The bonus of $150 earned on my husband's American Express Blue Cash Everyday card appeared this weekend. I redeemed it for a statement credit on the $150 balance that remained. As of this morning it has been applied and the balance is now zero.

I guess this means I have to send in another $150 to the mortgage! Since I would have had to pay the balance if not for the credit, I will just use that money to send in to the mortgage. Simple!

I remembered to count out my Box Tops for Education and found that I had over 100. I put a lot of 100 together and listed them on Ebay. They have not sold yet, but I expect they will as I set a reasonable price. They ALWAYS sell. So, another snowflake is in the works.

Swagbucks deposited last months bonuses yesterday. I was just 28SB away from cashing out for $25. So I put in the time to get those 28SBs and cashed out for $25 cash in my PayPal deposit. ANOTHER snowflake on its way.

My chauffeur service has begun operating again. My oldest daughter who is just starting to drive is needing to get to school for band activities. This means more fuel will be used. Too bad I don't get paid for this service!

We are still in the process of meeting the $2000 in spending on the Southwest card. I know we are over $1000. I'll give a more in depth update on this tomorrow.

Snowflaking debt and savings works! Of course, it may seem easy with these large rewards from credit cards. However, the smaller amounts I find, earn and save still add up. You can do it too! Anyone just getting started with snowflakes? What was your first or latest snowflake?

I decided to pay my Ebay fees and withdraw the proceeds from the sales that have been paid. I want to send them in with my BIG principal mortgage payment. The proceeds thus far were $37.31. I'm still waiting for payment on one item. I have one item that will sell today. I will add those proceeds to my August snowflakes.

I will update my Snowflakes for Equity tomorrow. It has definitely been my best month EVER for snowflakes thanks to the credit card rewards.

Here are some future expected snowflakes that I'm waiting on that have been earned but not received:
$25 Paypal cash from Swagbucks
$3 Pinecone survey payment
$5+ Ebay proceeds
$150 American Express reward
$76 Capital One 360 Savings reward
$100 Capital One 360 checking reward
and we are working on earning that Southwest Rapid Rewards credit card reward of $500. I think we have only spent $500 of the $2000 minimum at this point.

Stay tuned for the July Snowflakes for Equity update...schedule to appear tomorrow!

Yesterday seemed like an 'in' money day. The mail brought the much awaited check from Citi Thank You rewards. A check for $250 made out to our mortgage company. It's in the mail this morning with the slip indicating our loan number and that it is to be applied to principal.

I actually took a picture of the check so you can see it is really true. Rewards for spending on things you purchase anyway!



I sold an item on Ebay yesterday, too! I will net nearly $19. I already put it in the mail as well. I don't like to keep the customers waiting. I will apply the funds to the Snowflakes for Equity once I redeem all proceeds from PayPal, which will likely be at the end of the month.

I still have four items on Ebay. The auctions end on Sunday. I have more things to list though. In the decluttering process I have found a few movies and cds that we are no longer interested in keeping. My husband saw the pile last night and promptly whet to his truck and brought in 8 cds that have been in his truck for a year without use. There are a few I can definitely get some cash for!!

Of course, there was still some outflow of cash yesterday. It is so hot here, ice cream sounded really, really good. We purchased from the store, so we should have several treats over the next few days. The nice thing is it actually feels a little cooler this morning.

If you didn't see

my post yesterday, check it out. You could make $50 in a few simple steps!

We met the minimum spending of $500 on my husband's Capital One Quicksilver card and earned $107.53 in rewards. The first statement has not even closed yet! I already redeemed an account statement credit and moved the money we would have sent in as a payment to the Snowflakes for Equity! Which now has a balance of $423.08 for July. Not bad. Not bad at all!

I do foresee quite a few expenses in the coming months: athletic shoes for the girls, school supplies, school fees, an oil change, and rental of a sod cutter for landscaping.

