Creditcardfree's Personal Finance Blog

First let me show you what my kitchen cupboard and refrigerator look like at the end of this experiment.





All my family members would say there is nothing left to eat. But I see pizza, carrots and apples for dinner, just as planned. The snacks? Yes, getting slim. Bananas on the counter (not shown), slices of cheese, cashews, and maybe some peanut butter toast. These just are not there usual snacks. I plan to open the black beans for lunch. To make them tasty I wil add red onion, feta cheese, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Yummy!

The experiment to spend next to nothing still resulted in spending under $300, specifically $293.95. This includes only money spent by me for me and my girls since May 1. My husband did take out $100 cash, which I understand is mostly spent. He also spent around $42 in snacks before he left to help compensate for not eating the ill tasting MRE's I mentioned yesterday.

We set aside $900 twice per month to cover gas and groceries and the few school things that come up. Last month we exceed the $1800 by $477. Thus the need to spend less to compensate for our overspending. It was much easier without my husband here, but I might have been able to get his on board.

$900.00 Available Funds
(293.95)Our Spending
(142.00)DHs Spending
$464.05 Amount Saved

What a relief to nearly make up the amount we overspent in just a couple weeks. It was worth it. I will keep spending low for the next couple days, but I really will need to get to the store. I did pay our bills today and was able to save $670 from DH's paycheck. It may get spent down the road, as we plan a vacation or put some landscaping in our yard, but for now it is saved money.

Do you have more in your fridge than I do? Less? Anyone else want to post their bare or stocked full fridge?!

I mentioned yesterday that my husband took $100 with him for his camp training in the woods. I suppose it isn't really the woods, because the army knows how to supports its troops anywhere with heat, air conditioning, food, running water and a store (AAFES).

I inquired by text about the cash. He said it is almost all gone. He has been buying his lunch at the store instead of eating the MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat)offer by the unit at lunch. He despises these. He said the food all tastes exactly the same because of the preservatives put in them to extend the shelf life to 10 years!!!! Ick. I really don't blame him.

The unit also took up a donation to reimburse a soldier for gas. The soldier transported two other soldiers back home, an eight hour round trip, with his own car and gas. The two soldiers had Red Cross messages, which means some type of emergency at home. My husband did put some cash in, which is the right thing to do.

I'm hoping for a no spend day today here. It is going to be gorgeous and as much as I want to get out and shop for flowers or summer clothes, I have plenty to do around the house.

How much do you spend when you go camping in the woods? Have you ever eaten an MRE? What did you think of the taste?

I have a few snowflakes to report. Our ATM rebates and interest on our checking account amounted to $4.78 last month. I redeemed $25 PayPal deposit from Swagbucks today. I'm still waiting for one I ordered earlier in the month to post to my account. I see that our Chase Rewards are worth $70.25. I will likely redeem these as a statement credit, but then add the money to my Christmas Funds.

Today's spending is the $20 for my daughter's flute lesson. I will pay her in cash since I have that money in my wallet.

$273.95 Previous Balance
+$20.00 Flute lesson fee
$293.95 Total Spent

I mentioned yesterday that I thought I would need gas before Wednesday, but at this point, I don't think that will be the case. I only expect basic driving, and with just over half a tank, I think I'll be just fine. So far, I'm very pleased with this experiment. I will pay bills on Friday, and should have some money to save to compensate for our overspending in the weeks prior to the experiment.

I also think I will continue the experiment for as long as I can...since I don't expect my husband to be home from his training for several more days. I'm hoping he also hasn't been spending too much. He took $100 cash with him...to camp in the woods!! Whatever.

Anyone thinking of doing a no spend, low spend experiment soon? Those of you participating now, how are you doing? Are you meeting your goal?

I was going to log on tonight and report that we did not spend anything Saturday and Sunday. We didn't leave the house actually. We had food, entertainment and things that needed to be done here. And it was so windy and cold it wasn't appealing to go out!

However, I did make an Amazon.com purchase. My youngest cat has that herpes virus that can't be cured once they have it. She was under some stress last weekend when my sister's dog visited our house. As a result, her eye is watering constantly and she has been having sneezing fits. It generally calms down on its own, but the sneezing she's doing seems worse than in the past. I ordered L-Lysine chews for $7.26.

