Creditcardfree's Personal Finance Blog

I participate in Lean Cuisine's rewards program, since I purchase these meals with some frequency. The outside cardboard packaging has a letter code printed on the inside that I need to enter into their website. Each code is worth 20 points in most cases.

The reward program offers some gift cards, magazines and many kitchen tools. I have redeemed for a reusable shopping bag, reusable sandwich bags, amazon gift cards, movie tickets, towels and wash clothes.

I recently learned that the program with Lean Cuisine is ending as of the end of 2014. This does seem to happen with many of these programs.

At one time I participated in Coke Rewards, but it became too tedious to keep up with my husband's soda consumption. I think the program still exists.

Some of the items I received from Lean Cuisine I was able to resell, other are in use in our home and others, like the gift cards were spent and counted as snowflakes!

Do you participate in a rewards program for any product? Tell us which ones and what you earn from participating? Are you a Lean Cuisine Rewards participant and did you know the program was ending?

I have listed two items for sale today to get the SA Selling Challenge started. On Ebay I have some Box Tops for Education, and on Craigslist I posted two bike cargo racks for sale.

I have a bin of things that need to be sold and listed, so I'm not looking through the house for stuff. I know exactly where it all is and nearly everything has a box or envelope all ready to go for mailing.

Are you planning to sell anything this week? What are you selling? Did you know you could sell Box Tops for Education?

And just a few hours later, and the Box Tops have sold! That was easy.

I hate to say it but school shopping will be upon us before we know it. I try to do some of the shopping online during the summer clearance stores have this time of year. That gives us a few new items to start back to school when it is still hot.

I try to remember to use

Ebates before I get to the site, but sometimes I'm shopping and about to checkout before I remember. In that case, I close the tab with my shopping cart still full and to to Ebates. I find the store I'm shopping at and Ebates pulls their site up for me. Most of the time, my cart is still there, but this time I'm logged into Ebates to get cash back on the purchase.

Most recently, I have used Ebates to make purchases through Vistaprint for my daughter's business cards, Snapfish to order photo prints, Redbubble for my daughter's birthday t shirts and GNC for my husband's vitamins.

Don't forget to check out online shopping for vacation needs, too! I always find it hectic to be shopping before a vacation, and it seems shopping for some things online limits the stress of running to multiple stores.

Okay...thanks for listing to my reminder! I plan to get at least ONE thing listed for sale today to start off our SA Selling Challenge. Do you have anything up for sale?

My youngest daughter is 14 today. I'm making cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and the smell seems to have awakened her.

Her gifts were primarily purchased online. I spent just about $100. The all arrived on time and were on her list, so I expect she will be very pleased.

She is a low key child, so I don't expect we will be doing a lot to celebrate. She wants spice cake with cream cheese frosting, which I already purchased. There will be pizza for dinner. All the things a typical teen loves, right?

Since we always have a birthday to celebrate after the holiday it seems to extend the holiday celebrations. I hope everyone had a safe Fourth!

I mentioned a selling challenge in a post in the last couple weeks. It seems several people are interested. I have yet to sell anything, but I'm definitely going to challenge myself for the remainder of the year to see how much I can sell of our own stuff. I also hope to get at least one item listed on Ebay this weekend!

I like to think there are no rules, but here are some guidelines:

1)Sell your items for cash.

2)Sell the items by any preferred method, garage sale, ebay, craigslist or other.

3)Track your profits (and gross sales if desired).

4)Write a blog post about your sales at least once per month, some of us may write more often, but once a month should be the minimum to keep the momentum of the challenge going.

I think people like to hear about what you are selling, so that can be shared, as well as what your plan for the money is. I also like to know about profits over gross sales personally, since that is the money you get to keep! If you are selling something you bought for a profit, I would specify that as well.

Let's sell our stuff for CASH!!

Are you in? Have you started?

I posted quite a few entries to catch up today, keep scrolling down to read more of my updates!

I have been participating in the 52 Week Savings Challenge for more than half a year now. I make my deposits twice per month on payday. I also decided mine would be equal amounts of $57 each.

