Remember those Ooma referral bonuses I received amounting to $100 on my US Bank Visa? Since I wasn't able to easily get US Bank to send me a check, I used the credit on my account to pay our electric bill of about $93, this month's Ooma taxes of about $4, and a trip to Subway for $9. Now I actually owe a little money to US Bank.

I will be sending that money I would have spent on those items to our mortgage since I had the referral money to cover them.

I haven't done much decluttering this weekend. I have tried to just keep up with basic tasks like unloading the dishwasher and putting things away after I use them. I have two new posts up on

Your Organized Friend that might inspire you to do a few things around you home, if you are interested.

I mentioned that I found several DVDs and CDs to get rid of in last weeks decluttering. I will be putting many of those on Ebay for sale tonight. I'm hoping for about $20 in sales if all works out. I will probably keep the listings going until the garage sale. If not sold by then someone else will get a pretty nice deal.

Do you get more decluttering done during the week or on the weekend?

It's the end of the month, and my husband's paycheck is pending deposit. I went ahead and recorded all the bills that automatically draft this next pay period. First is the mortgage payment of $1,415 which included an extra $103+ as a principal payment.

I also went online and made a large payment on our Southwest card. It was $961.70 to cover our recent Honda maintenance expense, our cell phone bill and other miscellaneous spending from last pay period. There is still a balance on the card. Much of that is some travel expenses by my husband. We should get most of the reimbursement very soon. I'm hoping tomorrow. Once we do I will send all that in and get the card down to zero again.

I set aside $50 for Christmas, $114 towards our auto registration and insurance, and the $57 for the 52 Weekly Savings Challenge. I wrote one check for a school field trip and another for a flute lesson later tonight. I will be getting cash out for allowances, and another future flute lesson. Oh yes, some of the cash I need to get is for my daughter's birthday. She received a check for her birthday and she wanted me to get cash for it.

At this point, I plan to send the check for our taxes late next week, around April 11. We have the $413 in our account now, so I can mail anytime. I'm just waiting as long as I can to pay! I will go ahead and right the check, and stamp and address the envelope. I sure don't want to forget to pay the government.

I'm waiting to hear about the $100 credit I have on my US Bank card. I want them to mail me a check, but I have not heard back yet. The credit is from those Ooma referrals I received. If they won't send a check, I will use the card to pay a utility bill and just take the difference to send to the mortgage.

Are you paid on the first of the month? Do you record all your bills for that pay period right away? Or only record when it actually happens?

I was paid for a sewing project today that I did for my Mom. I now have $45 more in my pocket than I did this morning! I will figure my profit for the work and send that amount to the mortgage since I consider this side gig a snowflake. I will actually keep the cash she gave me and use for flute lessons later in the month. That means I shouldn't need to pull any money from an ATM for the rest of the month!

My husband came home from work and was interested in going out to dinner. He said we haven't done that as a family for awhile. True. But I had dinner all planned and ready to go. And the girls wanted to watch the Olympic opening ceremony on television. So we saved a little cash, since we kind of made plans without him.

We made a purchase today of tickets to a concert in late May. My daughters are excited. By that statement you might expect it is some boy band, but no....it is a violinist! My parents are coming with us since it is in their town, so I purchased six tickets with fees for about $175. I put it on my Discover card, ya know to help meet the spending requirement for the $150 bonus!

That is the financial news from here today! Best wishes for a thrifty weekend.

I was hoping I could write that this month was my largest snowflake total ever. But it isn't. It is the second largest total since I began recording in 2012. I accumulated $725.45 in cash from non-income sources. Credit card rewards definitely made a difference this month. This is 18% of my $4000 goal for the year. Here where that money all came from:



As promised, I put all this money towards paying down our mortgage. As a result we have less debt! Our mortgage balance is down $1,276.53 for the month. This represents 9% of our mortgage goal for the year, so we are ahead of schedule. Love it!!

I think quite a few of you were going to track your snowflake earnings this year. Do you have a total for January? It's not too late to start keeping track and looking for those snowflakes.

I requested my $3 Pinecone survey money to be moved from Paypal to our checking account. It probably won't arrive in my bank account until Monday, but I'm going to count that one for January.

