Creditcardfree's Personal Finance Blog

Over a week ago, my husband's unit has a family Christmas party. I won a small cast iron pan with a cookie mix in it. It makes probably a four or five inch cookie. Not something I would ever buy, but I decided to give it to our youngest daughter with her Christmas check ($40). She does like to bake and I thought it would disguise and help me wrap the check! Worse case scenario I donate it.

My husband also won a $25 Target gift card from filling out a survey for our property management. A nice surprise! Wish I had known earlier, as I already bought my other daughter a $25 Target gift card! It's all good though, they will all get used.

Very small winnings, but winnings nonetheless!

In other small money news, I did redeem rewards on our Chase Freedom card for $13.77. I also sold a book on eBay that I need to mail out tomorrow. Probably made $5 on that. Less stuff more money!

Our girls arrive home on Saturday for their holiday break! We are looking forward to it.

I've seen some talk on the internet about a 2020 Savings Challenge. The idea is to save up $2,020 next year, by setting aside $38.85 per payday, assuming you are paid weekly. I'm primarily sharing, in case you were wanting to find a way to challenge yourself to save more money in 2020.

I'm pondering some sort of challenge to save more. I'm not sure yet what that would be. In this scenario, my husband is paid twice per month, so that would be $84.17 per pay period.I 'think' we could technically do this, but I need to run numbers.

We have added a new expense this year...health insurance premium for our oldest daughter. She can stay on current plan, but because as of next week she will not be full time at school, AND in March she turns 23 which ages her out of the option to stay on the plan without a premium. Fingers crossed she gets a job with health insurance, so we can cut that expense. We are happy to provide it, just not excited about paying it...who ever really is right?

The exciting thing about 2020 for us is that we expect my husband to be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, which is a very nice raise of nearly 18%! We do not expect that to happen until May or June.

Generally, we save what we save. But it can be easy to become complacent and not save as much as possible. Are saving challenges helpful to you? Are you planning to do one in 2020?

USAA returns portions of our insurance premium every year, as member owners. Last year was around $80 if memory serves me correct. This year, and likely be how much more insurance we pay them our return is $193.20.

I just went to the email from USAA, and it says "this year the amount includes a portion of the proceeds from the sale of our Asset Management Company to Victory Capital". So not just because our premiums are higher due to our riskier location.

We will take it and save it towards the Big Goal, of course!

I also redeemed $13 in rewards from US Bank this morning, too.

LivingAlmostLarge asked me to write about our downsized living situation, so these are just my thoughts off the top off my head. Feel free to ask other questions in the comments.

We downsized just over a year ago from a 2800 sq foot rental home to a 1600 sq ft townhouse at our current duty station. We went from four bedrooms to three. We went from three full bathrooms to 2 full and one half bath. Our kitchen is now a galley style. We only have one true family room living space, rather than two, this resulted in getting rid of a couch, loveseat, tv and speakers. There is no space for an a large desk, so that was sold, as were the previously mentioned items. While our last home had two dining areas, we used the formal one for eating as it was right off the kitchen and fit our table set better. Our current dining area holds the same table, but also a couch and a church pew! It's amazing it fits, but it's kind of awkward too. Since our kitchen and dining are not open to the living area it is nice to have a couch in that area for being together on that side of the home.

We have two parking spaces, one stall garage, but we don't park in it. We have it set up so we could, but it's difficult to back in and out of! So our garage holds some ladders, chairs, Christmas items, my husbands field gear and some other odds and ends you might find in a garage. Because we don't do lawn care, we let go of shovels, lawn mower, fertilizer spreader, several hoses, and trimmer. Most of these items were donated to Habitat for Humanity.

I do like living in a smaller space. It is much, much easier to clean. I always felt like we didn't have enough stuff to fill the last home, if that makes sense. 2800 sq feet just requires more money to heat and cool, too. We really, really weren't using all the space. I do think with children at home, or with any entertaining it's nice to have two living spaces. If our girls lived here full time and had friends over, they would really only have the bedrooms to entertain in, unless we moved ourselves to the bedroom so they could watch a movie. Obviously it could work, but it would be something I would miss at that time stage of life.

