Creditcardfree's Personal Finance Blog

I took our oldest cat to the vet today. I went primarily to get her rabies vaccination since we could need it as we move into another state. I also wanted to ask them why she wasn't sitting anymore. I was pretty sure it was because she is overweight, but wanted to make sure. Yep, our kitty (who is 10 years old) has put on at least 2 pounds! She was overweight before those pounds.

I think a somewhat recent food change is the result unfortunately. And I know that it is hard for cats to lose weight, but I think we'll try our best to assist her. My vet suggested cutting the food amount in half, supplementing with tuna and green beans(if she would eat them). He said the hardest part is going to be tolerating her when she is hungry! I know exactly what he means. Cats are relentless. It will probably be feeding her small amounts but more frequently.

He also prescribed a transdermal gel called Amitriptyline for 10 days. We are to give it the five days before the move, each day we are traveling and finish up once we arrive to our new destination. Cost was $12 per cat. The also gave me free samples of Feliway wipes to wipe on their cages each day. I guess some sort of calming pheromone.

In total I spent $72 at the vet today. I have another appointment for our other cat to get vaccinated for rabies next week. So a little more money needed for that.

What tips do you have to keep a cat calm in the car? Anyone ever heard of a cat losing weight? My vet said he hasn't.

I had recorded our retirement totals on Friday, but then check them again this morning since I saw the market had a good day yesterday. In total our holdings increased $1200 in just one business day. That's a nice chunk of change!!

We are currently just under $334K in retirement funds. I don't write that to brag, but to remind you that you can save money and it does add up. Our balance in May 2003 (yes 12 years ago) was just $25,700. We have been maxing our Roth IRAs for at least six years, maybe a bit longer. We also put 10% of my husband's basic pay into his work TSP account, and that is a recent increase from 8%, and I think at one point we only did 6%. And currently our entire monthly contribution to our retirement accounts is 16.64% of my husband's gross pay. Sometimes I actually wonder if this is too much!

I hope you are investing your earnings for your retirement. It does pay off. The sooner you start the less you need to contribute, too. It's okay to start small and gradually increase as you can.

Did your retirement accounts increase yesterday?

I have just over $1000 from this past payday that I should have sent in to our Citi credit card balance. It would have brought the balance to around $500. But I didn't do it.

We have a rather large repair coming up on the home before we can close on our home. It was definitely unexpected on this new home, but it may cost us $1500 to $2000. And I'm not sure they take credit cards. So in an effort to have enough cash on hand that I don't have to move from another account I'm holding on to this cash.

I'd really, really like to pay it on the credit card, and maybe I still will.

I redeemed 1600 MyPoints for a $10 Panera gift card. They usually arrive pretty fast in the mail. I expect we will have no problem using this up as we get closer to the move. It tends to come with a fair amount of eating out.

Off to spend more money...need shoes to wear to graduation. I hoping to find some for $30 or less. And I'd really like them to be found at the first place I look!

I found out Navy Federal Credit Union is offering 3.5% CD for military member this month. It is for 15 months for up to $7,500. We currently have $5K there already in a 12 month CD earning 5% through September. This new offer isn't as good, but it is much much better than a savings account or money market. Time to transfer some money over there.

If you are possibly eligible, make sure to read fine print, as I believe there is a Direct Pay or allotment requirement which I read there was no minimum for...$1 a month might just be enough.

I redeemed 600 Swagbucks for two $3 Amazon gift cards yesterday. The codes for them arrived today. I proceeded to use them to buy a DVD my daughter wants for her birthday. I only had to pay another $0.58. I will count the $6 as a snowflake and send that money to the credit card balance.

My husband mentioned the other day he wants to see the account balances when he returns home (just days away now). Our Citi credit card statement just closed and was about $500 more than the last balance I was aware of. Some of it is my spending, but most was my husband. And yes a little bit is even from last month.

So this morning I sent him a PDF of the statement. I just said he could add up his own spending portion and left it at that. I didn't even add it up myself because what is spent is spent.

His response was 'Ugh. It's like an intervention. I'm trying to reduce my spending.' And I literally laughed out loud. I had no idea that just sending him one credit card statement would be considered an intervention!