I did my sewing project and ended up not using one of the rolls of thread. I will return that soon, which will put just under $4 back in my pocket. My sewing project will net me about $35! (My client was my mom.)

I received the email from Ebates offering my earnings in the form of Amazon credit. This was tempting as I was about to make a purchase there, but I refrained. I decided that the purchase on my credit card would benefit me more since I'm working towards a bonus reward. The Ebates will be deposited in my Paypal account on Monday. I will be getting $29.35 back!

I'm getting close to earning another $25 in cash from Swagbucks. I made goal for the first 21 days of the month, but have decided to spend my time better this last week. I have been on everyday, but I have not always met the goal. Anything extra is great, but I do need to watch that it is not hogging my time from other important activities.

So it seems I have plenty of little snowflakes showing up soon, most of those will be counted in February. I will update my final January total on Friday. Do you have any snowflakes on the horizon?

P.S. I wrote about some frugal inactions over at

Our Money Blog today, if you like that kind of thing!

My husband received some travel money today. I sent $135 to our credit card to cover some of the charges he made there while traveling. The card does have a balance of nearly $815, but I think rewards will post on February 10 for over $500. I will pay a little more, maybe $265 on payday this Friday. All the spending there is in control.

I'm going to be purchasing some items on Amazon tonight. Vitamins for the girls, and Lysine for the cats. I regularly buy these online and with Amazon Prime they will be here in about two days! I am also going to purchase a light box to help with SAD (seasonal affective disorder). I think several of us in our household could benefit from more sun type light. Worse case, I sell it used on Ebay.

Only spending today was $20 flute lesson, and mailing a package to my sister for $2.50. I almost ran to the store for more taco seasoning and sewing machine needles. I ended up just using LESS seasoning and finding another needle to try that seems to be working so far. I'm happy that I didn't need to spend on those things.

I'm in the middle of sewing some napkins for a client. Once I'm done, I might have more time to blog. I'm hoping that is tomorrow.

I have an opportunity to earn cash for a couple of sewing projects. Those are going to keep me busy in the next week or so. I will have to purchase fabric for one, but I consider it a business expense! And that purchase may not come up until next week. Side gigs such as this will likely to to the snowflakes for equity.

I did send in another snowflake payment to the mortgage today. It was $90.39, consisting primarily of Chase rewards, but including ATM rebates, interest and other miscellaneous reward dollars.

Today was a no spend day. There were opportunities to spend however. One daughter was home sick, but we had supplies on hand to accommodate her needs. She is fine now. The other daughter didn't like the yogurt I bought, but she has not asked me to buy something else. They didn't have her regular preferred flavor, and I suggested something else and she approved. It just didn't work. I'll eat it, so it will not go to waste.

I'm also tempted to buy two DVDs on Ebay of two seasons of a sitcom we like and own four season of already. I will try the library first. So really it has been just fine on the first day of the low spend week.

Did you have a no spend day? If not, what did you buy? Was it a want or a need?

In case anyone is following along when I check our credit reports, it is now time to check TransUnion. I had a reminder at the beginning of the month from my email service. I still haven't done it, but I will. In four months I will remind you to check another report from annualcreditreport.com. That is the free service where you can check your report from each of the credit reporting agencies once per year. I check ours every four months, so that I'm effectively checking each agency once per year.

I noticed my ticker from tracking my Christmas Snowflakes has disappeared again. It seems if you don't update them they delete them. Boo. At least I tracked that information elsewhere, too!

I might have mentioned this in a post awhile back, but we had a van repair this week. The check engine light was on. It was an oxygen sensor. We had our oil changed and tires rotated. The total bill was about $377. We charged it to the Chase Sapphire card we are working towards a bonus on.

My husband has had some recent travel. He was reimbursed $178.50 for one. Not sure what his actual expenses were, but I'm pretty sure less than that. The other travel reimbursement came in the form of mileage and was nearly $340. That was way more than he spent in gas for three 150 mile round trips. Right now the money is just sitting in our checking account. I would count it as snowflake money if I knew his actual expenses, but he is spend happy when he travels and I don't have the patience to figure out the profit. I guess I should make a better effort to figure all that out.

We are going to be getting an ice storm tonight and a bigger snow storm over the weekend. I think we'll just stay inside as much as possible!