We also are considering a new bike for our daughter, an entertainment center for one of our tv's that is on a cheap $20 cart and looks plain goofy, and maybe a power washer. We live in more of a rural area, near a medium sized city, and boy do our vehicles get dirty. My husband is really into keeping cars clean, but at $6 to $10 a wash, I think we could actually save money if he washed our cars at home. The only way I could get him to do that is with a power washer, about $300. Men...and their toys. It would be more efficient. Definitely not a need. I'll grant you that one. But it just might be more economical considering the nearest car wash he'll consider using is more than ten minutes away.

My ebay items are out there, but not any bids or many watchers. I didn't do the best job of researching prices, so I may need to adjust next week if nothing sells. I do have a couple things I hope to get listed this evening, maybe I'll do better with my research tonight!

Anyone else have a power washer for their cars? Is this overkill, or does it seems like a good idea in our situation?

Here is the chart showing the snowflakes I have accumulated since the beginning of the month. The credit card rewards make a big difference!

I do expect additional rewards before the end of the month, thus I will wait to send this big fat snowball of money to the mortgage as a principal payment. I expect a Pinecone survey or two, a Swagbucks reward, a MyPoints reward, another credit card reward or two, AND profits from Ebay sales!

Just to be clear. We only have a balance on one of the credit cards. That is the most recent one we completed, Capital One Quicksilver. Today, I made a payment of nearly $268 to cover the utilities we charged, thus we owe about $232. I expect to redeem the bonus when it hits the account as a statement credit, thus putting what we owe to about $125. I will get this paid off right after the credit posts to the account.

And in other good news, we saved $265 in our emergency fund this pay period. Pretty good considering some recent travels and a birthday!

Do you have a mid month snowflake tally? How do you keep track of your snowflakes? What are you doing with your snowflakes?

I checked our retirement accounts...up over $42K since the beginning of the year. Very happy to see this improvement. Have you checked on your retirement lately?

My husband applied for the Southwest Airlines Rapids Rewards Premier Card today. He was approved! We are very close to the spending minimum on the Capital One Quicksilver card, maybe another $40 left to spend to meet the $500 in spending.

We received my husband's American Express Blue Cash Everyday card yesterday. We have not used it yet, but will put our regular Verizon cell phone bill and our Amazon Prime membership on the card. I have already set those charges up to be applied when due. We will use that card for another $270 to meet the $500 in spending before we move on the the Southwest card.

I just did a quick tally of credit card rewards we have received and expect to receive on cards we have applied for: $1476. Nice sum of change! I expect the total will exceed that before the end of the year. And this doesn't include the 5% savings on the Target Red Card.

Do you have a tally of your savings so far this year, with or without credit card rewards?

First, a couple of updates. I have received another Pinecone Survey payment, and I made another transaction on my Capital One 360 Checking account. Just two more to go. My husband just needs to spend another $28 on the Capital One Quicksilver card. I'm waiting for the American Express card he applied for to arrive in the mail. Once it does, one of us will apply for the Southwest card.

I keep seeing a bank sign that flashes 3.00%APR. I stopped to watch it the other day. It's called Green Checking, so I'm assuming this is technically a high yield savings account. This might be our next best bet for some savings on our excess cash. I will get in soon to inquire further, as I can't find anything on the bank's website.

I have looked at other area banks for their high yield rates. Most don't give the rate for over $25K. There are always stipulations such as direct deposit, or 3-5 automatic bill payments, or 10 debit transactions.

Does anyone have a high yield checking account? How does yours work? Which rate are you getting? Is it worth it to you?

I guess all my posts are going to be about rewards for awhile. All these rewards are snowflakes towards mortgage debt. Less debt is good!

Yesterday, I received my CaptialOne 360 checking debit card. I activated it right away and used it to pay for my daughter's haircuts and vitamins. The two purchases go towards the five debit card purchases I need to make to get the $100 reward. Only three purchases left to go.

I have received my bonus ThankYou points on my Citi Thank You Preferred card in the amount of 25,000. I was hoping I could redeem for a statement credit rather than gift cards. Unfortunately, those credits are not nearly as valuable as the gift cards. I would only get $100 in statement credits for those points. I did find out that I can redeem those 25,000 points for a $250 check made out to our mortgage company though. That is exactly the reward I want. I will have to call to get that ordered, but I will do that today!