He did just buy new running shoes for over $130. He runs nearly 5 miles a day, so they wear out pretty fast. I did encourage him to buy them when he said his feet hurt. We don't need foot or knee problems to deal with. Of course, he didn't have the coupons I have here at home, and he did throw on three more t shirts for $9 each. I think if he can get his eating out under control it would be good.

So now he knows. The more one knows the better one can do...at least let's hope!

I requested our newspaper be stopped a couple days before our move. Since I had paid for a full year in advance, I will get a refund. It's just $14.36. A little snowflake to help work on our goals.

I'm assuming they will send the check soon, but it could be they will wait until the subscription expires.

I don't know if we will get a newspaper subscription again in our new place or not. I do feel that support of news organizations is important, so I expect we will.

We have some activities this weekend that will charge us admission. I have the cash on hand already.

$14 admission for two tonights musical at the high school. My daughter is playing her flute and piccolo in the pit.

$11 admission for three to listen and view large group band performances tomorrow. Each daughter is participating, but I think I will need to pay for them to view each other.

I have food for us to eat here at the house before and between the events. I'm hoping that is all I need to spend money on this weekend...well maybe more fuel to get us around town.

Other than a parking fee for graduation I think we are done paying admission for the school year. At least I hope so! It does add up.

I purchased four Mother's day cards the other day. I paid about eight dollars at Hallmark. I wish I had looked for a coupon before, but I didn't know I would be even buying cards. Most of the cards were $.99, but the one for my sister was more...it's her first Mother's Day with her foster daughter (who they are planning to adopt). I wanted to acknowledge it with a card.

I think last year I actually skipped Mother's Day gifts. This year my mother will be at our home. I purchased her a scarf and a bottle of Mrs. Meyer's hand soap (which darn I had a coupon for!) The scarf was $9.99 at JC Penney's. I had a $10 off a $10 purchase, so I found a pair of $2 baby socks and my purchase was $2.13 after the coupon. I will donate the socks.

I instructed my husband to buy his mother a card. If he's deployed it is find if I send the card, but he does need to sign if he is in the states. I texted him her address, too. He told me last night he may just call her that day instead. And I'm sure she would like that just as much. It feels good to delegate some tasks.

I received two deposits into my PayPal account yesterday: $15 from Pinecone and $5.10 from Ebates. That means $20.10 I can send off to the Citi card to pay down some more beginning of the year debt.

Not sure I mentioned this, but I found a dress to wear to graduation and possibly a wedding. It was marked $38 at Kohl's. I had another item for $13, but also a $10 off a $50 purchase. So two items for about $43 with tax. I do now need shoes. I think I can get quite a bit of use out of the dress.

Do you a mother to buy for? Are you giving her a gift of any kind?

I'm on the lookout for a new credit card bonus offer. We are approved for our new home rental, thus no credit checking on us for awhile. And I need some cash!! Who doesn't right?

I noticed

TD Bank has two cards with no annual fees. Each card offers $200 in cash or gift cards after spending $1500. 0% interest for 12 billing cycles, as well as 5% or 5X rewards on travel (gas), dining, groceries, cable, phone and utility company payments for the first 6 months. That extra 5% would add up fast I think. We have lots of expenses that in the next few months...so meeting the requirements is no problem. There was another one that was tempting with Citi I think...need to try to find that again to see if it would be better OR if we should do all of them.

I will need to check with my husband but I think it might be worth each of us applying for a card, so we can get $400, plus the 5% for nearly the rest of the year!

Does anyone else know of any new or good cash back card offers right now?

I used credit cards to cash flow our expenses, as well as earn bonus and reward money. I am responsible to pay our cards off monthly or at least use one that isn't charging interest. I do not recommend opening cards for bonuses if you cannot handle paying your charges back without interest.

The original balance on our Citi card is now lower. I sent in $20.52, which was the difference between our actual water/sewer/trash bill and what I usually budget. It sure helps to have one less person taking showers!

The new balance from the original debt is $90.35! I actually think I can get this paid off this month with snowflakes.

I just completed a Pinecone survey. This should bring me to 1500 points to redeem for $15 tomorrow. A May snowflake!