$266.69 Previous Balance
__$7.26 Purchase
$273.95 Total Spent

It was nice that I didn't need to buy anything to get my youngest daughter ready for camp. I do think she would like shorts, but she said no, so I need to respect that. She is the child that needs to try and learn rather than be told.

Right now, I only expect to spend $20 tomorrow for my oldest daughter's flute lesson. I have that money in my wallet ready to go. It is possible I will need a little fuel to get through Wednesday, just not sure yet when I will make that fuel stop.

Did you spend any money this weekend? I actually expect you all to say yes, because I think weekends are prime spending time for most of us!

We were notified by email that Fidelity has received my husband's transfer request. The money that was in one of the mutual funds has been sold. Next step is to cut the check and get it sent to Vanguard. It's nice to see that it is moving quickly. I kind of want the market to be down next week so we can get a few extra shares during the process. But I can't control that. It is a long term investment so it doesn't really matter.

The transfer is the money he has in a Roth IRA. There is still $5K+ in a traditional IRA. I need to finalize the options for DH on that investment. Once he returns home, I can get him to sign the paperwork. It is a small sum, but at least large enough to open an account. I expect in the future, we will start adding more to our traditional IRA's as our income increases. It likely will be more advantageous tax wise. My gut says to just open the Total Stock Market Index with this money.

After we are done at Fidelity, I will look into moving money we have at American Funds, which is a Roth IRA and two UTMA accounts. It feels good to get this money combined. I like simplicity!!

No spending yesterday!! The low spend experiment is going well. Only four more days. I really hope not to spend money today, but my daughter is going to a camp for two nights, so something may come up. I'll be sure to let you know.

I think I've mentioned this offer before, but I thought I would bring it up again in case it may benefit anyone in their debt pay down journey.

Chase has a credit card called

Slate that is currently offering 0% interest for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers. The really nice thing is that you can transfer your balance from another card(s) for no fee in the first 60 days. This is only worth it, if you can pay off the balance you transfer in full within the 15 month time frame.

If you already have a Chase card, it is unlikely you could transfer that balance to this card, but you could call and ask!

And just so you know, I don't get any compensation for this referral. Just trying to help my fellow savers!

Friday was a spending day. Groceries, haircut and mother's day. Total Spent: $88.34.

My sister picked up potted flowers for my mom and was delivering them last night. My share was $18. This works well for my mom because they are getting ready to put the house on the market, and some nice flowers near the front door or back porch will be welcome. My budget was $20, so I came in under that. Yippee!!

I spent $60.93 at Target for groceries to last through Friday. I did have a small list and admit that I did add things to it, but I thought through all the purchases and have no regrets. I did buy toilet paper, so we are good there.

Great Clips was on their final sale day of $5.99 haircuts. It was busy, busy, busy! I only waited 15 minutes since there were 8 stylists working. The woman who cut my hair said they normally work 30 hours a week, but as of Thursday night she was at 60 hours!! The gals were kind and friendly, but you could tell they were tired. I tipped $3 and still saved money. I will never go to one of those sales again, as I know that I can afford to go other times and I don't need to add to the madness. I did receive a great haircut though!! Total spent $9.41.

The total for my low spend experiment is now at $266.69. My goal is to be under $450. So far so good!

_178.35 Old Balance
_$88.34 New Purchases
$266.69 Total Spent

Happy Mother's Day to all women who care for children in any way...especially you teachers and day care providers!

No spending today!

The food is definitely dwindling and my kids are searching high and low for snacks. They did dip into that bag of chips I bought at Menard's yesterday.

Today, I cooked up chicken and rice and will stir fry it with the seasoning packet later for dinner. This dish will help use up some green onions. I will steam the final bits of broccoli and carrots in the fridge too. I just realized I should try to regrow the onion roots in water and see how well and fast that works. More experimenting!!

I don't think this is related to the experiment, but my daughter asked for yellow and white tissue paper for to take to school for a project. Fine, except we don't have yellow. She said she would just color on the white to make it yellow and it would be no problem. I did offer to buy some before she said that. I don't want the experiment to impact their needs for school. I guess it was more of a want anyway.

