3 hand towels. The girls also need a new bath mat (again fraying!). Our future home sell has me motivated to get this task taken care of.

My husband bought me flowers ($15), we bought candy for the girls and will use two cards from a package we purchased to write some nice words to our girls. We will eat dinner at home and avoid any chaos happening at the restaurants this weekend.

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope your weekend will be more frugal than mine.

There were a whopping five comments on the contest blog. The random number generator picked number 3, which was CB's comment. I'm sure some of us numbers people are thinking it is also an average of the five!



Thanks for your comment CB about your thrifty ways. I throw out quite a bit of coffee here unfortunately, so I will have to try your method soon!



If the rest of you didn't see the other contestants comments I would encourage you to take a look. They are all really good!

Happy Thriftiness!

CB, I sent you an email. Please send me your address when you have time!

Today, is the day! I'm giving away the book titled, The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn (a.k.a The Frugal Zealot). If you aren't familiar with the book, check out the description at

Amazon.



To enter please leave a comment telling me something frugal you do in your home on this post before midnight Central time. One entry per person. US addresses only.

Please make sure when you comment that your email address is included in the field requesting it. This way I will receive your email when you comment. If it doesn't show up and you are the winner, I may need to ask you to private message me on the forum site portion of Saving Advice.

I will announce the winner tomorrow and get the book sent by media mail within one day of getting your address.

Good luck!