I have enough Swagbucks to cash out for $25 in PayPal cash. I hope I receive it before year end so I can count it for 2013 snowflakes.

I received a Pinecone survey payment of $3 yesterday. I also completed TWO more surveys yesterday, so I should be receiving another $6 soon.

I found out our housing allowance is going up beginning in January by $102 tax free dollars!! I think I'll make sure to save this money to the mortgage each month since it is a housing benefit.

My Christmas shopping is pretty much complete. I may find one more thing for my brother in law's stocking, but it won't amount to more than $3-4. I need to make one final payment to my Target Red Card from the Christmas fund to cover one last gift and stocking stuffers purchased. I have wrapped everything and didn't need to buy one bow, bag, roll of paper, gift tag or tape! I did use about four small gift bags I bought on clearance at Target last year. I might look for a few of those when they start to clearance things. I think I paid $0.10 each!

I am going grocery shopping today for odds and ends and the ingredients for taco dip that my husband will take to work for their Christmas party. They are having a white elephant exchange. I think we have a DVD of something that we can give up for that. I will still have one final trip to make before the holiday for food and drinks we are taking to our gatherings.

I'm also picking up 1/2 yard of fabric to make a little bag for my daughter's friend. She wants to give a gift and suggested the idea, but specifying a zebra print! I don't have that, but the cost is small compared to what I might buy if we went shopping! I WILL get that done today.

I purchased a photo book for my parent's anniversary, which is December 27. It is a compilation of photos we took of all of our family members on their land the last time we were there before they moved. There are some house and land pictures as well. I'm expecting tears. The awesome thing is I got the book free and only had to pay sales tax shipping and, which I did upgrade to 2 day for an $1 more. Total out of pocket was $9.56! It was a deal that came with the school photos I bought of my girls. They will be thrilled with it.

Okay...lots of little updates. I've been wanting to write more about goal setting and tax planning, but I'm just busy! I will get those posts together when things settle down.

Remember my husband opened a Capital One 360 checking account during their Black Friday sale? The requirement was to make at least 5 debit card purchases or deposits or a combination of the two. As of this morning those five debit card transactions have been completed! The average amount of the transactions was $4.61, with the total $23.05 for all five.

The bonus amount for all this hard work, which it wasn't, is $125. The bonus will not be deposited until mid January. Something to look forward to!

Did you meet your Capital One 360 checking account requirements? Did you miss the bonus offer? If you still want to open an account and receive up to $75 bonus cash, check my referral link

here.

It looks like the military will be getting a 1% pay raise. For DH this is an increase of $62 per month or $744 per year. Inflation, according to a quick online search, is at 1% for the year. I guess this is good enough to not be back tracking, but it sure doesn't feel like much of a raise for the hard work my husband does.

This really should be the year he gets promoted to Major. He has already been notified that the board is meeting in early March to determine those who will be promoted. I will focus on that, which will be $1,116 more per month than he is currently receiving in Basic Pay. That is a 17.8% increase. There would also be an increase in our housing allowance with the promotion as well.

I'm thinking this 1% raise will just be saved for retirement. I will simply increase his TSP contributions by that amount. That will leave our net paycheck virtually the same...except for the increase in any housing allowance change.

I do need to consider the promotion in our savings plan, as such a large increase in pay will change our tax bracket. And I don't want to pay more taxes! We maximize our Roth contributions every year, but I may need to put some of that in IRAs to take advantage of the tax deduction.

Kind of a rambling post about the pay increases we expect, but just needed to get my thoughts on this down. Will you be getting a raise of any kind this year? Will you save it, spend it, or pay down debt?

It really did snow last night. We got about three inches. And it is bitter cold! It's in the negative territory with the windchill. Therefore, I am inside the rest of the day, with only one trip out to pick up one of my girls after school.

The big snowflake arrived from USAA today, which is a return of premium they provide to their property and casualty customers. It was $67.41, which is about $20 more than last year.

I also sold 11 books and cds at the used book store yesterday. These were only worth about $0.10 each online, so to get $3.50 for all of them wasn't much, but an improvement from what I could get elsewhere. I received a Half.com payment for $3.28. Only about $.50 of that is the profit, but I'm putting the full amount on my snowflakes anyway.

Today, I'm adding up Christmas expenses, paying off the credit card purchases from Christmas and sending a snowflake payment off to the mortgage. I will post the total of that snowflake later!