I think the lack of snacks has helped me stay on track with my diet this week, too. I don't want to overeat and use up what could be eaten the next day. Clever diet trick if you want to try it.

Tomorrow I expect to go to the store. I will try to make this the final run before May 15th when the experiment ends. I also will get my haircut because I'm way overdue, and Great Clips is having a $5.99 sale right now. I think I can swing that this week. We are running low on toilet paper, but I don't think I'll experiment with stretching that out!!

Did you have a no spend day today? What about in the last week? If not, do you think you could try it for one day?

I'm really trying with this low spend experiment, and part of that means I have to do things a little differently. I went to make pancakes last night and realized I didn't have enough baking powder. Thanks to the internet, I found out that I could replace 1 tsp of baking powder with 1/4 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp of cream of tarter. The pancakes turned out great!

I'm also running low on fabric softener sheets for the dryer. For now, I'm just tearing them in half, or even thirds if I have a small load. This will stretch my stash. I may even run out of laundry detergent before this experiment ends next week. I may make my own, which I have done in the past. I'll decide when I get to that point.

Today I bought gas for my van ($56.94), postage for my mother in law's package ($3.26), and ($0.69) for a seasoning packet that I needed for dinner this week. I forgot to pick it up when I was at the store earlier this week. I also used a credit at Menard's to purchase paint for my front door, loose leaf paper, and a bag of chips! I am not including the Menard's spending, since it is not out of current cash. Luckily, all of these errands were one trip.

I also wrote a check for my youngest daughter's yearbook, which was $20. It is due Friday, otherwise, I would delay that payment.

_$97.46 Old Balance
_$80.89 New Purchases
$178.35 Total Spent

Considering my spending limit until May 15th is $450, I feel we are doing pretty well. Not even half way through the half the cash, but there will be more spending. I'm guessing we will spend at least $400 by the end of next week.

I had to make another trip to the grocery store to pick up a few fill in items. A few things the girls needed for lunch primarily. I hope to make it a few more days before I need to go back. I plan to make that the final trip before this little spending experiment is over.

I spent another $21.74. Not bad for what I bought. Things add up fast though. Oh, and I did spend $20 for my daughter's flute lesson yesterday

$55.72 Previous Balance
$41.74 Grocery Store
$97.46 New Balance

My sister and I are getting my mom flowers for mother's day. I decided to put in up to $20. My sister will buy and deliver the flowers herself since she lives much, much closer than I do.

I bought some note cards and a small bar of soap to send to my mother in law. I used a gift card to buy these, at a cost of $12.73. I am not counting this cost towards my spending. I will count the cost to mail the package though.

I expect that tomorrow I will need to spend money on fuel for the van. I'm guessing this will be around $50.

I have noticed that I do make different decisions when I'm trying not to spend. My daughter had some ear buds break this weekend. It was an accident involving the cat. Instead of running out to buy a pair for $10, I lent my ear buds to her. We don't generally listen to music at the same time, so it works out. I will buy her a new pair after the spending freeze.

Have you ever done a spending freeze? How did it work out for you? When do you think is the best time to do one?

Our homeowner's insurance is increasing for the next year by $87.61. That works out to be $7.30 a month. Can't complain. It just seems these types of bills go up every year!

We have at least $85 in credit rewards that I may redeem soon to add to the snowflake fund. I likely will wait another 10 days for the current billing cycle to close, so that I can redeem any new rewards. I figure I might as well add this to my $750 sooner than later. Once I meet that goal all other snowflakes will be saved for the next mortgage down payment. Just ready to get to the next goal!!

I also redeemed more Swagbucks for $25 in PayPal cash. Meeting goal everyday helps build those Swagbucks up fast. I think I'm averaging about $50 per month.

It is beautiful weather here in the Midwest. I will be getting my exercise in the yard today mowing the grass. I also need to decide where to put some garden beds, too. I will take the girls with me to Menard's this weekend to pick out flowers to plant for Mother's Day. This is a bit of a tradition, as my husband is often away on that day. It just times out right that it is time to buy the annuals at the same time Mother's Day rolls around. I will use Menard's credit to pay for the flowers and potting soil.

I can't forget to make a grocery run. We may be able to wait until tomorrow. Right now I think we have enough food to sustain ourselves. In fact, we may be able to go farther than we think!