We are only $40 away from making the minimum purchase requirement on my husband's Capital One Quicksilver card. We have purchased two tanks of gas and my husband charged his lunch yesterday while he was out of town on business. Again all charges made on this card are regular expenses for our household.

I'm pretty sure we will take the plunge and open the Southwest Rapids Rewards Premiere credit card soon. We will only open one in my husband's name to begin with. It does have a $2000 spending requirement. I don't want to jump on two cards too quickly. It makes it harder to track and I don't want to not make the spending requirement. I'll let you know when we are approved for that one.

I hope to have some Ebay updates later this month. I have been coming across quite a few things lately that need to be sold. I'll start with five to six items this Sunday.

Here's to more snowflakes!!

We found out that my husband did not get promoted to Major this year. He was being looked at Below the Zone, so it would have been an early promotion. Next year, he will be right on schedule to be promoted. It is disappointing because he works so hard.

A very tiny part of me is relieved only because I know the increase in pay was going to change things for us tax wise, definitely being pushed into a higher tax bracket. Specifically, $8790 would be subject to 25% tax. I was going to need to make decisions about whether to put more money into traditional IRA's rather than Roth IRA's. I will have more time to ponder that decision.

In the meantime, I feel very blessed with the financial situation we are in. My husband has a good job and provides for us well. We have no reason to complain.

Would you put more money into traditional IRA to avoid current tax on $8790? Or would you pay the tax now to keep the money in a Roth?

The Citi Thank You Preferred card that I received earlier this month has been used just a little in the amount of $25.11. There actually was a statement issued already! That amount has been paid as of this evening.

This card has a $1000 minimum purchase to earn $250 in gift cards. We have three months to meet the goal. We will use it for everything we normally purchase and our small in state vacation at the end of the month. I expect by the end of the month we will have met the goal. Just $974.89 to go.

In fact, I did use this card today for fuel in my van, a gift card for my dad, and a book of stamps, which was around $85. I think my husband probably used it to pay for his haircut.

I do have a few out of the norm expenses that can be charged if needed. Prescription sunglasses and flute maintenance specifically.

The spending needed on these cards for the $500 in rewards bonuses is going fast. I may have my husband apply for these cards soon, so we have them on hand for another round of rewards. He will be able to apply for one additional card, Chase Freedom, so his ability to earn some rewards will be slightly larger, $600 I think.

On another note, I'm just 500 Swagbucks from earning another $25 gift card. I have not made goal at least two days this week. I wouldn't have anyway with vacation planned for later in the month. I don't want to be glued to Swagbucks when I can be enjoying my family and the beautiful scenery of the Mississippi River, right?!

Are you taking a vacation this summer? Are you flying or driving? Are you staying close to home? Who is traveling the farthest away?

Using credit cards to obtain rewards is only for those with cash to pay off purchases right away before interest accrues. And those organized enough to keep track of the charges, and due dates. We are not making purchases we wouldn't be making normally. All rewards are to bulk up the savings in our down payment fund.

As I mentioned in my

previous post, I am applying for credit cards to take advantage of the bonus offers available. This will help earn some income, since these crazy low interest rates don't offer much.

I was approved for Citi Thank You Preferred where I will spend $1000 in 3 months and earn $250 in gift cards. This offer arrived in the mail.

American Express approved me for the Blue Cash Everyday card. I will need to spend $500 in three months and will receive $150 in statement credits.

And finally, I was approved for the Capital One Cash Rewards card. I also need to spend $500 in three months to earn $100 cash.

I attempted to apply for the Citi Dividend Platinum Select card right after I was approved for the City Thank You card, but was denied. I'm sure it is because it is the same company and they just extended me credit. That is fine.

I went looking for another card, and was thinking about applying for the NFL card that offers $200 in statement credits after one purchase...but unfortunately it is not available in my state. Darn. There are other offers out there that I may consider at another time, but for now, this is enough.