I also started the challenge with $10, and have an additional $60 in the account that have been earned from Capital One 360 referrals (thank you!). My balance with interest as of July 4 is $869.63.

If I were following the weeks, we could say that I have deposited money for weeks 1-18 and weeks 39-52. That is 32 of 52 weeks, so more than halfway to the goal.

I recently decided that this money will fund my daughter's band trip. Although, we may have her put some skin in the game, for spending money, or work the fundraisers hard.

Are you participating in the 52 Week Savings Challenge? Are you still on track to complete the goal? Did you know you could start any time?

Lots of posts today to catch up on all the things I like to keep you up to date on. Scroll down to see more updates!

In yesterday's mail I received a Naked Juice rebate check. I think it was actually for some sort of class action law suit and I'm pretty sure I heard it from Saving Advice owner, Jeffrey, on one of his blog posts. It was for $6.67. That makes for the first snowflake in July!

I also received $40 for referring a Savings Advice member to Capital One 360 accounts during the Independence Day sale. This is a snowflake, but I may just leave that money in my savings account with Capital One to go towards my daughter's band trip.

Have you found any snowflake or extra money since the beginning of the month? Are you expecting any snowflakes?

I see the market has continued to go up in the last couple weeks! I'm still not to my personal goal of $100K or to our joint goal of $300K, but we are sure getting close.

As of July 3, my personal retirement account balance reached $98,956.03. I'm so very, very close. If the market goes up and I make my regular investment for July, I expect I can meet the $100K goal. I can't wait!

Together our retirement accounts are approaching $300K. The balance on Thursday was $296,180.13. Sometimes this seems like a lot of money, but it sure doesn't feel like enough to retire on right now.

We will keep investing and moving forward to that eventual goal. I expect to increase our retirement contributions with my husband's pay raise that comes with promotion. We don't have word yet, on when that is official or the effective date.

How are you feeling about your retirement portfolio?

We paid $1015.16 towards the principal balance on our mortgage in the month of June. Considering we are looking to pay down nearly $14K on it this year, I feel really good about that much debt paid off in one month!

The debt paid off made up of the principal portion of our regular payment which was $464.60. At the same time I send in an extra $103.72 each month to round up the payment to an even amount. Later in the month on the next payday, I send in another $275 towards the principal. All other funds come from snowflake money which this month was $171.84.

So far this year, in just six short months, we have paid down $7,872.29 on our mortgage balance. That is 56% of our pay down goal in 6 months!! The goal is moving right along as planned. I'm kind of looking forward to seeing how much beyond the goal we will get.

How much mortgage debt did you pay off in June? Or other debt paid? Are you ahead of your debt pay off for the year?

June was not as lucrative for snowflakes as some months, but I do know that we have earned $900 in credit card rewards that will hopefully be arriving in July. So no complaints to have saved and earned $171.84 in extra cash.

I didn't really work too hard for the June snowflakes. The credit card reward cards were spent on regular expenses and matched with cash to the mortgage. So pretty easy!

With the addition of June snowflakes, I have saved a total of $3,136.80 for the first half of the year. Considering my original goal for the entire year was $4,000 I'm way ahead of schedule. I did change the goal amount, but I need to go back and look to see what I changed it to. $6,000 or $8,0000 I think.

Here's where the snowflakes came from in June:



Did you beat me in snowflake accumulations? Were you close? Any amount of snowflake accumulation is a good thing in my book! High five to all of you.

We earned $27.72 in interest on our money market account in the month of June. Currently, we simply just leave our interest in the account to earn a little more interest and grow our savings. Since rates are so low, it does not add up fast.

I could pull the money out of this account each month, or even just twice a year and count them as a true snowflakes towards our debt reduction goal. An extra $300 or so off the mortgage wouldn't be a bad thing.

If you have your emergency fund in a savings account and are earning interest you might consider using the interest earned as a snowflake or extra payment towards your debt. This is especially a good idea if your interest on the debt is very high.