Oh, and I still have not decided on Mother's Day gifts for my mother or mother in law, but I'm leaning on sewing something for each of them. I think they will appreciate them. As long as I have everything I need on hand, my only cost will be postage which will be minimal for mailing something made of fabric.

Looks like I will be busy today. I better get moving!!

My Saturday spending consisted of $1 spent on a rice krispie bar from a vending machine for my youngest daughter. I expected to pay $6 for admission to a band concert, but my dad picked up the tab. I offered to pay him back, and later I offered to pay admission for the a teacher we knew that didn't think she had money. She did refuse and then later did find some money.

I have not spent any money today, but did travel quite a bit to get to and around for my sisters half marathon. So the fuel tank is probably getting low! She ran her race in 2 hours 19 minutes. Not her fastest or her slowest, but the hilliest. She felt like only mile 1 and 13 were down hill.

It is inspiring to see those runners. Maybe I should make a goal to run a 5K. Maybe.

$54.72 Previous Balance
_$1.00 Spent
$55.72 Total Spent

I did make my run to Super Target, my closest grocery store. I spent $54.72, which I am pleased with.

This is the meal plan for the guests:

Breakfast will be steel cut oats with apples and cinnamon made in the crock pot overnight. Bought two apples for $0.99.

Lunch, turkey sandwiches with carrots and apple slices. I purchased an oatmeal bread, turkey, mustard, cheese, and a tomato. I have mayo, onion, and lettuce. Leftovers can be used in the following days. My purchase here was $11.49.

Dinner, pasta and marinara sauce, roasted brussel sprouts and red potatoes. My mother is bringing pesto sauce, and I have one box and part of a used jar of sauce. I bought a box of pasta, ground beef, one jar of sauce, parmesan cheese, brussel sprouts and 3 lbs of red potatoes for this meal. These cost me $13.52. I expect there will be left over meat, pasta, cheese, and potatoes for future use.

Breakfast on Sunday, will be bagels purchased by my parents. I will donate peanut butter and butter as needed, as well as coffee. I have those on hand.

Lunch on Sunday I am making a Greek Quinoa salad. I have the quinoa, dressing items, and onions. My mom is bringing the olives. I picked up feta cheese, and grape tomatoes. These two items alone cost $6.98. This salad is very tasty and filling. I will put out leftover sandwich fixings as well.

I went to the store with a list. I purchased 4 things that were not on the list. One of them was a bag of almonds that will be a good snack to set out for our guests. I picked up our preferred spreadable butter on clearance. I know I will need this before the two weeks are up. I also picked up to large containers of yogurt. These are normally $3.29, marked down to $2.23 each and I had two $1 coupons, bringing them each to $1.23. The yogurt was reaching its expiration, but we will have it eaten in plenty of time.

I also picked up other things not listed here that will be part of our dinner tonight, and a meal or two through Monday or even Tuesday. I hope to only need to go to the store one more time before the two week low spend is over.

I almost always go with a list, it is sticking to it that I need to work on. Do you shop with a list? Do you shop your cupboards before you go shopping?

I think today is going to be the hardest spending day over the next two weeks. I need to go to the store in preparation for company. I want to make wise choices without going over board. It's my sister, brother in law and my parents. If we need something, or decide we want something I don't have, we'll just swing by the store. I tend to buy extra snacks, just in case, someone is hungry. I'm going to try not to do that.

My sister is coming primarily to run a 1/2 marathon. Her tradition is pasta the evening before, so that's cheap. A jar sauce and pasta. I may add ground beef to my list for my brother in law, my parents are vegan so they won't eat it. I should look at the grocery ads to see if anyone has a deal on that. I need a vegetable, too. Roasted asparagus sounds really good, but it is a bit expensive.

Sandwiches for lunch. So a loaf of bread, and one kind of lunch meat. I may pick up cheese as well. My daughter will eat the leftovers for her lunch next week. I will put out some carrots, and apple slices, too.

Clearly I'm back wards planning here, because breakfast is actually the first thing I will feed them. They arrive late this evening. The easiest thing to make is an egg casserole, but I usually add sausage, which increases the price. I could just do scrambled eggs, or steel cut oatmeal in the crockpot. I'm starting to lean towards the latter option since I have the ingredients.

