I did get the other two credit cards I applied for in the mail today. I still have to activate them. As I use them, I will show you what expenses we are using them for and how we will earn some extra funds towards our mortgage down payment.

I received another snowflake from Swagbucks in the amount of $25. It was deposited in my PayPal account. I will be putting that money in our Christmas Fund. With this money and the rewards I got the earlier this month I'm just $12 away from this years goal!!

I've been a member of MyPoints for a few years, but I stopped the emails a few months ago. As a result, I forgot about that avenue to earn gift cards. I recently remembered it. It is a much slower earning rate, so my goal is to get another 200+ points and redeem my final gift card. After that I will close the account.

Our weekend will be spent at an art fair in a nearby town, where my daughter is exhibiting and hoping to sell prints of her drawings for the very first time. We will actually have to collect sales tax! We have never done that before, but will include it in the sales price to make sales simple for customers. I also got to use my rusty Excel skills to figure our costs, tax and profit on each piece of art work.

Do you buy art? Do you budget for it or buy it spontaneously?

We took a road trip to our home town which involved driving 8 hours this weekend, some meals out, some free provided meals. We had a great time connecting with family and old friends. The time always goes too fast!

I haven't added up the money spent, but I do know these perennials I dug out of my parents garden beds were free!! They are getting their house ready to move so thinning out helps them, while the plants will help our yard look like it wasn't just built!

I brought home chives, poppies, lamb's ear, daylillies, shasta daisies, coral bells, and a couple of bearded iris bulbs! Now to actually get them planted. I didn't plan on bringing them home, so my yard is not quite prepped for them. Luckily I have some ideas.



I also got this broken, but very pretty pot! Now I get to decide how to use it.



Did you get anything free this weekend? Did you get to spend time with family or friends?

Thanks for the kind wishes of good health yesterday. I do feel better today. I had a huge urge to sleep several times, so that is just what I did. I think I slept 11 hours last night, and I feel pretty good this morning.

It is raining pretty good here today, which lends itself to a lazy day. We might be able to get a few honey do list items done, which will require no outlay of money.

We need to do some vacation planning as well. We are thinking of a road trip along the Mississippi River byways here in Iowa. If anyone has any must see destinations in that area, let me know. We also want to have a stop for a day or two that is just relaxing in some way. Enjoy the scenery and each other. It seems it could be a semi frugal vacation as it will be meals, hotels, and fuel and activity admissions. I'm hoping for a budget of $1000 or less.

Will you be taking a vacation this year? Do you have a budget? Will you fly, drive or stay in town?

My daughter desperately wants to go on the school Washington DC trip next April. The school just yesterday sent home registration information. Total cost of the trip is about $1300 + refund insurance of $139 for three nights and four jam packed days of touring.

This price seemed less expensive than our other school district, but they may have been gone longer. And I don't specifically remember the price.

I'm leaning towards letting her go, as long as she puts some skin in the game. I think she could save her own money for souvenirs, and help with school fundraising efforts. It sounds like the fundraiser is an easy sell of a coupon book to one of the big grocery stores here in town. It cost's $10, and the buyer gets plenty of coupons that guarantees their $10 back and more. Not sure what the return is to the fundraiser.

First hesitation is that we have to register with a $49 down payment by June 6. Talk about fast decision making! Can make payments but there are additional charges and the price can go up if you don't pay in full. Not sure how likely that is to happen or how much that would be.

Second hesitation is that this is one trip my husband and I really want to take our whole family on in the next two years. So it seems slightly redundant.

We'll be discussing that here at home this weekend! Would you send your child on this type of trip? Have you already? Was it worth it?

I did make my run to Super Target, my closest grocery store. I spent $54.72, which I am pleased with.

This is the meal plan for the guests:

Breakfast will be steel cut oats with apples and cinnamon made in the crock pot overnight. Bought two apples for $0.99.

Lunch, turkey sandwiches with carrots and apple slices. I purchased an oatmeal bread, turkey, mustard, cheese, and a tomato. I have mayo, onion, and lettuce. Leftovers can be used in the following days. My purchase here was $11.49.