Do you count your interest earnings as a snowflake? Do you use your interest earned to pay down debt? Do you save your interest like I do?

The Capital One 360 Independence Day offers expire at midnight EST. So this is your last reminder if you are interested. Here is

my post on the details.

In other news, all is still good here after the storms and losing power on Monday. We even were confident to leave town for a couple days. We spent money on gas and two meals, otherwise we were treated to meals by my parents. We got to see all of our family at various events and even took time to go to an art museum that now offers free admission.

Now that we are back, I need to catch up on laundry and paying first of the month bills. I hope to have some updates about snowflakes, and mortgage balance soon.

Have a super Independence Day tomorrow...and be safe!!

We survived a very strong storm yesterday, either straight line winds or a small tornado. No damage to our home, but a man was killed up the road when a building a collapsed on him during the storm. About an hour after the storm we lost power for eight hours. I think the food in our fridge and freezer is okay, as we really tried to keep the doors closed for the duration.

Our neighbor next door was getting water in his basement, which a sump pump when he has power does a fine job of handling. Without power it is a problem. He ended up getting a generator to handle it. We weren't getting but a drop into our sump pump.

On Sunday night we received quite a bit of rain, which ended up causing an issue with two bridges in our little town. One collapsed when a semi went over it. It is on a major highway through our town. We now can't get to the other side of town without taking a major detour. There is another road we use with frequency, that has also been closed because the road washed away. We have seen pictures of two full sized cars that fell into the area washed away.

We became aware of our lack of batteries, among a few other things that we should be more prepared for with storms and outages. Something to work on.

Don't forget that the Capital One Independence Day offers are still available through July 3. You can get a $100 bonus for the checking account and $76 for the savings.

Here's my post about the offers.

Should I throw out the milk and eggs? Any storms in your area lately?

The Capital One 360 offers are now up on their website. My referral link is

here. Remember to read the fine print for all offers so you know what is required of you. There is only one offer available per person. No double dipping!

Here is a screen print of the offers available. You can get $100 for opening a checking account. You must use the debit card at least 5 times for any amount within the first 45 days. The $100 is deposited to your account on Day 50 automatically. I opened mine with $50 so that I had money to spend once I received the debit card.

If you open a Savings account with Capital One 360 you must deposit $500. The cash will earn .75% interest beginning on day 1. You will earn $76 immediately upon opening, but you cannot take it out for 30 days.



Here is what you will see when you click on my link:



Are you planning to sign up for these offers? Have you participated in Capital One 360 offers in the past?

I just found out this morning that Capital One 360 is running a sweepstakes where you have the chance to win $1,776 each day through July 14th. It is a way to share what you are doing to declare your financial independence. I entered using Facebook, but you can enter through Twitter, Instagram and Email also.

I know we all have ways we save and improve our financial lives. We might as well share and have the chance to win some cash!

Check out the sweepstakes and enter if you chose

here. I do not get anything for passing this information along. Just thought I'd share...since it would be fun if one of us here were to win!

Don't forget to come back to my blog on Monday for information about the Capital One 360 Independence Day Sale that begins on Monday through July 3.

Do you enter sweepstakes on a regular basis, just on occasion or never?

Remember to stop by my blog on Monday for the Capital One 360 Independence Day offers!! I will have more details then. Here's the post I wrote last week about it:

Just giving those of you who do not already have a Capital One 360 Checking or Savings account but are interested a heads up. You will likely want to wait until June 30 to take advantage of their sale they have each year.



As you can see from the ad, the sale runs from June 30 to July 3rd. In the past the bonuses for signing up have been up to $100 for a savings account which is double the normal bonus. They have even larger bonuses if you open a Sharebuilder account. My understanding is that you cannot double dip on these offers.

I would appreciate it if you would use my referral when these bonus are announced if you heard of this great deal from me. I will likely get a bonus for referring you. And you know I like snowflakes!