If you totaled up the rewards that brings me to $500 in cash rewards for these three credit cards and only need to spend $2000 in the next three months. Once I see we will achieve these, I will have my husband apply for the same cards and start the cycle over again.

Originally, I thought I could get $700 in rewards, instead of the $500. I lost out on $100 because I was denied for the one Citi Card. I also 'lost' another $100 because I opted to apply for the Blue Cash Everyday card, instead of the Blue Cash Preferred card which had a $75 annual fee.

Anyone else applying for credit to obtain rewards? What do you do with the cash rewards you earn?

Since we can't get good interest rates on our savings, I'm going to be taking advantage of the cash bonuses that credit cards offer. It is tax free money. We do have expenses we purchase anyway. Why not? We do not have plans to take on any big loans for cars, student loans or a house....so who cares about the credit score, which will be just fine since we pay off our cards on time and before accruing any interest.

What prompted this? Rates are terrible on savings!
And....I received an offer from Citi Thank You Preferred to spend $1000 and earn $250 in gift cards. I'd rather have cash, but if I redeem for a gift card we will use in regular spending I can just take that money I would have spent and save it.

My goal is to have all rewards go into savings to earn some piddly 0.85% interest. Yeah!! This money will be saved toward that future down payment.

I know that $1000 in 3 months will be no problem. But now, I am debating whether to apply for a couple more at the same time, to avoid that credit ding that does take place initially. Then I can earn several rewards over the next three months. We have both had the Chase Sapphire Preferred which we spent our $3000 and earned the $400 rewards...really $800 in total. I don't think it has been quite a year since I originally applied, but maybe.

I think I can get $700 by opening FOUR cards:
_Capital One Cash Rewards $100 after $500 in 3 months.
_Blue Cash Preferred $250 after $1000 in 3 months.
_Citi Thank You Preferred $250 gift cards after $1000 in 3 months.
_Citi Dividend Platinum Select $100 after $500 in 3 months.

Now that I write that I realize that is two Citi cards. This would still be $3000 in spending in three months, which is no issue around here. But $700 in rewards, rather than going with the one Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

Of course, after these three months, I could have my husband apply for the same three cards...and likely get another $700 before the end of the year. That is good money, that I wish we were earning on our money market account.

So do you think it is okay to apply for four cards at once and two from the same company all on the same day? Think this is a good plan considering I'm a good credit risk and will not incur debt in the process?

I do already have a Chase Freedom card that is active, but DH does not.

I thought I'd add on to my

blog post from this morning and let you know that I did accumulate more than 89 SBs. I ended the day with 220 SB, with 9 of those from a referral which do not get added to the daily goal. Thanks, phantorn, for the referral bucks!



I did another survey on Peanut Labs for 48 SB. I had three search wins today for a total of 23 SBs. There were a few more offers in my Inbox. I did several rounds of SBTV and Games this evening while my family was watching Spiderman 3. Todays Swag Code was 'BraveSoldiers' which earned me 8 SBs.

This is a typical Swagbucks day for me. The movie was 2 hours and 20 minutes, and the additional Swagbuck's were earned during this time. Of course, I wasn't completely Swagbucks focused, but it is one way to get Swagbucks during 'down' time.

Here are the screen shots of my actual earnings today:




I hope this helps understand a little bit more what Swagbucks is about and how you can earn actual cash and gift cards with this site for free. Again, if you want to get started, click here to use my referral link.

Now, what I really want to know is: What are you going to do with your Swagbucks?

Several people have been asking about how to accumulate as many

Swagbucks as I do. I will admit, I'm a bit addicted, but I also know that it is possible to make goal everyday without much effort.

As determined by the Swagbucks site, today's goal was 60 Swagbucks. This is an average goal. Most days are higher, but occasionally the goal is even lower.



I start first with completing the daily tasks, which are listed under the goal. This includes the daily poll and 'skipping' through the NOSO offers. The toolbar task is automatic, since, I have the Swagbucks toolbar downloaded on my browser. That is 4 Swagbucks right away.