Dinner, pasta and marinara sauce, roasted brussel sprouts and red potatoes. My mother is bringing pesto sauce, and I have one box and part of a used jar of sauce. I bought a box of pasta, ground beef, one jar of sauce, parmesan cheese, brussel sprouts and 3 lbs of red potatoes for this meal. These cost me $13.52. I expect there will be left over meat, pasta, cheese, and potatoes for future use.

Breakfast on Sunday, will be bagels purchased by my parents. I will donate peanut butter and butter as needed, as well as coffee. I have those on hand.

Lunch on Sunday I am making a Greek Quinoa salad. I have the quinoa, dressing items, and onions. My mom is bringing the olives. I picked up feta cheese, and grape tomatoes. These two items alone cost $6.98. This salad is very tasty and filling. I will put out leftover sandwich fixings as well.

I went to the store with a list. I purchased 4 things that were not on the list. One of them was a bag of almonds that will be a good snack to set out for our guests. I picked up our preferred spreadable butter on clearance. I know I will need this before the two weeks are up. I also picked up to large containers of yogurt. These are normally $3.29, marked down to $2.23 each and I had two $1 coupons, bringing them each to $1.23. The yogurt was reaching its expiration, but we will have it eaten in plenty of time.

I also picked up other things not listed here that will be part of our dinner tonight, and a meal or two through Monday or even Tuesday. I hope to only need to go to the store one more time before the two week low spend is over.

I almost always go with a list, it is sticking to it that I need to work on. Do you shop with a list? Do you shop your cupboards before you go shopping?

Something has definitely gotten out of hand around here. I think we are doing some spontaneous spending that is adding up faster than we realize. Since my husband is going to be gone for over two weeks, I'm going to take the time to not spend...as much as possible.

Last pay period we were over budget by $477. Yikes. I did have to call for furnace repair which was $117. We signed our daughter up for some summer classes for $155. We bought some clothes, which was at least $65. The rest? Not so sure.

My goal is to spend less than $450 through May 15. I'm pretty sure I can do this, but I do see a few events that could make this difficult.

First, I have guests this weekend. However, they often bring some food with them, so it is not all on me. We will go to a band concert which will cost me $6 to get in. I expect they will pay their own way. I will have additional gas to get to a race my sister is running in a town south of us. The biggest expense is food, but I think I can do simple eggs in the morning, sandwiches at lunch, pasta for dinner, and have someone buy bagels for Sunday morning.

The following weekend is Mother's Day. I have the cards, but now need to think of inexpensive, yet thoughtful gifts. I thought of sewing something, but I would still have to mail the items to both my mom and my husband's mother. We have done gift cards for my mother in law so that is a possibility. I'd appreciate any ideas!

I returned some batteries to the store today. My husband purchased them for $19.99. Later I realized I could probably get them cheaper with my Amazon Prime membership. I was right. Amazon offered them for $12.71 shipped to our house. Love that!

We earned $24.73 in interest on our money market account for the month of April. I just save this money...adds to increasing the down payment money even if just a very little bit.

My eBay buyer's eCheck cleared today. I will net $8.99 on the sale. It will be added in as a snowflake, of course!

Anyone else on any kind of spending freeze, or is it just that time of year where the money flows out quickly?

My husband and I are celebrating seventeen years of marriage today. We were married on a Friday and it did mist and rain, just like it is today.

We have had many anniversaries where we could not be together, so we are taking advantage of this Friday evening to celebrate.

We bought each other a card, and exchanged them this morning. We both wrote that we consider each other a best friend.

We have purchased tickets to see a play, total cost $55. We will go out to eat wherever we want and enjoy the time together. I'm sure many people have more frugal anniversaries and others much more extravagant.

How do you celebrate your anniversary?

I balanced our checkbook today and realized we have spent all the money we set aside each pay period for groceries, gas and miscellaneous spending. Payday isn't until next week. Oops!

The last ten days have been spring break for my girls. One daughter had a birthday and we did make two out of town day trips. As you can imagine those things cost some money. And it is all good.

I did go grocery shopping on Saturday and spent $170 that will last through Sunday. That is good. We will need gas. That is bad.

Now we do have money...it's just that we are technically over budget. So my plan is to spend nothing in the next 6 days...unless I need gas, but I don't think I will. I think my husband will.

This is where it gets fun, weird and crazy.