Did you get any snowflakes today, the real variety or the money kind?

Here's the final tally of my November snowflakes, or small amounts of money earned. It was kind of a slow month, but I am thankful for what I could accumulate. I sent the entire amount towards the principal balance on our mortgage. So less debt!!



I only got $25 from Swagbucks. I met the daily goal most of the month, but I didn't do any extra. I've just been busy with other things. I might not even make goal today. Again, busy!

My Ebay sales were minimal, but I had three other sales that benefited my mom and daughter, so I actually had higher sales. I think I'm done with Ebay for the year, unless I come across something that is in demand this time of year.

I think December should be higher than November because some snowflakes are on their way. I think some of the big credit card rewards we are working on will not arrive until January, so I expect that to be the big month.

And I just have to add that my snowflakes as of the end of November are still under $3,000, but only by $24.23! I will make the goal. I really wonder how much I should make next year's snowflake goal.

How many snowflakes did you accumulated in November?

Thank you to the person who opened a Capital One account with my referral. Much appreciated!! You earned me $80.

I opened a Capital One 360 Savings and Checking account for my husband today to get the Black Friday special bonus offers. With the checking account, he will earn $125 on Day 50, if he completes at least 5 debit transactions before the first 45 days. I deposited $50 to cover some small transactions, which should be plenty. I deposited $500 in the savings account to meet the requirements to earn $75 in the next 30 days. We sure can't complain about an extra $200 in less than two months.

I was my husband's referral. I earned $20 for that referral and $20 for the second person who opened an account with my referral. Capital One was offering $100 total bonus for referring two people during the Black Friday sale. So make that $300 in less than two months. I should have the bonus money in full by the end of December. We have been very happy with all of our experiences with Capital One, including credit cards.

There are lots of snowflakes in the works. I can see about $1215 arriving in the future months, including the $300 above. I can't wait to see what else comes up!

Just bumping this up...in case you didn't see this Black Friday weekend deal. It ends today!

I know many of the regular bloggers already have

Capital One 360 accounts, but if you are lurking AND want to earn $200, check out the Black Friday Sale at Capital One.

You can earn $125 by opening a Checking account. You must use the debit card five times within the first 45 days. On day 50 the bonus is credited. There is no minimum and you do earn interest on Capital One 360 accounts.

To earn an additional $75 you can open a Savings account. The minimum deposit required is $500 and will start earning interest on day one, including the bonus. The bonus will be available for withdrawal on after 30 days. No additional requirements beyond the minimum deposit are required.

These are taxable bonuses, as they will be reported to the IRS as interest. The links are my personal referral codes. If I refer two people, I can earn $100. I expect to refer my husband, so just one of you can help me get a bonus! Thanks for your consideration. Also, it is best to open the savings account first, then the checking account if you are doing both offers.

After having family here for Thanksgiving we were left with an abundance of leftovers. I think we will be covered for most of the weekend!! Yummy. Smile

I know many of the regular bloggers already have Capital One 360 accounts, but if you are lurking AND want to earn $200, check out the Black Friday Sale at

Capital One.

You can earn $125 by opening a Checking account. You must use the debit card five times within the first 45 days. On day 50 the bonus is credited. There is no minimum and you do earn interest on Capital One 360 accounts.

To earn an additional $75 you can open a Savings account. The minimum deposit required is $500 and will start earning interest on day one, including the bonus. The bonus will be available for withdrawal on after 30 days. No additional requirements beyond the minimum deposit are required.

These are taxable bonuses, as they will be reported to the IRS as interest. The links is my personal referral codes. If I refer two people, I can earn $100. I expect to refer my husband, so just one of you can help me get a bonus! Thanks for your consideration.

After having family here for Thanksgiving we were left with an abundance of leftovers. I think we will be covered for most of the weekend!! Yummy.

Capital One 360 is having a Black Friday sale starting Friday thru Monday, December 2nd. This means bonuses for opening a new checking or savings account. The amounts have not been announced yet. I already have a Capital One checking and savings account. If the bonuses are good enough, I think my husband will be opening some accounts! And I will be his referral, hoping I can earn a little more cash.

Here's what the current ad looks like:


Does this offer peak your interest? Do you already have a Capital One 360 account?