I'll let you know the results of my grocery shopping and meal plan once it is complete. Before I even get to that I've got some bathrooms to clean and laundry to start.

I'm still open to inexpensive ideas for Mother's Day. What are you getting your Mom? Or do you get to skip giving a gift? I'm sure I could if needed.

Something has definitely gotten out of hand around here. I think we are doing some spontaneous spending that is adding up faster than we realize. Since my husband is going to be gone for over two weeks, I'm going to take the time to not spend...as much as possible.

Last pay period we were over budget by $477. Yikes. I did have to call for furnace repair which was $117. We signed our daughter up for some summer classes for $155. We bought some clothes, which was at least $65. The rest? Not so sure.

My goal is to spend less than $450 through May 15. I'm pretty sure I can do this, but I do see a few events that could make this difficult.

First, I have guests this weekend. However, they often bring some food with them, so it is not all on me. We will go to a band concert which will cost me $6 to get in. I expect they will pay their own way. I will have additional gas to get to a race my sister is running in a town south of us. The biggest expense is food, but I think I can do simple eggs in the morning, sandwiches at lunch, pasta for dinner, and have someone buy bagels for Sunday morning.

The following weekend is Mother's Day. I have the cards, but now need to think of inexpensive, yet thoughtful gifts. I thought of sewing something, but I would still have to mail the items to both my mom and my husband's mother. We have done gift cards for my mother in law so that is a possibility. I'd appreciate any ideas!

I returned some batteries to the store today. My husband purchased them for $19.99. Later I realized I could probably get them cheaper with my Amazon Prime membership. I was right. Amazon offered them for $12.71 shipped to our house. Love that!

We earned $24.73 in interest on our money market account for the month of April. I just save this money...adds to increasing the down payment money even if just a very little bit.

My eBay buyer's eCheck cleared today. I will net $8.99 on the sale. It will be added in as a snowflake, of course!

Anyone else on any kind of spending freeze, or is it just that time of year where the money flows out quickly?

I filled out and printed the transfer request to move my husbands Roth IRA at Fidelity to Vanguard. He signed the form and I will get it mailed tomorrow.

He has decided to invest most of it in the Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund. The rest will go in the 500 Index Fund. I tried to tempt him with the Vanguard REIT Index Fund, but he wasn't interested.

My husband still has a Traditional IRA account with Fidelity. It has a bit over $5,500 in it. This is his only Traditional IRA. I need to look into which fund would be right. The amount does meet the minimum investment, but not enough to put it into Admiral Shares. These shares usually have $10,000 minimums. I'm thinking the Total Stock Market Index or go a little more specialized with a Mid Cap Fund, which we currently do not have in our portfolio. I have time to look into it. I won't get this one started until later in the month.

The consolidation of investments has begun, and what is even better is that my husband thanked me for working on this. Isn't he nice to thank me for doing something I like to do?

April was a very nice month for little bits of money flowing in. It's hard to call them snowflakes in spring! The cash was from Swagbucks, a credit card bonus reward, refund of ATM fees, an eBay sale, and a Pinecone survey. The total for the month was $98.96!



I will have a jump start on May because I see this morning that another deposit was made from Swagbucks in my PayPal account. I also am waiting for my latest eBay purchase to clear since the buyer sent an eCheck.

The total for Snowflakes since the beginning of the year is $517.98. The goal is $750, which at this rate will be no problem by the time Christmas rolls around. Snowflake really do add up!!

Anyone have a new source of snowflakes? What would you say is your primary source of snowflakes? Right now mine seems to be Swagbucks, but in the past I would have said eBay sales.

I recently realized that I really would like most of our money at Vanguard. You really can't beat their low fees for investing.

Right now, we have money in four different places, between college funds and retirement. I would like to get it down to two. Vanguard and my husband's TSP.

The first one I will be dealing with is Fidelity. We only have Fidelity because that is where my husband's previous 401k was and we simply rolled it into an IRA and even moved most of it to a Roth IRA. Currently, Fidelity holds 15% of our total portfolio. And sadly, about 31% of that amount is in cash (which is 5% of our entire retirement portfolio).