Since my husband often talks of RV living, I wonder if we would ever go back to that large of a home. I might if I thought we would really have a need to use it. Lots of grandchildren or something. I think what I would need in a smaller space is a more open floor plan, or a better layout that what our current space is. But it is fitting our needs just fine in all reality. We even have plenty of closet space for our needs with a large pantry barely half filled! I've seen others closets in our same unit that have full closets, so it is all relative to what you own and store. We tend towards the minimalism side so we have plenty of available storage space.

Overall, I think we as a couple need a place to sleep, a place to hang out, a place to prepare food and eat it and at least spaces for guests (likely two additional bedrooms, but if the space was right maybe only one). And yes bathrooms and laundry!

I'm not sure if that answers your question. We don't have regrets of downsizing. The cost to rent in our current area is very high, particularly for a 2800 sq ft home, so it would not have been advantageous to continue at that size particularly as renters. If the opportunity presents itself during the next move, I might do it, but then of course, I would need to buy more stuff! Lol

We are paying ourselves back for money we put down on our daughter's car in May. I am putting all sources of extra funds towards that goal. Here's what I found in November:

US Bank $13.00
Chase Rewards $1.80
Amex Rewards $55.26
Electric Rebates $82.99
Extra travel funds $105.34
USAA Reward $1.62
Total $260.01

Prior Payback Balance: $1,559.76
New Payback Balance: $1,299.75

At one time I thought we could get this paid back by the end of the year, but it seems we had expenses I hadn't accounted for. But I feel confident we can get this paid back by the end of next year...hopefully much sooner!

While we continue to pay ourselves back for the car down payment we continue to send money to our savings goal. As of last month we are 35.5% complete.

November Big Goal Additions
Paycheck 11/1 $175.00
Paycheck 11/15 $175.00
Total Interest $181.23
Total $531.23
New YTD Big Goal Total $8,563.45
New Big Goal Total $71,548.90

November's tally brings us 35.77% of goal. Still heading in the right direction!

If December is similar, then we will top $9K towards our goal this year. Not too shabby!

Here's the interest we earned on our cash savings last month:

FNBO $60.16
NFCU $121.04
USAA $0.03
Total $181.23

This money is saved towards our Big Goal. I noticed it was down by $7 from last month, despite the same balances. More noticeable I guess when there is one less day in the month!

Are you tracking your interest? Do you save it or spend it?

Does my blog look blown up to the rest of you? It starts to load correctly, but then just looks huge (or maybe wide) on the screen. Thanks for the feedback!

The second thing is that we received another utility rebate check in the mail for $27.73. This one was also to be direct deposited. I received an email back from the utility servicing company that they are looking into why it was not direct deposited as directed by us.

Did you know you can sign up with the post office to see the mail that is arriving in your mailbox that day? The email we received shows we are receiving our utility rebate today. It's over $60. I'm a little annoyed because it is supposed to be direct deposited!

We earned a $13 reward on our US Bank credit card. I always pick a credit for this account. I just show the transaction in YNAB as a deposit to our Big Goal.

I'm working on earning more Swagbucks so I can redeem an Amazon gift card. I will use it to pay for most the DnD book we are giving our daughter for Christmas. After I buy that I will attempt to get another 2200 Swagbucks points for a Google Play gift card.

I have done a significant portion of our Christmas shopping at this point. I'm nearly done with my parents and may actually take the gift with us for Thanksgiving, so that I don't have to mail it. It depends on how much room I have in my suitcase, and the weight of my suitcase.

My husband parks at those offsite lots near the airport when he travels for work, he earned enough free parking days for our next trip to cover three days! This saved us about $40.