I wrote my husband an email. Yes, I emailed him to tell him we were already over budget and not to buy anything. I said gas was okay. I also told him I had four dollars in cash he could have if needed.

He gets home from work and indicates he got the email and seems fine with it. He gets ready to go to the gym and we are discussing how his knee has been bothering him when he runs. We are talking about his newer running shoes compared to the last pair. As he leaves, I said 'If your knee hurts when you leave the gym, pick up Tiger Balm at Walgreen's.'

He arrives back from the gym with Tiger Balm and a receipt from Walgreen's. I ask about his knee and his run. His knee didn't hurt when he ran tonight!? What? Of course, this is good, but why did he buy the Tiger Balm? I said IF!!

Turns out he thought I said to buy it. Our discussion continues and he tells me he put it on a credit card since we only have $4 in the bank! What? I said I have four dollars cash in my purse.

I'm actually laughing about all this because this is how things seem to go with him and I when we communicate about money. I think we are both at fault. I'm either telling him too much, or not enough and he's not taking in what I'm saying either way. Agh! It's amazing we are in a good place financially or I'd be tearing my hair out.

Again we have the money. I'm just trying to keep us from going way over budget by not be conscious of our spending. The way I do that is to not spend money.

He's going to use the Tiger Balm anyway, which is probably a good idea as a preventative from future pain and inflammation. It's all good!

Did you find that story funny like I did? Do you have these types of miscommunication with your spouse? Any advice or tips to share?

My husband is up for promotion this month. He is in the group this year that is considered 'below the zone'. This means he is being looked at one year ahead of schedule. We feel he has a very strong chance of being promoted, as all of his evaluation reports give him top marks. One report says, 'best captain I have worked with', another says 'promote below the zone', and yet another says 'currently working at the level of a field grade officer'.

A promotion to Major will mean an increase pay by 17.5%. This includes the increase in our housing allowance. I've only done the math to calculate the gross pay. I've decided not to make a big deal about looking at the net pay, or figuring how to allocate the increase. At this point, I think most of it will be saved!

I don't want to get my hopes up too high, even though I'm pretty confident this will happen for him. I think we will be disappointed if it doesn't happen. And not because of the money. Only because of his very hard work. He really does go above and beyond. He takes the work very serious compared to so many of his peers.

Feel free to send good vibes our way. It all helps!

Two items on Ebay will sell tonight since they have bids! I'm still weighing your responses to the poll in my previous post.

We are experiencing cold cold weather here in the midwest today. We have wind gusts up to 30 miles per hour which makes for negative wind chills. My husband and girls are home from school for the holiday. We watched the inauguration this morning by the gas fireplace. But it is now off. The furnace is running at it's regular temperature of 69 degrees. I ate leftover mushroom barley soup for lunch and actually feel toasty warm.

The cold weather will keep us inside, except to go to my daughter's flute lesson, where I'll drop her teacher a $20 bill. We are keeping ourselves entertained. My husband is has been taking an online class for work. The girls have been drawing, writing, reading books and generally hanging out. I can hear them laughing in one of the bedrooms.

A low spend day, no needs or wants. It's all good!

We were scheduled to drive out of town today, but have now rescheduled it because of fog. It's a two hour trip and the fog will not have lifted in time to make the trip and arrive on time for the appointment. No need to spend extra money on gas makes me happy!

The girls are home from school, so I think it will be a no spend day. Although, I will likely give my oldest daughter a little cash for the concession stand at tonight's basketball game.

We don't have any precipitation yet, but a blizzard warning is in effect for us. We are kind of excited here. The girls finished up school today and are now on winter break.

We are looking forward to a cozy day at home tomorrow where we can sleep in, watch a movie, eat popcorn, drink hot chocolate and very likely make holiday cookies with ingredients I purchased a couple weeks ago. I'm secretly hoping DH will stay home from work. For safety reasons, it seems that he should, but last I checked I don't get to decide how the Army works!

May all in the path of the storm stay warm and safe. Do you have any snow day traditions, past or present?

The $25 PayPal cash arrived in my account two days ago. That was the last redemption of 2012 for me with Swagbucks, since I'm taking a break for the Christmas holiday. I have yet to move it to our bank account. I think I will leave it there for now.