I sold one of my listings on Ebay today. I don't like to disclose specific items since someone could go looking. But considering I probably could have thrown these out, but yet they clearly are useful to someone, I feel pretty good netting $1.71 for them. It does look like people are shopping on Ebay more than a couple weeks ago. My items are being looked at AND watched. Fingers crossed for bids.

Youngest daughter came home sick this morning. Nearly 100 degree fever and a sore throat. Pretty sure it isn't strep since the sore throat was starting the night before last. After some pain meds and a movie she is feeling better. And she is always good with the fluids when she is home sick! I think straws help.

I made the second Swagbucks goal today. Usually I just do the first one. I received a Pinecone Survey in the mail today, so next week I should have more money in my PayPal account to add to November's snowflakes.

I'm going to make a store run. There are some good groceries sales right now. I also want to use the $10 grocery coupon at Target before it expires tomorrow.

Have a super weekend and stay warm and dry!

I read

MyMoneyBlog this morning and found out about a new bonus offer for obtaining the Chase Freedom card. It is now $200 cash for spending $500 in three months! No annual fee. Wow. That is quite a return!!

I already have the Chase Freedom, but my husband does not. He did roll his eyes at me this morning when I said I was probably going get another credit card for him. He was approved. The real test is to see if the bonus is actually given, considering he has received bonuses from Chase Sapphire and Chase Southwest Rapids Rewards cards in the last 12 months. I decided it was worth the chance! I will let you know once it is applied.

Since we only need to spend $500, I will likely pay the electric, internet and cellular phone bills with it. I also expect to buy some gas as well. That is an easy $500 to spend without spending money on things we don't need.

I expect this will be likely be one of our first rewards in 2014. I think I should look to beat my 2013 snowflake total, don't you? Will you apply for this bonus offer, or do you already have the Chase Freedom card?

As a reminder, we are opening credit cards for bonus money and rewards as way to EARN income that we can't by earning interest on our savings. Savings rates are very low, so this is a way to boost our income. We have great credit. Pay our bills off ahead of schedule and without paying interest. We close cards after we have redeemed our rewards in most cases. I do NOT suggest this method to those who cannot pay off a balance in full.

I sent in $71.42 to the mortgage principal today. The first of the November snowflakes consisted of that Lands End return from last week, Capital One 360 interest, and the use of Amazon.com gifts we earned from the Southwest Rewards card.

I have just over $24 left in gift cards to use that we earned from Southwest, which means I have spent and matched over $500 to the mortgage.

My Ebay listings did not sell. I relisted and lowered the prices. One already has a bid, so that is a future snowflake.

If you are in need of a snowflake, read my post from late yesterday about opening a

CapitalOne 360 checking account for a $50 bonus, or just click on that link to read the details!

I accumulated $236.66 in snowflakes last month. A combination of interest, rebates, Pincone surveys, Swagbucks and gift cards earned from our Southwest Airlines credit card.



This amount is far more than the early months of the year, but less than the last couple. We are not currently in the process of earning any more credit card bonus rewards, so that makes a difference. Of course, I'm not complaining! This is all bonus money that is making a difference in paying down our mortgage debt.

We still have gift cards from the Southwest credit card bonus to use. As we use them, I will add them to the snowflake list and send an equal amount to the mortgage.

My goal for October is to earn some snowflakes from selling our stuff, primarily Ebay sales. I'd also like to find another source of snowflakes. Not sure what that might be yet, but I'll let you know when I do. I'm open to ideas as well.

What was your snowflake total for September? What did you do with your snowflakes?

I seem to have a few bits and pieces of financial information to share. Most of it good!

I sent $26.99 off as a mortgage principal payment. This money was from Swagbucks and $1.99 usage of one of those Amazon.com gift cards. Yes, I could have rounded up, but I thought it might mess with my tracking of the gift cards. I will update my snowflakes for September tomorrow.

Remember we cancelled our tv service last month? Our bill arrived with the expected $40 credit for service we paid for but did not receive. I was also expecting the bill to include a cancellation fee of about $99, but it wasn't there!! I'm not going to call them about that. So we have a nice low bill for internet and phone this month.