I sold an item I made on eBay. It was extra fabric, so I sold it cheap and made nearly $4.

Also my husband's expenses for a recent trip were under the per diem amount so we have $105 which we added to our Big Goal.

I'm hoping to redeem Fetch Rewards again soon, too. I've noticed Planter's nuts are quite the help in the points adding up. Do you use Fetch? It's much easier than Ibotta. My referral code is FQ8U1, which you enter when you sign up for the first time. You can find the app in the App Store or Google Play store for free. Once you scan your first receipt, you will receive 2000 points.

Are you finding extra money for your debt, your savings or your holiday spending? Share in the comments!

I've purchased several Christmas gifts this week. I have bought two items each for our daughter's. I also made a photo book for my husband through SnapFish. It is full of pictures of him and our daughter's. I originally planned to do the photo book for Father's Day but I didn't stay motivated and focused. I finally made the effort and got it done. It will be delivered by next Saturday and I paid $27 with shipping.

Our youngest daughter is starting to play Dungeons and Dragons with some new university friends. Does anyone have experience and point me to a book or something that might be helpful as she learns the game? I thought it would make a great Christmas gift.

Our renters and auto insurance payment made it on to our credit card yesterday. I do have the full amount saved, $2,616. I recalculated how much I need to save monthly in order to have enough to pay future bills and the registrations on all three cars and came up with $366. I had increased our savings after we got our daughter's car in May, but didn't quite start it soon enough, so I had to play catch up this last month. I'm primarily posting this for my own record.

With Veteran's Day coming up, the stores are offering all sorts of discounts. Amazon is offering their Prime Membership to military affiliated individuals for $79, which is $40 off the regular price. We actually just renewed in September, but I went ahead and took advantage of the offer. This extends our membership until September 2021.

I think we will do some clothes shopping this weekend for a few needed items we need and want before the holidays. We will attempt to take advantage of some discounts, but at the same time not spend too much money!

While we continue to pay ourselves back for the car down payment we continue to send money to our savings goal. As of last month we are 35.2% complete.

October Big Goal Additions
Paycheck 10/1 $175.00
Paycheck 10/15 $175.00
Total Interest $188.52
Total $538.52
New YTD Big Goal Total $8,032.22
New Big Goal Total $71,017.67

October brings us to 35.5% of goal. Still heading in the right direction!

We are paying ourselves back for money we put down on our daughter's car in May. I am putting all sources of extra funds towards that goal. Here's what I found in October:

US Bank $12.52
Chase Rewards $11.45
Amex Rewards $70.38
Boxed Amex Offer $15
ATM Rebate $3.00
Coop Rebate $8.99
eBay Sales $10.36
Pinecone Surveys $3.00
Extra travel funds $28.72
USAA Reward $1.00
Total $164.42

I think I earned a $25 Amazon gift card through Swagbucks, but it looks like I didn't add that to YNAB as a deposit. I will let that slide. I need to be a little more careful, making sure to put the equivalent into savings when I earn one of those!

Prior Payback Balance: $1,724.18
New Payback Balance: $1,559.76

Progress has been a little slower recently. Our auto and renters insurance is so high here and we had to adjust our sinking fund so that could get paid on time. Otherwise I might have had some extra funds to through at it.

Here's the interest we earned on our cash savings last month:

FNBO $63.76
NFCU $124.73
USAA $0.03
Total $188.52

This money is saved towards our Big Goal. I will update that in another post. I think back to when we earned very small amounts of interest each month. I never once used that interest to pay debt, it has always been saved. It's a great habit that I am glad we established!

Are you tracking your interest? Do you save it or spend it?

I loved all the replies on my post about being Boozed!! It is interesting, odd, yet a little fun all at the same time! My post may have sounded a bit negative, but I am all about being neighborly. We live on base, so these are coworkers and fellow military members and families. We support each other in fun and work.

This is what we received.



Note this

flyer, which is what you put on your door once you have been Boozed, so people know not to hit your home again!