The nice thing about the Capital One accounts is there are no minimum balances or fees. There is usually no direct deposit requirement, although you may have to deposit some cash to qualify or make a few debit purchases on the checking account. The details will be announced soon so stay tuned?

Does this offer interest you? Did you take advantage of Capital One's sale in the past?

In keeping with my theme of introducing you or reminding you of different types of snowflake sources, I have another one for you. Clicking for snowflakes!

If you have a few extra minutes of time, you can earn gift cards and cash for free! I have used these small bits of cash and gift cards to help meet our financial goals. Right now, the goal is to pay down our mortgage. Our mortgage doesn't accept gift cards of course, but when I spend them on things I would be buying anyway, I send the cash I would have used for the purchase to our mortgage.

The main site I have used to accumulate the most money is

Swagbucks. The site lets you earn Swagbucks points for watching videos, using their search engine, shopping, taking surveys and more. In 2013, I earned over $600 from Swagbucks. I have scaled back my time on the site so I can be more productive in other areas, but I still hop on nearly everyday to click some of the easier tasks. Once you sign up, feel free to read my post about How to Swag. It is a little outdated, but it should give you enough information to get started. Their Facebook page is also very helpful.

I'm currently active on Bing as well. This one is a straight forward search engine that provides you with results and points for a certain number of searches each day. It only takes a few minutes to complete each day. I'm able to accumulate my points(known as Swagbucks) to redeem a Swagbucks code that I use on their site to redeem for Amazon.com gift cards. If you are going Swag, you might as well Bing as well!

Another legitimate site for earning gift cards is MyPoints, which also lets you do searches, participate in special offers, click on emails, take surveys and more. I have fallen off the wagon on this site, but I have earned gift cards with them and it is pretty easy to do.

There are probably plenty of other sites you can participate in to earn gift cards for doing free tasks. The key word there is FREE. Do not pay to join any site. EVER.

Do you Swag, Bing or use MyPoints? Do you have another free site you use to earn gift cards and cash? What do you use your earnings for?

The links for Swagbucks and Bing above are my affiliate links. If you are interested in being referred to MyPoints, you are welcome to leave your name and email address in the comments. I will enter your information on their site and they will send you a referral email. I will delete your personal information from my site for your protection. You can also send me a private message on the forum section of Saving Advice.

If you are looking for extra cash to apply towards your debt or savings, I have found that selling things you no longer need can provide that extra cash.

Since the beginning of 2014, I have sold books, cds, a couch and loveseat, kitchen table, side tables and a tv cart. I also had a garage sale in May, and sold all sorts of various items, including clothing and tools. In all, I've sold over $500 worth of our used items!

I would much rather get rid of something I own than be in debt, especially credit card debt. The interest these cards charge when you don't pay your balance in full is your hard earned money! I personally like to keep as much of the money we earn as possible.

Everybody has something they can sell. I have a friend, that last I knew had six shelves full of DVD movies. My guess is these were bought soon after a movie came out, so likely nearly full price. I know they watch them and have been generous with loaning them to people, too. I look at those shelves and think CASH! Sure some of them are dated and not likely to fetch much money, but at $1 each they easily have $180 worth of movies they could sell. My thinking is that one can still find plenty of free options for entertainment. The library for one has just as many movies that one can borrow for free.

A few years ago, I had a challenge on this blog to make $100 a month selling on Ebay. I think my average was less than that in the end, maybe $80, but it challenged and encouraged me to find things in our home we didn't need. At the time, I think the proceeds were applied to a car loan pay down or a home equity loan. I didn't sell anything unique. My kids had outgrown jeans, shoes, toys and books. I sold (and still do) Box Tops for Education, and old army paraphernalia. Anything I found that I was done with I checked Ebay to see if there was a demand for the item. If there was I sold it. If it didn't sell on Ebay I would save it for a garage sale, which back then my neighbors and I would have two times a year. If items didn't sell at the garage sale I would donate them.