I have been participating in the Smoothie Challenge. My goal is 15 smoothies this month. So far, I've had three. I need to stock up on more greens today so I can make more!

I have spent all of my Amazon.com gift cards earned from Swagbucks. I actually had to pay for something out of pocket yesterday! That hasn't happened for months. I'm definitely grateful for those earnings.

I received a $10 Target gift card yesterday when I spent over $50 at Target. The offer expires today and you can print a coupon

here. I'm going to be using another coupon today to get another one. I might just use these gift cards rather than saving them for next year. We shop Target for groceries, so I expect that we will have extra holiday food expenses and that the gift cards will be helpful in that regard. Or maybe a couple extra stocking stuffers. Either way we will use them. Keep your eyes open for other offers from Target. They did several of these type of deals last year.

Today I will print out the gift cards I earned on Swagbucks that I will be giving as gifts. I will put them in an envelope and have my artistic daughter put a little festive something on the envelope. My nieces and nephews always appreciate cash or gift cards.

I could just about start wrapping, but I will wait until more of my Amazon.com packages arrive. I will use wrapping paper and gift bags I have on hand. We have plenty. The only thing I may need to buy is tape.

I hope to end our evening today with all the lights out except the tree, listen to our favorite Christmas music and drink some hot chocolate by our fireplace. Are you doing anything festive to enjoy the season?

I made my 3 year old niece an apron for Christmas. It was easy and will look so cute on. She is also getting a cake mix and frosting. She loves to help her mommy bake. I spent $3.97 for one yard of fabric at Walmart. I only used about half, maybe less. I had the elastic used in the neck strap, as well as, the thread and Velcro.



I quickly accumulated 595 Swagbucks this morning doing a Credit Sesame offer and finishing a big survey from yesterday. This brought my total to 2500, which I promptly redeemed for $25 in PayPal cash. I'm counting this as my last snowflake for the season even though I won't receive the cash for two weeks.

I'll be back soon with my final snowflake total! Anyone else want to guess the total? Frugal Texan made a guess in my previous post.

I'm 40 today. My husband has to work for the army. My girls are home. We will make a lemon cake with lemon frosting to mark the day.

I find as I get older, I'm simply grateful for life and the prospect of many more days ahead to spend with those I love. I don't need fancy gifts or meals to know that I am loved.

How do you prefer to mark the day of your birth? Is it frugal?

Our oldest daughter started private flute lessons tonight. She has been playing in school since fifth grade and is now a sophomore. She recently was placed into the school's advanced level concert band as third chair flute. The band director was very impressed with her skills having not had private lessons.

We want her to advance and enjoy playing her flute even more, so we are paying $20 per half hour lesson. I think we are all excited about her potential to improve and progress further in the next few years.

We are also going to be looking into getting a new flute that is better set up for her advanced skills. The flute should have a silver head joint. Yes, that precious metal that is increasing in value. We will be shopping a few music stores in the area to see what our options are.

We will hold on to her current flute, since it is better for marching band, when one is out in the rain and putting the instrument on the field during practices.

For now the outflow of money just increased by $80 a month. I think we will see quite a bit of progress for that money!

Do you pay for music lessons for a child or grandchild? Did you play an instrument as a child?

Our insurance covers the eye exams with no out of pocket copay. The glasses are not covered and we pay out of pocket. In the past I have gotten good deals on eye glasses for my girls. This year, not so much. And I admit, I didn't look for a good deal.

The girls are older and much more picky about their frames. Once they find one it is a relief to be honest. They both ended up at Target Optical and found frames they were happy with. They charge for frames and lenses. There is an extra charge for thin lenses as well.

So what did I pay for two pairs of glasses? A whopping $429! We have the cash to pay for these. If we were really struggling, I would have had to make a different decision and find glasses online or another optical center with better deals.

Where do you purchase your glasses and how much do you generally pay? I know I've paid as low as $49 in the past. I believe at JC Penney.

My youngest (age 5) kitty is going to the vet this afternoon. That is her in the sidebar picture. She's not using the litter box, but my dirty laundry to pee in! Ugh. I cleaned out the litter box, and removed the top, she's now going in there every few minutes, but I'm not seeing much of anything there.