Originally, I was just going to do one basket, but decided I would rather pass on some of what was in our original basket. The flyer stated to give two baskets, which I found a bit odd. I don't think that is what the other neighbors had been doing.

I purchased a bottle of red wine for $6.49 at our local exchange on base. I also bought a small fall themed candle, a Halloween themed pail, a 3pk of purple glow sticks, and a 2pk of orange curly ribbon. Each item was a $1 at Dollar Tree, so I spent $4.37 with tax. In total I spent $10.86.

I purchased the above items with a specific family in mind, a coworker of my husband, his wife and three daughters. They had not been Boozed yet. The glow sticks were for the kids. The wine and candle for the couple. I added candy to both baskets from two large bags I bought last month and have had in my freezer.

The second basket, was made up of the pail and the bottle of wine given to us. I changed the tissue paper in it and added the candy. I wrapped the wine in the brown bag the other wine came in and wrapped it with a ribbon. The reason I put it in the bag is because some neighbors are posting on the group Facebook page and I didn't want it to look like the one we received. I have decided NOT to post our basket, but I think I will post a thank you for the one we received.

So after dark, I went out and dropped them off. I did purposely ring the doorbell to alert them, so that no teens would have the opportunity. I know for a fact both were taken inside rather quickly!

The family of my husband's coworker posted a picture of the basket we gifted on Facebook with a huge thank you for the treats. That alone made the effort and a little money spent well worth it. Who knows what the other family thought!

Here's the two baskets:

Ultimately, I know this activity was to promote community and bring smiles to faces. It wasn't intended to upset or cause anyone to spend a lot of money. I feel okay about passing on the wine and the bucket, as I knew we wouldn't use them. The vodka shot is up to my husband to use, and I stuck that spider web decoration up in the transom window on our front door. Maybe someone will notice on Halloween that I 'decorated'!

Except for the Halloween trick or treaters that is the extent of our celebrations! Although, I'm tempted to make a costume for that night consisting of a sign I wear that says 'mosquito bait'. The mosquitos were so bad last year we came in early by nearly an hour from handing out candy. And from what we can tell they are bad again this year!! Help!!

We are living on base and our circle of probably 50 homes is playing that game where you drop off a basket of alcohol (thus the term boozed) for Halloween. We were boozed last night. I'm not sure I'm really a fan. This sort of reminds me of the pressure to do work gift exchanges. The Facebook post said there would be instructions to opt out if you were boozed, but don't want to participate. That was not the case. Only instructions on how to pass it along, which I guess technically could mean I could pass the basket we received to the next person.

Our basket was a purple Halloween themed plastic bucket, probably from Dollar Tree, with sweet Rose wine and a mini shot bottle of vodka, along with about ten pieces of candy. Oh there was some crinkle paper in there for stuffing and a huge (also plastic) spider web decoration (also probably from Dollar Tree). I don't decorate for Halloween, so the bucket and the decoration are basically not something I want to keep. We also don't drink sweet wine OR vodka!

Part of me wants to just play along and spend the $10 to buy some alcohol. Another part of me wants to figure out how play along on the cheap. I wish I could pass on the basket and decoration without feeling guilty. I know for sure our gift came from our direct next door neighbors. I saw her walk up to the porch last night. I feel like I could find something to wrap around the bucket to make it look a little different, but probably not on the decoration. I could also just buy beer and put as many as could fit. No one said it has to be wine! I could also put an orange ribbon on six pack of bottle beer and call it good.

So...play along with me. What would YOU do? Would you participate? Would you go out all out? How would you make it frugal?

(Oh, and I'm think we might just pass the sweet Rose wine to a coworker of my husband's at Christmas, assuming she drinks alcohol)

Over a year ago I found a deal on the razor blades my husband likes. He only started using them in the last six months, and recently mentioned he didn't think they were good. He said he kept cutting himself. Darn, maybe they sell production seconds off in bulk for less?