As consumers, we are bringing in new things to our home on a regular basis. I think of selling the old kind of like getting a rebate on the original cost of the item, or a discount on the new item I purchased. If we never get rid of anything when we bring in new, we get overrun with our own stuff! I challenge you to look at your stuff in a new way. It can be turned into cash to help you with your financial goal of paying down debt or saving. You will feel less stress with less debt and less stuff. I guarantee it!!

Do you have a habit of selling your old things? Do you sell on Ebay, craigslist or at garage sales? What do you do with your proceeds? Anyone interested in an Ebay challenge for the remainder of the year?

I use

Ebates, when I remember, when I'm doing any online shopping. A little rebate for going through their site as you shop on another site is EASY!

This week I purchased two t-shirts for my youngest daughter for her birthday next week. I purchased from RedBubble, but not before I went through Ebates to get 2.5% back, which amounted to $1.15. I also used a coupon code that gave me 10% off my order so that helped defray the cost of shipping. I still spent $50, but she will be VERY happy with these as they were specifically requested and on the top of her list.

I also purchased a family photo we took last year on my parents land. We used it on our Christmas card. As I was taking it off my fridge, um this week, I decided it was a really good picture and we should have it enlarged to put on our wall. I logged on to Ebates and found that Snapfish offers 10% rebates on their orders. I ordered an 11x14 print that I will pick up at Walmart today for $6.86 plus tax. Ebates is giving me $0.69 back.

Right now I only have $3.04 in rebates, but over the last couple years I have been using them I have earned over $65 in rebates. Those small little rebates add up!

There are other shopping sites that offer cash back, but Ebates seems to be the one that works for me. I think I have used Shop At Home in the past. It is a good idea to check another site to see if the rebate is larger or if they have a store that one site doesn't have. And if you use a rewards credit card for making these online purchases you are getting even more benefit for your purchases online!

Do you use a online shopping rewards site? Do you use more than one? Which one is your favorite?

I received $3 in my PayPal account for completing a survey from Pinecone Research earlier this week. That's another snowflake for June!

I was proud of myself yesterday for waiting to go to the grocery store. I was able to find lunch and dinner for my family with things we already had on hand. I wasn't sure I could as the cupboard and fridge are getting bare! My daughters had pancakes for dinner. My husband and I had eggs, turkey bacon and toast. I may have that same thing for lunch today.

I will need to get for the store today as I keep finding things I need to get...coffee, toilet paper and more! I hope to get everything I need to make it through the weekend. We are having guests one night so I need to plan for that as well.

I had to go to the store to buy a specific item this morning. I ended up buying three because I could get a $5 Target gift card if I did. This is something we will definitely use, so not a big deal to stock up.

I will count that $5 gift card as a snowflake and send that $5 to the mortgage since Target will give me $5 off my next purchase!

Snowflakes are all around us if we take time to notice! I hope to get a post up this week about my sources of snowflakes and other ideas for you to look into. Did you find any money recently that you can put towards your snowflake goal?

I put a new post on

Your Organized Friend about my new cleaning task today.

I sold some pretty inexpensive furniture on Craigslist this morning. An end table, a coffee table and tv stand that we originally purchased for $70 at Walmart. I had them listed for $35, but lowered the price to $30. The man asked if I would take $20. I said yes, since I was ready to have them moved on. Now I have $20 cash and less clutter!

We did some decluttering in my daughter's room yesterday. There is more to do as she is a little slow in going through things. We found a few picture books and trinkets my sister can use with her kindergarten students. I have a new post up on

Your Organized Friend about a quick clean up I did with pictures.

I'd really like to get some items posted to Ebay tonight. I let you know if that actually happens! Are you selling or decluttering right now? Where did you get your last snowflake of money?

I used up the $60 in referral credits that were applied to our USAA credit card this weekend. We originally had $7.70 charged before the credits were applied. That left $52.30 that I was able to spend!

I spent $39.58 at PetSmart for cat food. I was very tempted to adopt a 10 week old kitten for $25, but decided now isn't time for a kitten!

We also stopped at Subway for lunch today. I spent $18.46 for that splurge. We also like our trips to Subway.