Our water bill arrived and it was under budget by $20.52. I do count that as a snowflake, too. I will apply this to my Citi credit card balace.

Wrote a $348 check for a plumbing and drywall repair on our home. It's a long story, but that was money well spent! I get to paint the drywall tomorrow. Luckily I believe I have enough paint, so no additional costs.

My daughter sold a piece of art that she did in less than an hour. Her profit is $20. She sold it to a friend of mine. She has a real hard time placing value on her art and charging people for it. However, I'm happy she sold something. She puts things up on her art Facebook page just to share. My friend asked if she could purchase, so it was a bit unexpected.

And for those with cats: I'm looking for a collapsible carrier to take with us on our trip east. We have hard carriers but those are really going to take up a lot of space in our already cramped van. Does anyone think

these would actually work? My cats do really dislike their carriers. It is so tempting.

I've mentioned we have credit card debt that is rolling over month to month, with no interest accruing thankfully. I have always been able to pay it off, but since I'm not a fan of using savings, I'd rather just cash flow it when the interest is 0%.

Our debt has been as high as $3,000 at different points in time this year. Yesterday I made a payment of $910.75 and our new balance is now $1136.45. Of that amount $110.87 is from our original balance. $120 is the remaining balance of my daughter's new glasses. The rest is just overspending as far as I can tell.

Yesterday's payment did include snowflakes, 52 Week Savings money I'm applying to the glasses balance, and extra money because there will fewer flute lessons in the next two weeks.

I'll be sure to tell you when we are back to a point of just paying off our current spending. That is where I would much rather be. It feels like that could be months away!

At the beginning of the month I really didn't think I would accumulate too many snowflakes. I'm not trying to hard to earn Swagbucks or Bing rewards. I didn't sell anything either.

It turns out we had a nice anniversary gift from my parents and earned quite a few different credit card rewards. And it all adds up! All of my snowflakes went to pay down the beginning balance we had on our Citi card in January. We have just $110.87 left on that now.

The grand total for April was $360.23. Lower than my total from March which was over $400, but still very good.



How did you do in accumulating extra money this month?

We signed the lease agreement for the home we will be living in. We move in July 13. We also paid the deposit and first month's rent which is prorated for July. We did have to pull this money from our savings since that is a lot of cash! When we get paid in July we will pay it back, of course.

I don't actually think they are going to cash the check until they give us the keys, but just in case that money is in our account.

I'm working on getting bills paid with our May 1 paycheck. I hope to report more debt paid off and all the snowflakes earned in April soon!

I saw this

blog post on My Money Blog about how homeowner's insurance should be painfully high. I do have to agree. And increasing it over time as finances get better is a great idea. I think increased ours last year to over $2K. If we weren't moving to a rental I'd do it again. Instead we will now need renter's insurance! I'll need to get a quote on that soon (we are signing that lease tomorrow).

My husband announced to me yesterday that he had a no spend day! It's a miracle. I told him I'd mention it on my blog so you can all congratulate him. He's been on a restaurant spending spree lately. So he is trying to reign it in.

We are expecting another offer tonight on our home. The third one in less than 24 hours. It is exciting but it sure is stressful. Once it is all cleared up for us I will be sure to know. I can honestly say my agent is motivated and is definitely earning her money! And I'm also super glad we hired her.

Sooo...even though the buyers walked away things are moving along quite nice. The original buyers did provide us with the radon report and their home inspection report. We all released each other from contract and they get their earnest money back.

In the meantime, my realtor worked her contacts and since I last wrote we have received two offers, had one showing last night and two showings scheduled for today.

The first offer that came in was from our second offer people the first time around. A pretty good offer however, their home is going on the market this weekend in another town so they don't have a buyer lined up for their home, and they didn't want to close until August 28...120 days out! So unfortunately, they were rejected again.

A late showing last night (which irritated my kids) resulted in an offer. These buyers live like two blocks away and have their zero lot line home/condo pending sale to close on May 15. Their offer is just as good as the last offer we took and they are willing to close on June 12 (the day after our items are moved out). Because of my husband's work schedule we were given until 6pm this evening to respond.

We also have two showings scheduled today! One around lunch and the other just before we need to respond to the current offer.