He had seen those Harry's razors at Target awhile back and seemed intrigued, but was still using up the bad batch of razors. I should clarify the blades worked, but wouldn't last as long before he started cutting himself.

Harry's blades can also be found online and I think I had a MyPoints or Swagbucks deal to try them for free (plus shipping). So they sent a blade, razor handle and small can of shaving gel for about $3 in shipping. He really liked the blades and the handle. We decided to let them send a batch of 8 blades for $16. And because he liked the gel too, we added that to the order for another $6. No shipping costs added this time.

I'm not usually a fan of these subscription services, so we will see how this works in the long run. I thought I'd mention it in case anyone wanted to try Harry's out.

This link is for $5 off your second box. We also will get $5 off our next box, if you use our link.

What do you buy on subscription service? Do you have a favorite razor blade?

Almost done with the FAFSA, just waiting on my daughter to give me some information so I can complete it. I know she's busy with a visit from her sister and my parents today, so later today or tomorrow we should be done! And it wasn't quite as bad as I remembered. It helps to import the information from the IRS.

I redeemed over $70 in American Express rewards towards our Big Savings Goal.

And the best news is that YNAB did offer us an extended trial period of four months for the new web version that I have switched to. I didn't see their email until now, but they responding to my military discount pretty quickly with this offer. So far I seem to be able to adjust to the new version. I still don't use it exactly like intended, but it still helps us track what we want.

My husband travels some this week, so groceries should be a little lower. I don't have a lot on hand so I will need to stop at the store mid week.

As of October 1, anyone who will be attending college or higher education next year (Fall 2020) can fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Schools often have deadlines for you to complete these in order to be eligible for some type of aid.

I always dread it for some reason. Up until this year we took out zero student loans. Technically, our daughter took it out. It is a bit of a mute point if you don't even intend to use them, but we did find out with our youngest daughter's college that they use the FAFSA to determine grant money the University offers. Our daughter received $1200 her first year and $1000 for this school year. It will be interesting to see if that goes away since our FAFSA info will reflect she is our only student in college next year.

We are grateful for not needing to take out very many student loans. Will you fill out the FAFSA for yourself or your children this year?

I also haven't felt as compelled to write here, although I don't think it is directly related to the recent hack. I'm starting to focus on other areas rather than financial as the year comes to a close.

I have had a couple small eBay sales, with the one yesterday resulting in me under charging for shipping. I must not have weighed correctly or at all. I still made a couple dollars, but it was a bit disappointing as I had accepted a lower offer. All is good though, less things in my home!

There was a capital credit for $8.99 that we received from an electric company from two homes ago. Glad I updated our address so we could receive it.

Our electric bill has been under the average so sometime in the next month we will get a refund of $60+. It's been a few months since we received on, and I can't remember how long it takes the money to arrive.

Our insurance for all of the three cars we own plus the outrageous renter's insurance for this location is going to be charged to our card at the beginning of November. The charge is over $2,600. Luckily I had $1900 already saved, but I think I had not adjusted quick enough when we added our daughter's car in May. I add more, but I'm still a bit short, but will get it all adjusted and paid by the credit card due date. It just feels like so much money it makes me sick and is probably one of the top two reasons, I'm ready to move as soon as possible. And yes, I have done some checking on lower rates to no avail. There are a few other places to check, but I don't feel hopeful so I keep putting it off.

So that is what is going on from a financial sense. Keep moving forward right?!

I really don't stock up on things when I shop. Occasionally, if I see a really good deal, I will pick up extras. I guess I just like to know that I am only spending what I need, and not any more, and not any less.

This time of year I often stock up on personal care items and household goods to cut down on the need to keep up on having these things on hand during the busyness of the holidays.

I already bought the Halloween candy that we will hand out when Target had a 40% off Cartwheel offer last week. It's in the freezer and I haven't been tempted once!