($52.30)
($39.58)
($18.46)
__$5.74

It looks like I will still owe the credit card company a little cash. The money that I spent and I would have owed except for the credit will be sent to our mortgage as part of our pay down goal.

We used $6.98 in Amazon credits (earned from Swagbucks and Bing) for some movie rentals this week. I'm matching those purchases with cash towards the mortgage as well.

That makes for a whopping mortgage snowflake payment of $66.98. Can't complain about less debt! I'm mean who would!!

Just giving those of you who do not already have a Capital One 360 Checking or Savings account but are interested. You will likely want to wait until June 30 to take advantage of their sale they have each year.



As you can see from the ad, the sale runs from June 30 to July 3rd. In the past the bonuses for signing up have been up to $100 for a savings account which is double the normal bonus. They have even larger bonuses if you open a Sharebuilder account. My understanding is that you cannot double dip on these offers.

I would appreciate it if you would use my referral when these bonus are announced if you heard of this great deal from me. I will likely get a bonus for referring you. And you know I like snowflakes!

The nice thing about the Capital One accounts is there are no minimum balances or fees. There is usually no direct deposit requirement, although you may have to deposit some cash to qualify or make a few debit purchases on the checking account. The details will be announced soon so stay tuned?

Does this offer interest you? Did you take advantage of Capital One's sale in the past?

Well, all in one day we are done spending on both credit cards we have been working on. A little crazy, but I did know we had some big purchases and expenses coming up.

The transactions are still pending, so I don't know how quickly the rewards will post, but likely by the time the statements close. For the Southwest card that should be in the next week or so, but the Wells Fargo Amex just closed two days ago! We will have to wait another month to get that reward, which is $400. The Southwest Rapids Rewards card will be worth $500 in gift cards.

The rewards are going to the mortgage as part my snowflake goal this year, which is $4000. These new credit card bonus snowflakes will put us to goal and we are really only half way through the year. As a result, I'm revising the goal to $8,000. This does seem like a stretch, but I'm willing to reach for it. There is no downside to not reaching it, so I might as well go for it, right?

The new goal will likely make me look for other offers I can take advantage of, participate in Swagbucks more, try a few bank checking offers, sell more things, and I'm sure another credit card or two. (I have decided that DH will not apply for any more cards until after our next move). Here's to a new goal!!

Our oldest daughter is an artist. She has taken classes at school to learn Photoshop, Illustrator and other programs for which she has earned college credit. She was given the opportunity to borrow a drawing tablet from school this summer, so this moved up our time line for getting her a computer. The original plan was to get one before she left for college NEXT year.

We purchased a Mac Book at the local community college, which has discounted new Apple's computers. They were having a sale and took another $50 off, and the store doesn't have to charge sales tax. Our outlay for the computer was $1239. On Apple's website this would have cost us $1499 plus tax.

This is the most we have ever spent on a computer, but we feel this is a great investment for our daughter, it should allow her to use her graphics programs (which she is purchasing) with plenty power and amazing picture quality. We are excited that she has this tool that may be a key to her future career.

I put the purchase on my new Southwest Rapids Rewards card for which I need to spend $2K to get the 50,000 rewards points worth $500 in gift cards. I also charged the Adobe Creative Suite that my daughter is purchasing for $240, so clearly we are getting REALLY close to meeting that spending goal. In fact, by this weekend we should have that complete since my husband is charging some travel expenses. Easy!

This is our first Apple computer. My daughters use them at school. Are you a die hard Apple computer owner, or do you own a PC?

Today I logged on to my

Capital One 360 Savings account to check my balance. I currently have $772.18. This account is where I'm saving my 52 Week Saving Challenge money. I'm saving $57 every pay period, which for us is twice per month. I believe I started at the beginning of last December with the goal of saving $1378, which is the amount that these 52 Week Savings Challenges total at the end of one year. At this point I have saved up Weeks 1-17 and 4-52.