How is that for a crazy day? Bad news that turns into good news. We just might be under contract again tonight!

Our buyer's have cold feet. They are walking away after having the home inspection yesterday and a radon test done. The excuse they are giving is a small roof leak that we have had repaired and are in the middle of having drywall replaced.

Our agent is going above and beyond to get them to even try to agree to any repairs. Apparently, these buyers have walked away from another home previously. So we are cutting ties with them and moving forward. We will return earnest money after they provide us with full inspection report and radon test report. At least that is what we are asking for. Keeping their money could cause us not to take another offer.

Luckily, our agent has some leads for other interested buyers! Send good thoughts.

I've mentioned a few times how we are spending plenty of money. We've been putting it on credit cards to earn rewards and help with cash flow a bit. Today I paid off over $650 for hotel costs, and $340 airline ticket. I used savings to pay these off. Eventually, I'll pay ourselves back. It just might be a bit and I'm glad it is there for these unknown kind of situations. I also paid some other charges accumulated in the last two weeks with current paycheck funds to the tune of over $600.

We earned $31.72 in Discover Cash Back rewards. I requested a credit to our balance, but then used the money I would have paid on Discover to pay to the Citi card 2015 beginning balance . I also had $40 in Amex rewards for those Amazon purchases (I thought ahead and bought gifts for my daughter's July birthday!). Between those two rewards, I reduced our beginning Citi balance from $212.59 to $140.87. Progress!

So I'm down to $20 for the next two days. And then payday. I will then pay off some more debt! It feels good to get some of those balances to zero.

Wow. USAA has not done a good job this time. I've never once had an issue with their service, until now.

We inquired by email how to get our daughter set up with her own checking account since she is now 18 and will need one for college. The instruction was to send a money order for at least $25, along with a letter instructing to open a checking account and reference her USAA number (which is already established). They provided the address.

We mailed this in early April. While I was on my trip east she received a couple phone calls regarding the money. She didn't return the calls, but upon my return, we figured out they were trying to open a mutual fund, which she doesn't even have, nor do the instructions indicate this. An inquiry again, indicated they made an error and they would get the account established in 7 days. Turns out within 7 days they will mail everything back!

So frustrating! It's like they can't even read the letter. We will be inquiring why the original letter wasn't clear and trying one more time. Otherwise we'll just get a local account for her when she gets to college.

Have you had bad service such as this at any bank?

First some home news. Our radon levels on the house came back lower than the amount that would have required us to pay for mitigation. This means we don't have to pay a $600 bill to have that kind of work done. That makes me happy!

We did have to have a roofer out AGAIN to fix a leak (same issue we had in the past). He said he's 99% sure that the problem has been corrected. Gee I hope so. That cost was $85. This was in our original disclosure, and this new issue is being disclosed as well. Buyers inspection is Monday. We may have a possible drywall repair, which I'm fine with...but of course not happy about. It's a pretty new home!

I have a penny in our US Bank Checking account. Since I want to close that account, I made a $0.01 payment from the checking account to the US Bank Visa. This seemed easier than have a check cut for a penny (not sure if they would even do that).

I have confirmed that future deposits of my husband's pay have been cancelled as I requested. Next step is to request cancellation of the actual account. I'm hoping a simple email will do it, but US Bank isn't exactly easy to work with online from a customer service stand point.

Have you ever made such a small payment to a credit card? Do you know about Radon Gas?

I accumulated $100 in snowflakes this week. I received those Target gift cards (total $75) in the mail this week from Citi Thank You Rewads. I have already used more than $50! The other one will get used up next time I get groceries, probably Sunday. I also redeemed $25 from Swagbucks with has been deposited into my PayPal account.

The girls flute teacher is not giving lessons next week, so that saves me $40. I figure this is money usually spent so I'm sending it in with the $100 to the Citi Thank You card balance. I'm considering it applied to the money we spent on my oldest daughter's glasses and charged to this card. The glasses were originally $354, but I now have those paid down to $237. There were other payments already applied to those previous to this one. I expect to pay another $117 on May 1 toward that portion of the Citi card balance, leaving just $120.