Our credit for the $99 annual fee showed up with the new billing cycle on the Southwest card. I had also made a return of $5.75 that had been charged to that card. I requested a check for the credit balance in the amount of $104.75. It should arrive in 10-14 business days. It will be nice to see that money back.

My youngest daughter has a band concert next week. They are to wear black pants, white shirt, and black shoes. She tried on the pants and shoes and they still fit. The shirt was outgrown this summer. We will stop by Kohl's today to find one and use our gift cards. We will also take a look at coats, but I don't expect we will buy today.

My husband is not going out of town this week due to the government shut down. That trip will really just get delayed. It will still need to happen at some point. I'm kind of happy about that though, since he has been doing so much traveling lately. I think pay will now continue on schedule as there was a law passed yesterday ensuring pay for military during a shutdown. That is how I understand it anyway. That means I can invest and pay bills as normal.

So what do you think I should have titled this post? Do you have some lower bills this month?

This government shut down is looming and it is affecting us. First affect, my husband's battle assembly scheduled for this coming weekend has been postponed to the end of October. This is good since my daughter has a band performance that he would have missed. Now he can see it.

He is also scheduled to travel this week. He will find out tomorrow whether they are to continue or postpone that one as well. I'd prefer it be cancelled. We are already waiting on two travel reimbursements from earlier in September that have still not been paid. The amount owed to us is $236.31, which we sure would like to have as soon as possible.

My husband was paid for all work done in September. I can see the paycheck pending in our checking account for tomorrow. However, all pay will stop, while work continues until the new budget is signed. He will get an IOU from the government. The next expected check is October 15, which will be on time if the budget is signed in the next week or so.

The good thing is we have cash to cover a paycheck or two. My plan is to postpone our investments in October if the pay is delayed. We might as well hang on to that money while we are waiting on a paycheck. Some of the bills later in the month are put on credit cards anyway, so those can be delayed slightly as well. It's the food and gas we will need to fork over out of savings until we are paid back.

We are some of the lucky ones. Civilians that work for the government will not go into work, and will not be paid for any days they are off work. I hope they have a plan!

Do you know anyone that is affected by the government shutdown that likely to happen? Any other good ideas for planning for a delayed paycheck?

My husband's check was pending yesterday so I started recording and paying bills. So many of them are automatic: life insurance, phone and electric, water softener rental, Roth investments and college savings. Makes paying bills easy.

The good news is I paid the remainder of the Southwest Rapids Rewards card. A nice $572 no longer owed. The balance is zero. The card will be cancelled once I get those gift card rewards in the mail. Hoping that is soon!!

I made a $115 payment to the American Express card that I charged my daughter's Washington DC trip on. It is zero interest, so I'm paying it back at a rate of $150 per month. The balance is now at $750. We also have started fundraising for this trip. Might work out to get some money back or at least enough for spending money.

We also made some tax deductible contributions. One to the music program at school. I'd rather do this than participate in their fundraisers. The second contribution is to a Walk N Roll fundraiser that our former neighbor's daughter and their family will benefit from. Wish we could participate this year, but we have other obligations.

Seems like lots of money flowing out, but we did contribute to our Roth IRAs and college savings accounts this period like always, so that is good.

I also received notification that my Swagbucks money was deposited in my PayPal account. I also did a Pinecone survey yesterday. Once that money is in the PayPal account I will withdraw it and send the money in to the mortgage!

It's all going as planned. Any new snow developments? Any debt paid off this week? Any charity donations?

I just have some random money thoughts to share.

The water bill arrived. It was $40 more than last month and our lawn looks worse! We made an effort to water new sod in a small section of our yard as well as a new tree, but it wasn't worth spending a lot more on water to keep the lawn green in this past heat wave. So right now our yard is more yellow than green.

We turned our cable boxes in on Friday. The bill for September service was already printed and mailed. I was told to pay it in full. I will then get a credit on next months bill for the television portion. At that time we will also be billed for the final months of our contract which came to $99.80. That is all going as planned.

We earned $28.44 in interest in August on our cash. Sure wish it was more!