Today, I bought quite a few things at the commissary. Toilet paper, tissues, Vitamin C, bar soap, dishwasher detergent, trash bags, dish soap, Bar Keepers Friend, toothpaste, laundry detergent, hair mousse, shaving cream and toilet bowl cleaner. The commissary has pretty good deals on these things, as general prices are 30% less than retail. I was able to use coupons which took $10.75 off the total! I spent $74.32.

I also went online and stocked up on even more toilet paper with

Boxed.com. I was motivated by a $15 off $75 purchase if I used my American Express card. In addition to toilet paper (64 rolls), I picked up 5 sticks of deodorant for my husband, and liquid hand soap refill. I added on a six count package of those small tissue packs (stocking stuffer) to get my total with tax just over the $75 mark at $75.97. The Boxed link above will give you $15 off your first $60 order, if interested. Or check your American Express card for their current offers.

It's a big outlay of cash, but it feels good to stock up and know that I don't have to add in these extras to the grocery list to an otherwise spendy and busy season!

Well, it seems the site may be up, but posts only updated through mid April 2019. I haven't looked around much to see what is missing.

I had about given up! Some of us have been connecting by email and Facebook to figure out a new plan. More work to do to figure out where our rendezvous point is if the site goes down permanently.

I had made a financial blog on Blogger quite a while back, called Our Money Blog. I put some posts up that may have even been duplicates from here. But over time I stopped. Today, I posted a revival post.

I'm just going to send you

there for an update on our interest, big goal and down payment repayment goals...check out how I was able to recreate the starting points without this blog available to help!

It's been a very frugal week!

I ate out of the fridge, freezer and pantry through lunch today and could have eaten another meal without buying more food, but my husband is on his way home and will want dinner. There was nothing left he would eat...not a fan of veggie burgers! So I went to the store and picked up groceries for the weekend primarily. Some items will carry over into next week.

I spent $40.65 out of pocket for some of our staples, including organic eggs, meat and almond butter. Cost was actually $50.65. I used a $10 NAPA Visa rebate from when we bought the battery for my husband's truck. I pulled that $10 from our grocery budget and put it in our Big Savings Goal.

I sold an item on eBay for a net profit of $3.73 and did a Pinecone survey and now have another $3 in my Paypal account. I also added these to the Big Goal Savings!

Other than the spending today, I did not purchase anything this week. Was your week frugal?

My husband has been out of town for work this week so I made a goal to eat primarily out of the fridge and not buy too many new groceries.

I've been eating green smoothies for breakfast consisting of 1c water, 2 c spinach, 1/2 mixed berries, and 1 TBS of chia seeds. Lunch and dinner have consisted of some sort of salad, a turkey sandwich, soup or some raw veggies. I'm not eating all of these in at one meal but two or three of them.

Today, I'm actually skipping breakfast to allow for a longer fast since I ate dinner last night.

In the past I've listed what I have in my fridge, freezer and pantry and then explained what I used up. This time I'll just explain what I have used and what I had to purchase.

I bought a small loaf of bread, four bananas, three small heads of broccoli, a red onion, green onion and spinach. These were bought on two different trips, so I think the cost had to be under $15, maybe even under $10.

I made broccoli salad which I was able to add two boxes of raisins from the cupboard and use up five slices of turkey bacon. This also used up the last in a jar of mayo. I ate this along with sandwich or soup for four meals.

I used up a slice of cheese on one sandwich, added three small slices of chicken to a salad, and ate some raw cabbage as a snack. Last night I put together a

Smoky Quinoa and Black Bean Salad which used up the quinoa in the pantry, the mini peppers in the fridge and some cooked kidney beans I had in the freezer. So tasty! I will eat that for lunch later.

There was a Vegan Lentil Stew in the freezer so I thawed that Tuesday night to have with my lunches and dinner. So that is used up!