The original balance on January 1 for the Citi card was $686.27, with all the snowflakes applied to that portion recently the balance is now at $212.59! I really hope to have this paid off before we move.

I can't wait to get some of this stuff paid off. I probably could be doing it much faster under normal circumstances, but there has been a lot of outflow recently of cash for home repairs, hotels and airline tickets. It is what it is. It will all balance out eventually. And the debt will all get paid off. I'm just glad we aren't paying any interest!

I do have some other sources of snowflakes on the horizon, so I'll have more to report in a couple days!

My husband purchased a one way plane ticket home, the day before graduation for $320. He also bought travel insurance for $21. Not really happy about that. He also put it on our Discover card, but our I think our Citi card would have offered better rewards for an airline ticket. He gets so confused by all the rewards, so I just have to let it go. I'm looking forward to seeing him so that's the best part. He will be off work until our household goods are packed on the moving truck. We will all drive east together mid June!

I've requested that our Wells Fargo Propel Amex card be cancelled. I sent a secure email message. I need it cancelled before mid May to avoid being charged their hefty $175 annual fee. I did get that final reward of $25 and it just credited yesterday making the balance on the card $0! It was zero, but I accidentally make a charge to that card. All good now.

We have been having $500 deposited to a US Bank checking account each month from my husband's pay. I originally set this up to earn a $200 reward for opening the account. I'm pretty sure I'm going to cancel the account, but the first step was to get the deposit from happening. I made that request on the military pay site. It should be effectively stopped on May 1. So a cancel request will happen after that. The only other thought is to keep the account until after closing. Since there is a local branch our proceeds could just be deposited there, rather than a wire to our online bank (which often can cost $50!). A detail to look into and decide about.

It will feel good to lessen the number of credit cards and accounts we have open. Have you done a financial clean up lately?

If you are a regular reader you know I have Ooma as our home phone provider. It's VoiP system, so it uses the internet to take calls.

The

Ooma telo is on sale again for $89.99 with free shipping. That is $40 off. I currently pay just $3.85 (the Federal taxes) each month for our home phone. If you dial international and don't have a plan they offer very low rates (which you can view on the website), and all calls stateside are free!

I actually make money by having this phone since I offer my referral code (which is in the link above) when they have a promotion every two to three months. Last time I earned $80 in referral money, $20 for each referral. I have earned far more by referring others than I have paid to have the home phone. I kind of consider that it helps offset the internet bill, too.

It works great, although we don't even use it too often since our cell phones our are primary numbers used these days. It seems if I can't get my daughter to answer her cell phone at home I can usually get her to answer the home phone when I call!

If you are interested the offer lasts until May 8th. Thanks!

Our buyers are paying to have the house professional tested for radon. The entire state is considered high for it. I'm waiting for that professional to drop off the necessary equipment.

We did our own quick test with a kit we purchased from Amazon for $10 back in February. It came back at 3.1 pCi/L. The level for corrective measures is another 4.0 pCi/L or above. Our test was below that but could be considered a health risk.

Our agreement with the buyers is if the test comes back at 4.0 pCi/L or higher we will pay to have the house mitigated. We already have a the basic passive plumbing in place that the builder added at the time the house was built. That alone keeps the levels down. A fan will simply be added if needed for $500, plus another $100 to have the radon levels tested again after installation.

Part of me is planning to have to pay the cost to mitigate since it is in our agreement, but I will be very happy if levels are low enough to avoid that cost. The test ends in 48 hours, I'm not sure when we will have the results.

Fingers crossed for low levels! Do you have high radon levels in your state? Does anyone have a mitigation system in their home?

I mentioned that I redeemed some Citi Thank You points for gift cards on Friday. They arrived in the mail today! They must be issued close by because that was super fast.

I'm sure all $75 will be spent on groceries at Target within the next 7 days. I already have a list of three items I need to pick up there tomorrow. I will send the $75 I would have spent on those things at Target to pay down more on the Citi card balance from Januray. And of course, I'm counting these gift cards as snowflakes!

Our only taxable investments are our money market and CD accounts. I think with the sale of the home it is time to put some money into some stock mutual funds (maybe ETFs).