I then jump over to watch SBTV. You receive 3 SB's for every 10 videos you watch, you don't have to watch the entire thing. Once the meter on the page moves up, you can switch to another video. I try to leave the meter at 90% the evening before, so that I can watch one video and earn 3 SB's very quickly in the morning to meet goal. Now I'm at 7 SB's.

While the SBTV videos start running, I attempt to search for things. Today, I probably search five or six things before I got a 9 SB search win. Now I'm at 16 SBs for the day.

I checked my Inbox, where I had two offers for 3 SBs each. These offers involved clicking on 6 different videos. This brings my total SBs for the day to 22.

While some of those Inbox videos were running, I went to check out the surveys. I try the ones with the most SBs for the least amount of time first. I was disqualified for the first one. I did receive 1 SB for trying. They give you up to five of these per day. Now I'm at 23SBs.


I do skip around on the site, so now I'm over at the Special Offers page where I right away go to the Radium One page, where I seem to have good luck. Peanut Labs is good too. I find the coupons offer where I click the link, pick a coupon, and print it. I technically don't print it out unless I really want it. My computer loads it into the que, but I go in and delete it. This earns me 9SB, which is not instant, but usually credits within 5 to 10 minutes. I do this offer EVERYDAY. While I'm on Radium One, I click on the 1 point offers, which link to Health Guru videos. Usually, you can just let them load and run and receive the point. Sometimes you need to click through the slides. The offer states what is needed. I earned 7SBs from those small offers. My total is now at 39SBs.



I end up back over at the surveys. I complete a survey worth 50SBs. The offer stated it would take 20 minutes, but it had to be less than 10 minutes total. It was about healthy cereals. At this point, I am way over the goal of 60 SBs, with 89 SBs.



The nice thing is I can be done for the day if I don't have any more time. Meeting goal nets me an extra 6 SBs. These are accumulated during the month and paid out by the fifth of the following month is a lump sum.

If I have time, I can still search the internet for more wins, play 10 rounds of games to earn another 10 SBs. I can also look for free offers to sign up for. I can run SBTV while I'm doing other things online. I also check the Swagbucks Facebook page for updates on offers and surveys that credit as well as any Swag Codes that may be released (usually one per day). I can also go back and look for surveys that I might qualify for. At a minimum, I should get another 4 SBs for getting disqualified.




I hope this run through of my morning Swagbucks routine helps. The survey I did today did help it go fast, which I always appreciate. Again, I am a little addicted and likely spend too much time on Swagbucks. I would encourage you to start slow, do only what you can and feel comfortable doing, and make your own goal. If you would like an extra $5 to spend at Amazon.com you only need to earn 15 SBs per day to accumulate the 450 Swagbucks needed to pick one up. I think I've shown you that it is pretty easy to get to 15 SBs per day. Once you get the hang of it you might even earn more than that.

Got it now? More questions? Post them in the comments. Ready to sign up? Here is my referral link.

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.

Wow! So very very grateful, my husband's paycheck is actually increasing despite the increase to the payroll tax. It helps that he effectively received at 3.7% raise this year before taxes. After taxes and an increase to his TSP, we still have a net increase to his paycheck of $61.21 per paycheck twice per month.

I have one week to figure out how to divide up the net paycheck towards our goals. I debating between one goal at at time versus several goals throughout the year. It really comes down to my/our preference and how we would feel about waiting on the truck payoff for example. Don't worry though it will be paid off by year end!! I'll write all about it once I have the plan.

I intended to get some ebay items up this week, but it probably won't happen until Sunday. I decided my priority project is going through our paper and computer files. There is plenty to shred. Plenty of files to delete. I have new paper files to create...something about moving necessitates a few more! Paper sorting is one thing I do deeply nearly every year. Do you have a yearly date with your files? Any tricks or tips you want to share?

We had a terrific three day vacation out of town with relatives. We were blessed with useful gifts. I notice as I get older the gifts aren't really that important. It is the time with family that is the best part.

I checked online this morning and found out the BAS rates have been established for 2013. My husband is an officer. That rate will be $242.60, which is up $2.64 per month. The enlisted member rate is $352.27. Also only up a couple dollars from last year.