I still have fresh produce to use up. I'm putting the last of the ginger root in my water for flavor. I also have some orange slices I could do the same with. I have two apples, two bananas a few celery sticks and carrots along with spinach. Oh, I did use up all the spring greens and half a tomato. I was putting these on my turkey sandwiches.

While I love the green smoothies I think the bananas are too much sugar. I will use them up, but I will not buy any more for awhile.

I basically have five meals left to make for myself. I feel like I still have plenty even though the pantry consists only of almonds, spices, nutritional yeast, pearled barley and lentils! I will keep my focus mainly on the fridge and fill in from the freezer if needed since there is a burrito and veggie burgers in there.

It feels good to not have to go shopping for almost a week and find that there is plenty in my house to keep me full and satisfied.

If you are eating it up this week or month, how is it going? Do you feel you have saved some money?

Yay! Three months in a row I have remembered to update you on our Big Savings Goal progress.

$350.00 ($175 from each paycheck, two per month)
_$38.90 American Express CC Rewards
_$38.47 Discover Cash Back
__$5.33 Chase Freedom Rewards
__$8.55 US Bank Cash Bank
_$58.31 FNBO Interest Earned
$122.01 NFCU Interest Earned
__$5.61 USAA Interest and ATM rebates
__$20.00 Cash
$1,968.00 US Treasury Refund

$2,615.18 March Big Goal Total
$4,191.22 2019 YTD

$63,178.18 Previous Big Goal Balance
$67,369.40 New Big Goal Balance

33.68% of $200,000 Goal

We are very pleased with this progress! An unexpected tax refund is appreciated and makes a big difference. There is still a chance I will pull the refund (or part of it) back out depending on some upcoming expenses. However, I decided to go ahead and try to make it work without. I did not add any fuel savings this month, because we had $1800 in travel expenses in the last two months to cover. I simply needed that money to help make that happen. And finally, I marked $20 cash in my notes, so I'm not exactly sure where that money came from, but apparently I decided to add it to the goal.

Grateful for higher interest rates! The amount we earn each month keeps growing.

FNBO $58.51
NFCU $122.01
Total $180.52

Our interest earned funds our Big Goal each month!

My husband will be traveling next week. So I have a plan, just as I did earlier this year to eat up what we have in the fridge, freezer and cupboard. I have yet to decide exactly what my meals will be as we have several days until he leaves.

To be honest we don't have a lot in fridge or pantry. We really don't stock up ever. But as you know, if you buy a bag of rice you often don't eat it in one meal. So then you have a partial bag of rice.

My first goal will be to focus on using any perishables from the refrigerator. My second goal will be to use some things from the freezer. I know there is a lentil soup in there. I also have the equivalent of a can of kidney beans and some peas. The final goal would be to incorporate any items from the pantry. I have two small boxes of raisins, so I'd really like to make broccoli salad, but that would definitely require buying broccoli.

I'll report in next week and let you know how it's going. I figure I'll save some money buy limiting my grocery purchases for a week. Do you have food you could use up and sustain you for a few days before you go to the store again?

Spring break with the girls was wonderful! We had a good balance of relaxing, which they really needed and getting out to explore some things. We did several free things and had dinner out twice, so we easily spent under $150 for those kinds of things. Our grocery bill went up slightly, but that's to be expected.

I found a quarter out back in the alley when I was talking to a neighbor. I love finding cash on the ground!

I'm working on my next $25 Amazon or Paypal redemption with Swagbucks. I really just try to complete the To Do List on the left hand side of the home page. I try the surveys, but I'm not always successful, so as to not waste any more time, I do skip that one. I think Rose asked in another post about how to do it. I would suggest following Swagbucks Swaggernauts on FB for tips and pointers. There is definitely a learning curve. I have found a free malware extension on my computer helps with the junk that can come from using the site.

We received our $10 Visa rebate card in the mail from NAPA for the battery we purchased a couple months back. I plan to use it out shopping. I will then add $10 cash to the Big Goal.