I should have invested in VDIGX two years ago when I was writing about it. It would have appreciated. Of course that is easier to see in hindsight.

I'd like to consider this money downpayment/house money for the future, which could be three years, six, eight or ten years from now. In three years, we will no longer have a child living at home (kind of sad) and may be moving again. In six years we could be moving AGAIN, and eight years from now my husband could be retiring from the military. Buying overall has been good up until this point. This round we are renting and I can see our need for a large home dwindling during the next eight years. So instead of investing in a home and 'hoping' for appreciation and payoff I think we need to invest the money for when it is time to establish long term roots.

I'm only beginning to think about this. What do you have some of your taxable investments in? Do you have a fund or etf that you have been really happy with? (I'll do my own research of course).

My dad has been getting creative with his numbers in the past for birthday's giving us $100.40 to represent our fortieth year. My parents have gifted us every year for our anniversary also. It has almost always been $100. This year the check was written for $119.19 for our 19th wedding anniversary. He's getting a little more generous!

Our anniversary was last Sunday. We were actually together that day. It didn't really feel to special as we were looking a rental properties in our new state. But we were together and that always feels better!

The check was given to us just before my trip to the east. I tucked it into a drawer knowing we would be having showings for our home. Until last night I had completely forgotten about it which I knew was a possibility when I did it. Luckily, I happened upon it last night. I will deposit it this morning.

For the sake of simplicity and to make some more debt payoff progress I'm counting it as a snowflake. It will further reduce the debt we have on the Citi card, which is a good thing. The beginning balance on the card was $686.27. This snowflake will bring beginning year balance to $337.59.

What do you think of my dad's creativity with his gift?

I redeemed Citi Thank You points yesterday for $75 worth of Target gift cards. I shop there all the time! In the past I have used their rewards for a check made payable to our mortgage. I decided since we are about to sell that $75 wasn't go to save me much in interest. I will count them as snowflakes after I use them and send that $75 towards our Citi card. Oh, and Citi does offer a statment credit as a reward option, but the point values are terrible. Much better to do it this way!

I paid $75.24 on my Amex card today towards our Verizon wireless bill. That charge will reward me $10. I plan to make two more similar payments over the next couple of days to get $20 more. I did this same scenario last month using my husband's Amex. A small payment of $15 will go to the US Bank card to earn 5% back...doesn't seem like much on $15, but it does all add up.

I'm waiting for the Wells Fargo Amex to close in a few days so I can get my final $25 reward before I close that account for good. It has a heafty annual fee and we don't use it enough to get the rewards back on it.

I have some other pending rewards too that will add to the April snowflake total. I'll write more about those as they come around.

Have you earned any rewards or snowflakes recently?

The second offer that came in Tuesday morning as we were preparing our first counter offer was interesting. It was a full price offer, asking for $2500 in closing costs. However, the buyer wanted it contingent on the sale of their home which had not even been listed. They indicated it would be listed by May 1 and requested a July 15 closing date. Our realtor didn't like that they weren't yet really in a position to sell. I do like their closing date, although really much farther out then we were looking for. It would have meant longer time away from my husband by another month.

The first offer already has a solid pending offer on the sale of their home which they close on May 28. This was the date they wanted for closing but did then change it to June 8 when we indicated our daughter didn't even finish school until June 5. We then countered back with a June 12 closing.

I think the buyers got a little nervous hearing another offer was coming in and agreed easily to our June 12 closing in order to secure the home. It sounds like the couple has four young kids. They will definitely fit into this neighborhood well as they are many young children around us.

So there was no bidding war exactly, but all potential buyers were notified that offers were coming in and given a chance to produce one. Which did prompt the second offer. While the offer was good or maybe slightly better financially, it wasn't as solid as the offer from the buyers that already have a pending sale on their home.

We are very happy with the outcome. The only caveat our agent mentioned was that at full price and a recent sale down the street we could have an appraisal issue. The comparable on our street sold for $260K is the exact floor plan as ours except they have a sunroom addition. Our home has sold for $255K. We priced it at $255K expecting some negotiation and more likely to land at $250K. Of course, I'm thrilled with an extra $5K! Fingers crossed it can appraise at that value.

Time to pay bills!