I'm guessing a UTI. She has a 2pm appointment with her new vet...who works just three doors down from our house. I'm thinking of walking her there on the leash, but probably won't since she isn't used to long leash walks...just a lap or two around in the yard really. Instead she will need to get in her kennel. Not that she will like that.

Fingers crossed she heals well and that the fee is inexpensive.

As a way to help our girls adjust to our new home we promised to paint their rooms. I did one yesterday and the other is half done at this point. One daughter picked the same color she had in the last house, which does remind us of the old house. The other picked a bold aqua color!

We needed to buy two gallons for each room. After the first room we did end up with half gallon left over. I expect the same for the second room. We always do two coats, but this paint from Lowe's seems to be covering pretty well after one. But since we bought it and can't return it we are using the second gallon. Lesson learned with this paint, we might just need one coat in future rooms! Sure saves time and money.

Do you do your own painting? Or do you hire it out? Or do you decorate in another way?

The guest room was put together pretty quickly, but we think it turned out great for a first time visit. After all we just moved in just over two weeks ago!

Here are the pictures:







We bought the bed, sheets, bedskirt, gray blanket, comforter, two pillows and shams all new. Cost was nearly $1,000. The bookcase and items on it, lamps, black dresser, sheet as a curtain, knick knacks, cedar chest with blanket and white blanket also on bed were from our current stash of things.

My parents enjoyed their visit and said the bed was terrific. Firm, just like they like and apparently better than their current bed.

We now have library cards for our new town. We actually have a very small library in our town, but we have access to the library in the big town right next to us. That's two cards and about four libraries we have access to!

It was hard to go so long without checking out books particularly for my oldest daughter. She reads so much so fast, we would spend a lot on books if it were not for the library.

Do you use your library? Does anyone not have access to one? What do you do to keep your book spending down?

We are in our new home. Our beds and household goods arrived on Thursday. And I have to say that sleeping in our own bed after more than three weeks was bliss!

We have unpacked all but about 6 boxes. However, things are not organized in the least. I'm trying to figure out how to store the same stuff in fewer cabinets and closets. We do have a large storage room that I'm sure I will have to use!

Spending is at an all time high. I don't have meals planned. Our dryer isn't working since the move. And with a new home there are little things to buy, like shower curtain rods. We will be ordering blinds today for a majority of our windows. I expect to get a pretty good deal online for those.

There is still an inflow of cash to arrive. We expect to receive around $2000 because we used a Homes for Hereos realtor. Participating realtors discount their commissions for buyer and sellers. And then there is the travel money we expect to receive from the governmnet. Some of that money will reimburse us for 10 days of hotel expenses. Fingers crossed that travel voucher doesn't get rejected.

Cat lovers will appreciate knowing that our cats have adjusted well to the new home. They are finding new places to hide and enjoying our wide window sills where they can hang out.

Any great tips for moving into a new home? How did you get organized? How long did it take? Any money saving tips that go along with the move?

I was able to snag another $5 Amazon gift card for the month of June from Swagbucks. This extra time in the hotel is worth something!

I used some of my free time to call all the utilities and services we will have at our new home. I actually have to put a deposit down with our city for water. They require this for all new customers. It will get credited/refunded back after 12 months of on time payments. A little irritating considering we are always on time with our bills. But it tends to be part of the moving process.

DH submitted his travel voucher with the Army. Fingers crossed he submitted it correctly. He wasn't too confident unfortunately. Hopefully, that money will arrive soon.

We definitely have lots of things we want to buy as we establish ourselves in our new home. We will just go all out and get it all done right away or try to cash flow it a bit. Undecided on that part. We just need to keep our heads out of the sand and make good financial decisions.

Closing on our home is Monday!! Everything seems to be on track for that to happen just as originally scheduled. The movers may not bring our things until after the holiday. It will all work out. We are definitely ready to be in our new home!

We are mortgage debt free!! Our loan was paid off today with proceeds from the sale of our house. It's an odd feeling. And a temporary situation. We will take on another mortgage in 10 days or so. I'll enjoy it while it lasts!

While we are in the hotel we are taking advantage of 'free' breakfasts and manager's reception dinners. And free coffee all day long. I guess it really is included in the daily hotel rate. We expect most of our stay to be reimbursed by the Army, so it's at least cheap!