Originally I didn't have any plan for the money other than to save it. That has changed! I am saving the money for my oldest daughter's band trip to Disney World in the spring. We have been told the estimated cost is $1599. We have already made our first $200 deposit out of our regular cash, so that leaves $1399 to save. It seems I'm more than halfway there!

I just love that the saving challenge turned out to be a blessing to get the trip funded without too much hassle. Kind of a 'it pays to save for a rainy day' type of thing. Kind of.

Any chance you have something you need to be saving for over the next 6 months or more? You can sign up for a Capital One 360 Savings account and earn a $50 bonus. Or if a checking account is better, you can earn $25. Or both! Don't forget the fine print, and know that I do receive $20 for each referral, but I don't get any personal information about you. You will be anonymous to me. I plan to save the referral money towards my daughter's trip, too! I'm sure she will need some spending money.

I also became aware that I can refer people to the Chase Freedom card and receive a bonus. This is the credit card that is currently offering a $200 cash bonus after you spend $500 on the card. I wish I could refer you with a link, but Chase requires I send an email. If you leave your first and last name and email I will input it into the form. You will then receive an email from Chase asking you to apply for the offer. I will delete emails from the blog and will not spam you! I also will not know you applied and whether or not you were approved or denied. I get no personal information. I do need to submit your email by June 20th, so act fast if you are interested!



I think the Chase Freedom card is one of the best cards for the average consumer since it has no annual fee. Of course, please do not apply for credit if you are working on paying off debt or cannot pay off your balance in full each month!

How are you doing on your 52 Week Savings Challenge? Where do you save your money? Do you receive referral money from any products you endorse? What products are they and how much have you earned?

My husband is on the list for promotion to Major! The list was released today. There will still need to be an order cut to make it official. That order directs pay changes and the ability to pin on his new rank. Those are all just secondary to being on the list.

So happy and proud for him! Of course, I'm looking forward to saving that extra money that comes with promotion, too.

It seems I have received the cash for the last Ooma referrals. I had three at $20 each, so I have a credit on our USAA card in the amount of $60. They don't ever really tell you when they are going to pay out, so it is a little bit of a surprise. Money in our pocket is always a nice surprise! I will likely use the credit for basic expenses, probably one tank of gas! Since the $60 is a snowflake I will then get that money sent to the mortgage.



My husband had some Army travel a little while back and has been reimbursed. Some of his expenses went on our Wells Fargo American Express card, so I need to get those paid off with the cash received from the Army. There is more travel coming up soon for him and I'm going to make sure he uses the current cards we are working on for bonuses. We might as well get benefit from spending that is going to get reimbursed!

I received our first Verizon bill. I have only seen the balance, which seems a little high, but I think it is likely a prorated thing. I will double check before I pay it. I think making this payment on the WF Amex card will put us VERY close to meeting our $3K spending requirement. It will then be time to switch to the Southwest Rapids Rewards card.

I'm trying to sell some furniture on Craigslist, but so far no interest. The spammers aren't even interested. I think someone will want them, but it may be not the right time or the price is a bit too high. Worse case they items will be donated. I will not be keeping these items around indefinitely.

I have another post up on

Your Organized Friend. I'd love you to stop by over there. Share the site with friends, too!

We did some spending at Lowe's yesterday. Well first I returned a $25 item I didn't need. Then we went looking for curtain rods for our master bedroom. We found what we were looking for and used up the rest of our Lowe's gift cards we received from our spending a few months ago on one of the Southwest Rapids Rewards Visas.

This whole year I have been matching money we spend on 'free' gift cards with a payment to our mortgage. The thought is that we would have spent this money anyway on the items. I can't send a gift card we earned toward the mortgage but I can send cash. This latest Lowe's gift card we used in full was $50.

I'm counting this $50 as a snowflake too. This puts our total snowflake earnings for the year at over $3K, specifically $3,033.82!! The goal is $4K for the year so I'm clearly WAY ahead of schedule. I'm not sure if I will revise the goal, or just see how far I shoot past it!

How far do you think I will get on my snowflake goal considering I'm already 75% to the goal 6 months in?