Our girls have Nook Color Tablets. Barnes and Noble no longer makes these. Recently, we have had trouble with one of the power cords. Then the other one got stepped on and the connection was bent. We made a trip to Barnes and Noble to look for a new cord. Unfortunately, they don't have any left in stock and don't know that they will get any more in. We checked Office Max and Best Buy. Also not available. I have looked online, but original Nook Color power adapters are not available! This will make the Nooks we own completely obsolete. Luckily, the one that has been trouble does work and on the way home from our outing I bent the connection on the other back and it does seem to work...for now. We need to find at least one cord as a back up, since both are a bit iffy at this point. It is disappointing to think these tablets might not be able to hold up long term because they no longer make the appropriate power cord. Ugh!!

Random enough for you?!

I mentioned in my last post that I accumulated $557.48 in snowflakes this month. Those were all sent to pay down mortgage principal, so less debt. And this is BIG; we have sent in $1,361.87 since I started accumulating snowflakes for equity in late June of this year.

Here's where all the August money came from:


Not sure if September has the possibility of earning more snowflakes, but I'll give it a try! I know that we should be able to redeem the Southwest Rapid Rewards in the amount of $500. Since those come in the form of gift cards, I will use them for everyday purchases and use the cash I would have used to send in to the mortgage. I will only count them as a snowflake once I make a purchase. Does that make sense?

The good news on the Southwest Card, is that with a inquiry to customer service we have been given our Rapid Rewards number. I should be able to get that set up, so I can do a redemption next week. Happy, Happy!!

How did you do with your snowflakes in August? Do you have a goal for September?

I did receive the $100 bonus on my Capital One 360 Checking account right on time as promised. I have sent it in to be applied to the principal balance reduction!! Ah, I love bonus money.

One item I put on Ebay has a bid, so it will sell on Sunday night. That just means I'll have less stuff, and less debt because that snowflake is going to the mortgage, too.

I deposited a check into our account yesterday using the mobile feature. In my rush, I indicated the check was for $30, when it was really for $60. Oops! Luckily, the system caught it overnight and my account was adjusted for my error already this morning.

Our taxes on our home are increasing. I knew this would happen. Our home was a new build and valuation and taxes lag behind. I've been saving $300 a month in preparation for this. My calculations show I need to send in $1,654 to meet the banks standards for our escrow account. Our payment will need to increase as well to accommodate the increased taxes. I sent an email to the bank to see if they agree with my calculations and asked them to run the analysis. I'll update you when I hear back.

Did anyone else go for the Capital One checking bonus offered at the beginning of July? If so, did you get your bonus yet?

The only thing in my mailbox yesterday was a check! I wish every day was like that. Although I'd settle for a deposit into our checking account everyday, too. The check was a return of a utility deposit that we were required to pay last year to have our water turned on. A nice $60 back in our pocket.

I know they told me it would be returned. I just didn't make a note of it anywhere. My husband thought I was probably tracking it. Well no, once the money is gone, I don't expect it back.

I know you all will expect that I will put it towards the mortgage. I'd like to do that, but we have just spent quite a bit recently. There was also an unexpected expense of a rental car of $110 to get my husband to a school. The government won't reimburse as it was not authorized. The airline had to route him to an airport two hours away!! I'm sure he will check with the airline today about compensation on his way home, but I'm not holding my breath with the airline providing compensation. That $60 helps soften the blow on that charge. That's my thinking on it right now...I may decide to throw it at the mortgage in the end.

I received my $25 from Swagbucks yesterday and redeemed my $3 from a Pinecone survey, which should arrive in my PayPal account today. I will then transfer that money to checking. That money will go the mortgage as soon as I have it!

I'm about ready to make a change to our home phone. We will buy an Obi adapter for about $40 that will connect to our internet. We then plug our regular phone into that. The provider will be Google Voice so we can make local and long distance calls for free. Google Voice does not provide 911 service, but Anveo provides that for $12 per year, which is all we will pay after the initial hardware investment. That is a huge savings!

We currently pay $30.76 monthly for our home phone, which includes all those taxes and zero long distance. If we do use long distance we are charged $0.14 per minute. I use my cell phone if I need to call long distance. We get very few calls on it, but it is nice to have since all of our cell phones are based in another area code. We can't really port our current number to Google Voice without a lot of work around, but we can pick a new number for free which I have decided is just fine. I will need to notify family, schools, and service providers of the new number. A bit of a pain, but worth it for the savings.