We have met our $3000 spending requirement on our most recent Chase credit card. The statement doesn't close until January 14, so we will have to wait until then to get our $400 bonus. Now back to cash/debit card spending!!

I will be doing financial planning for 2013 in the next week. I expect to do some posts along the way about our plan to pay off the truck, and other savings goals. I will also be estimating our taxes again.

In January, if not before, I am going to see how much money I can make selling things on Ebay and Craigslist. There are several of us on the blogs here that are going to be participating. As I start rounding those items up, I will be setting items aside to take to Goodwill just before year end. It doesn't hurt to have that extra tax deduction.

As a few others have stated, I love this time of year for goal setting and decluttering. Are you with us? Are you going to be looking into your financial plan for the the next year? Any tips you want to share about how you approach your goals?

The 2013 BAH calculator for military was released today. You can find the calculator

here.

Basic Allowance for Housing is non taxable for US military members and is to provide for those of us who do not have access to housing on a military post or chose to live off post. The average increase was to be 4.2% over last year.

In our case, our housing allowance increased 14.67%. That is the first time our increase has ever been that high. In dollars it is an increase of $170. We are actually receiving less BAH in our new town as compared to our old one because housing is less expensive here.

With this new information on our housing allowance I can more closely estimate our paychecks for next year. We will definitely see an increase. I plan to put some towards meeting the new Roth IRA maximum contributions, which for us will be $83.34 each month. The remainder I plan to put towards that truck loan until it is paid off!! Right now that looks to be about $112.

I did base my paycheck calculations on the assumption that the payroll tax holiday will expire and increase our social security withholding by 2%. Not pretty, but at least we know what to expect there!

If you want to estimate your paycheck, look at at PaycheckCity. Have you estimated any changes in your paycheck for next year? Is it good or bad?

USAA deposited $48.78 into our account today! It's an annual thing...something to do with our auto insurance or just because it is a member bank. I don't really care why...I just know I like cash back. The longer you are with them the bigger the distributions generally.

I knew this was coming and was looking forward to it, but now I'm not sure what to do with it! I should put it towards that truck loan, but part of me just wants to keep it in savings. I think its because my savings account looks smaller now that I moved money to our Roth IRA's.

I will be making a principal payment soon, so I'll let you know what I decide. Ideas and opinions welcome!

We earned $34.97 on our money market account for the month of November. It sure would be nice to live off interest, but at the current rates, we would need to have quite a bit more cash stashed away.

I don't save the interest as a snowflake, because I want our savings to grow, rather than use the savings to spend or put towards the truck loan. However, it is a good idea for those who might have an emergency fund and are paying down quite a bit of debt. That small interest payment each month could be added to your debt snowball. Or maybe you could at least save all the coins you receive each month. Cash them in at your bank and put that money towards your debt. We did that in our early years. Now, we rarely use cash!

If you didn't see my previous post, take a look...I reported the amount of snowflakes I saved since January! What do you do with the interest you earn? Save it, invest it, or spend it?

Today I made another principal payment towards our truck loan! I sent in a total of $291.40, with $61.35 being the amount I would expect our payroll tax to increase in January. Might as well not throw it away this last month. January 1 it is going back to the government. In our case this will first show on our January 15 paycheck.

Our new truck loan balance is $6,227.64. Hooray!!

We are waiting for $539 rewards check from Chase which as I've mentioned will go straight to truck principal. We will have one more regular payment this year of which about $310 will go to principal. And after I'm done Christmas shopping the excess snowflakes are getting sent in too! I'm hoping for several hundred from that.

My husband came home from his Army job last night, walked in the door, and said "I don't know if you had plans, but we can't spend any money."

What?

He was talking to others at work about the governments sequestration plans that take place at the end of the year. They are worried about their pay being affected since the Department of Defense has to make some serious cuts over the next several years. I don't know all the facts, but I did find online that military pay (basic, housing and subsistence)are exempt from cuts.

So since he suddenly wasn't worried about his pay, we went out to lunch today. We did use a coupon for one free meal. We spent about $11.