DH has taken advantage of the gym equipment and we are trying to get in to use the pool, but there are lots of kids here! And everybody wants to use the pool.

We did end up finding a hotel that will allow pets, so our cats are with us. We paid a flat $75 charge to cover any cleaning expenses. So far they are doing pretty well. One is more relaxed than the other. We like being around them, so it helps us relax too!

Thanks for listening to my moving adventure stories. And fingers crossed we can close by the end of the month!

We are closing on the house we sold today. We actually don't have to do much since we already signed all the paperwork.

We stayed in a hotel last night. We are picking up our cats soon. One of them needs medication so she can relax a bit and maybe not be so loud! We also need to vaccuum up the cat hair. After that we'll leave the keys, lock the door and start traveling east.

The nice thing is we are walking away with cash from the sale. And it's more than we put down. I think paying off our home equity loan a couple years ago made a big difference. The money is being wired to our bank account. I'll need to start looking into ways to earn some money on the cash.

The closing on the next home is less than two weeks away. Can't wait to stop living out of a suitcase and get back to blogging about something other than moving!

We now have a deal on our new home. It's new construction. The neighborhood is very close to being filled in. A ranch, three bedrooms and two full bathrooms upstairs, finished basement with large storage area, another bedroom and full bathroom. Three car garage. It's a very nice layout. We are all excited.

We are attempting to close in about three weeks. It may not happen, but the seller had another deal fall through, so some of the abstract paperwork is ahead of schedule. Our lender is definitely on top of getting our loan paperwork submitted as soon as possible. Fingers crossed it could actually happen.

We want in as soon as we can since we will already have time in a hotel regardless. Right now we are trying to decide if we board our cats or keep them with us in a hotel. We like being with them, but I want them to be less stressed too. We could likely visit too. Any thoughts or experience with this?

In less than a week, our movers should be packing up our belongings and loading them on a truck. In the meantime, we are going to paint the caulked areas on the outside of our house, throw a birthday sleepover for our youngest daughter, and try to seperate out the items that we don't want packed!!

I'm still waiting for one buyer to make their payment for an Ebay purchase. I just want to get it mailed and have that cash in my account. Maybe it will be paid by the time I wake up!

We went looking at schools and houses in our new city. It was a lot of information to take in, but it was all good. We haven't decided on a house and will need to look again.

Our trip to visit included an overnight at a hotel and meals out. I'm sure we spent over $300 with the hotel, meals and fuel. We didn't plan very well. But it is done and not all of our visits will include an overnight, but it was needed to make all the school visits and appointments.

We have finally signed a final agreement with the buyers on the home repairs. We will hire a contractor to resecure the deck, and reset and caulk protruding nails. We will personally paint the caulked areas. We will not be replacing the interior door.

I had the contractor revise the estimate, which came down from $2300, to about $1600. I realized he still had painting included. He revised it again to $1200. I finally said that is too much. Can you get closer to $800? He said he could do $800 worth of repairs. I said, yes!!

This means the contractor may not get to all the nails, but we can pop a few in and caulk while we are up painting. The buyer will still get a receipt from the contractor for repairs and the work will still get done.

Oh and the really great news...my husband graduated from his class and is driving back home!! I might actually see him tomorrow...or early on Saturday. Enjoy your extended weekend!

I set aside $155 each month for DH's utilities. After paying one, I had $95. Last night he paid the second one in the amount of $65. That left $30!! I guess the weather is mild there, too.

I have put the $30 into the emergency fund. Some of the emergency fund money might go to handle moving expenses or towards a down payment, if we go that route. Our goal is to stash aside as much cash as possible. This just helps that goal.

How were your utilities this month? Better or worse?

I don't usually have much opinion about payday. We pay bills, save some money when we can and have money to spend on what we need and sometimes things we want.

This week payday is arriving a bit early since the 15th falls on a weekend. Thus DH gets paid on Friday. This payday will be the last time we have to pay for my husband's apartment rental. Woohoo!! I also expect we will get to save several hundred dollars. I like saving.

Yep, I'm looking forward to payday. How about you? Do you count the days to payday or do you just forget about it?