We may also invest in a tool that crimps CAT5 cable so we can have our internet router, and OBi system upstairs rather than the basement. We lose some processing speed by having it in the basement. Our house is already prewired with CAT5 and coaxial cable, so we just need to pull out the cable from the wall and put on the adapter plug(RJ45). I might not be using all the right terminology, but I do know what the plan is! The tool is about $15.

I'm excited about all of our possible changes and reducing our bills. I now just need my husband to be home long enough to make these decisions and help me make the physical changes.

I know some of you have already ditched your landline which is a great savings! Does anyone use VOip at there home? Do you use Google Voice? Tell me about your experience.

Here's what I've been doing:

Volunteering my sewing skills to hem marching band pants. The band only has 180 members, so it didn't take long with many hands. Turns out to have been fun and free entertainment with some nice ladies.

Confronting the neighbors (2 adults and four kids) playing basketball after 10:30pm on a week night. The hoop and driveway are really, really close to my daughter's bedroom. I hope I don't have to do it again. Ick!

Earning my daily Swagbucks. I'm honestly getting a little tired of it, but there's an addictive quality that I can't yet let go of. Waiting for my last request of $25 to be deposited in my PayPal account. Only 500+ Swagbucks away from the next redemption.

Completed a Pinecone survey. I cashed out my payment earlier today. I think it should be in my account tomorrow.

Today is payday. I need to pay bills and get that Southwest card paid off!! I keep seeing lots of money going out in our future. Band picture (only $7), Band jacket(?), pictures for youngest daughter, fundraisers(!?), driver's ed, at least one tree for the back yard...I hope that is it. Not sure. I really would like to buckle down and spend NOTHING!!

I will keep today a no spend day since I have cleaning and bills to take care off. No need to do anything else, but make a trip to pick up my daughter from the last day of band camp.

I think I will also gather some items to take to Goodwill tomorrow. I know I have things in the basement that have already been set aside for that, I just need to do it!!

Little bit of everything, huh? Have a frugal day!!

We have emergency fund money and some 'house' money that I want to earn better interest rates on. I have several possibilities I will be talking to my husband about. The biggest problem with earning these rates is the hoops we have to jump through to get them.

The best rate is 3.20% at a bank local to our state. It is a rewards checking account. We can deposit up to $25K. We will have to make 10 point of sale transaction with the debit card issued to us per month, in addition to 3 automatic withdrawals to third parties (or as an alternative one direct deposit). That interest rate would allow us to earn $800 on $25K in one year.

The next best rate is 3.0% at a very local bank, that I could walk to in five minutes. It is also a rewards checking account. The maximum amount that can earn that interest rate is $10K, with 0.1% for balances over $10K. This account also requires 10 point of service transactions, and one deposit or one automatic withdrawal.

There is also a

deal with Bank of the West. No special interest rates, but cash bonus up to $150. To get the $100 we would need to direct deposit $250 each month for I think at least two months. To get the $50 we would need to use the debit card 10 times each month for two months, each transaction has to be $3 or more. This one seems a little complicated, for a low return, but I think it could be done.

And BeAWealthyWarrior has mentioned the NFCU offer on her blog that is also a possibilty to earn 3% on $3000 for 12 months. There are hoops to that offer as well, including a regular direct deposit for 12 months to a checking account. Although once set up that one would be easy. I'm just realizing that I actually do save $300 a month for property taxes. I could just move that plan there for the next year. Now that I thought of that I'm getting a little more interested.

The auto withdrawals that these account require are too big of an issue because we have plenty of things that are on auto withdrawal...investments, water bill, electric bill, gas bill, water softner rental, our mortgage payment, cell phone bill, and tv/phone bill.

I'm really not ready to give up our USAA account as our primary bank, part of that is because I know all the account numbers! Ha. However, to keep the initial principal intact and earning the great rate, I would need money to go into each account to cover the ten debit transactions and any auto withdrawals that are set up.

I was thinking we could take advantage of the first two accounts I mentioned and use one account for the first of the month and the other account for the second half. Or we could each be in charge of 10 transactions for one bank. I think the latter would be easier for my husband instead of all the switching of cards every two weeks.

I think I asked another time, but does anyone use a Rewards checking account? How do you keep track of your requirements? Do you think this method may be too much of a hassle or would it be worth the return? Let me know, as I'm not sure what I even think yet!!