I thought his reaction was a bit funny coming from him, but even though he does have a pretty steady government job it is important to realize his pay and his job can be effected, just like any other.

Do you think your job would ever be downsized or effected by the economy? If not, why?

Wow! I can't believe that September is behind us. This year is flying by. It was a good month for interest on our money market where we earned $34.88. This was the first full month our house proceeds were included in the earnings.

I'll take it, but I do wish interest rates for earning on our money were higher.

My husband did some traveling for the Army last month. He was finally paid from the trip. Some went towards the his government card and another $200 came to us. I'm not sure at this point what his actually expenses were that may have come from our accounts originally. Not much, so I guess this is profit!

It has been over two years since he has done much traveling for the military. I don't remember how we handled it before. I'd like to save the profits towards something. I think he'd like it if I suggested another flat screen tv. We can get a deal through his brother who will sell it to us at cost. That goal will help with the motivation and help us put a system in place to track the money.

We are going to lunch today (a date), so I hope to discuss then. Perfect timing, as he is traveling back to our last town, for four days of work! More travel money might be in our future.

Do you ever profit from work traveling? Does the business offer per diem or simple reimbursement of expenses? If you profit, what do you do with the money?

The army has finally paid the last of our moving entitlements. This one was for 10 days of hotel expenses, just over $1200. Yippee!!

I get frustrated at how slow and inefficient the system for these travel payments are. It doesn't help that my DH doesn't always fill the travel vouchers out correctly either. You would think he could get it right after 20+ years! I do give him a break on the moving ones, since we have only done that twice now.

We were busy here last week getting the girls ready for school. We only bought 'needs' for school clothes. Bought the supplies on the list. Now for school pictures! I always buy them, because the grandparents really seem to appreciate. I always think I will hang the pictures up, but I never do! I hope this year I will.

Do you buy the school pictures? Do you give the pictures away or just buy for yourself? If you don't buy them, do you do something else?

My DH is transitioning with work from an active duty post to a reserve unit. I just logged on to see his paystub for this upcoming payday on Friday as we are expecting a few pay changes. Unfortunately, there is no paystub(LES).

In this case, no paystub, no paycheck! Luckily we have a pretty good cash cushion right now, so things will work out.

His new boss did mention today that there may be a delay in pay. The person who handles it at the new unit is out of town for Army training until the end of the month. Likely this will delay pay for a whole month!!

I guess this is another reminder about having an emergency fund and cash cushion. The nice thing is because of the cash cushion, I'm not even worried. It's definitely a good thing.

Wow! My Christmas Fund for 2012 is adding up very fast. For April, I was able to sock away $61.95 from various sources, primarily Pinecone surveys, Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks and MySurvey rewards. My new Christmas fund total is $433.36!

I have quite a few Swagbucks I plan to redeem in May and I'm still waiting for another $10 from MySurveys. I also know of another $6 in Pinecone survey payments to arrive in May as well. That's at least another $40 for May. I will try to make my goal to get the Christmas fund over $500 by the end of May. I think I can do it!!

Here's the current list of funds and sources:

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?

I'm having my Paypal funds transferred to my checking account in the amount of $27.80. The funds are from an Ebay sale and Pincone surveys.

I was right that it was a good month for Pinecone surveys. I completed six for a total of $18.00. The Ebay sale was a pair of jeans that netted me $9.80.

These funds are snowflakes towards the Christmas Fund. I will post a complete update of all those funds in a couple days.

How many Pinecone surveys did you complete this month?

My $200 CitiDividend Reward check arrived today in the mail. Time to close that card! I'm going to attempt closing online. Those funds will just be saved for now. There is a move on the horizon!

I was paid another $3 for a Pinecone Survey. Those have been plentiful this month. I'm also trying to earn lots of Swagbucks today...it is the site's 4th Birthday.

I've kept up on the green smoothies. Only two more days to go until the end of the month. I might actually need to run to the store for more greens before Wednesday.

Oh, and I have a Goodwill run to make. I found a bag of things that don't need to move with us. Lots of cleaning and organizing will be happening here.