I've redeemed some credit card cash back rewards and will update with a total for March when I report how much progress we made on our Big Goal this month.

We need to already be thinking about airline tickets for May! We will likely go back to the Midwest to help move our daughter's out and help our oldest daughter buy her first car. She is likely going to be staying back there this summer to take a class and get a job or internship. Lots of activity around here and spending.

I have three items I need to sell. Two should be able to go on eBay and the other should go up on a local sales page. I rarely do eBay any more since my main motivation was usually to sell outgrown clothes and toys. I saw a YouTube video the other day though that reminded me of how it is possible to buy items at garage sales and resell them for more. Something I might try and see if it keeps me interested. Clearly more work than finding items in my house!

Please excuse my random thoughts!

We have renter's insurance and have ever since we started renting. It is very expensive in our new location. I'm not sure now if we changed our coverages significantly. Our policy covers $50,000 replacement coverage. I think this is plenty as we are very pared down with our things compared to most people. I'm starting to question if it would be worth my time to actually inventory all of our belongings. The policy we have now also includes $100,000 personal liability coverage, with $5000 in medical payments. I'm wondering if our old policy even included this. I guess I need to go looking to see! Not sure if personal liability is worth having, as it appears to be nearly doubling our premium, which is $1,051 per year with a $1000 deductible. I did notice it includes flood insurance (which now that I have seen how easily that can happens is a very good thing).

Have you ever done a home inventory and included the replacement costs to figure your coverage needs? Any tips? If you didn't do an inventory, how did you decide on the amount to cover?

I know it seems like I should be savvy on this, but honestly, insurance has always been the last financial thing I tend to consider. We have always had auto and home/renter's. We have life and medical, but I'm no expert.

I'm currently reaching out to an agent to see if they can do better than our auto and renters policies with USAA. We have heard over the years that many insurance companies cannot compete with USAA. Although I do have one friend who did switch from USAA and found a much cheaper premium elsewhere on auto and home. So there is some hope.

It's so sad. The flooding happening in the Midwest. I have friends and family there. One friend did have water in their unfinished basement, but she says it is no big issue. They did have to evacuate for one night. However, a niece has two coworkers who lost their home. They are completely displaced and lost everything. My niece is fundraising for them, so we decided to donate to her friends and will also send in a donation to the Red Cross, which is our charity of choice usually since they are a neutral, independent and impartial organization that can help respond quickly in crisis situations.

It was quite disappointing to the people of those states that news coverage started so late on this. People think that these flyover states don't matter, but these are the people that supply the beef and corn (among many, many other products) that go into other products in our food supply and the grain used to put ethanol in our fuel. This will affect you financially is some way.

Please pray for those affected by the flooding.

The tax refund did arrive as expected. It is currently in our savings account marked as Big Goal money!! I decided to act like it didn't exist in some ways. We were never expecting a refund, so spending it didn't exactly seem right. If we need an additional $1900 we can take it from our other savings or cash flow it.

I earned enough Swagbucks to redeem for a $25 Amazon gift card. I used it to buy cabin and engine filters for our two vehicles. Those arrived yesterday.

We learned this past week that the University our older daughter goes to overestimated her VA benefits for the semester. Once they received actual payment, they notified us we owe $595 by April 12. Our plan is to use her ESA to pay this. Her benefits were lower this semester, so this was the plan all along, we just know the amount we need to take out now.

Our girls arrive here today to spend their spring break with us. My husband took the week off, so we can do some more exploring of our new town with them. This likely means some meals out and money spent on entertainment.

I learned recently that American Express waives their annual fees for active duty military. I haven't taken action on that as I think we only have one card of theirs with an annual fee. This may give us an opportunity to use some of their other cards with higher annual fees and better benefits. I have more looking to do on this. Anyone have experience with this? If so which card do you use? Yes, we use credit cards, but do not carry a balance, nor pay any interest. Credit cards a financial tool that can be beneficial if used wisely.