My first step is to determine where at Vanguard I want to move the money. Since this is a small portion and we do not have any international investments, I think I will suggest to my husband we put it into the International Stock Index. Most of that will be in a Roth IRA, but about $5K is in a traditional IRA. The nice thing about moving retirement money around, is there is no tax implications...unless we convert the money from the IRA to the Roth. I don't think that is currently in the cards.

I will end up doing most of the work for this change, hopefully online. I will likely need a signature from my husband. And if he can agree to the change tonight or tomorrow than I can get any paperwork done this week, otherwise, I will need to wait until his annual training is over.

We have about $10K at American Funds. This is a loaded fund, which means you pay the broker/dealer every time you make a purchase into the fund...usually 5.75% of your purchase. The fund has to be doing pretty well to offset those kinds of fees! Luckily, we did not pay the fee on these, since at the time my father in law was the broker and he was able to invest us at NAV (Net Asset Value). We have a UTMA account for each of the girls and a Roth for my husband there. We haven't been adding to these accounts, so I think it is time to get them moved, too. I will work on these once Fidelity is completed. I need to think about any tax implications on the UTMA, each of them has less than $1500 there.

A new goal to work on, I'm excited!! Oh, and right now I'm thinking half of our down payment in a CD paying 1.2% for 15 months, and the other half in Vanguard Dividend Growth Fund (VDIGX). If we put less in the fund, we have less exposure to market risk, but still an opportunity to benefit from the market. If we lose money, it could change our plans for housing, but it isn't a huge deal at this point for us. We will be accumulating more cash in the mean time too!

Do you have your investments in one place? If not, how many different companies do you do your investing with?

I don't even know really what we have been spending our money on! It just seems like there is no money left at the end of the pay period. Payday is Wednesday and I don't expect to spend much of anything. I have enough gas, not sure about my husband though.

I need to pay the flute teacher $20 if my daughter feels up to going. She came down with a very rough cold this weekend. She will text me after band today to let me know whether she wants to go to the lesson. I'd actually like to save the money.

My husband leaves for his annual training later this week and will be gone a good portion of the month. I hope he won't have time to spend much money there. This could mean some extra savings. I hope!

I will pay bills tomorrow and hope there is some money that can be saved. Of course, I'm very grateful that we are not going into debt. We always have the cash to cover our needs and clearly some wants.

I have one item on Ebay that ends this morning. It will sell, so that is some money flowing in! It's all good, right?

I ran across

this article on Yahoo today, where the couple paid off $50,000 of debt in one year by living on less than half their income, living with their parents, and having a grocery list of ten items.

The grocery list of ten items was: eggs, milk, bread, chicken, salmon, broccoli, brussel sprouts, asparagus, berries and oatmeal.

Could you live on just these ten food items for one year? I actually think I could. Just not sure about the rest of the family!

I'm still researching and pondering this down payment investment. I briefly mentioned putting the down payment money into a stock fund to my husband. He seemed surprised. I did tell him I wasn't sure yet, so I think he just let it be.

If only we could know the future or expect future results based on prior returns...but we can't. I know that if I lock the money into a CD for 15 months I can get 1.50%. Maybe I should be happy with that given interest rates.

I went to Vanguard again to use a tool they have to suggest recommended investments. Including our risk tolerance, investment time frame the tool suggested 60% in the Bond Index, 28% in Total Stock Market Index, and 12% in International Stock Index.

This is slightly different from another recommendation the site gave me another time. I think that time I put in a longer time before withdrawal. Likely three years rather than 2 year or less that I picked this time.

I tend to like the newer suggestion only because only some of the money is put in stocks to take advantage of market appreciation. The rest stays in bonds were it is likely to be more stable while interest rates are this low.

I really am aware that putting money that we need or may want to use in 2 years in the stock market is generally a big no. I can't ever see myself advising anyone else to do that same investment for such a short period of time, but right now all I am doing is pondering my options.

I'm just so frustrated with low interest rates! And I don't want inflation to erode the purchasing power of this money. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is looking for something better.

I appreciate everyone's interest and input in the topic. Feel free to share more ideas and thoughts. will not be deciding anything this week. In fact, I have company coming and a small trip planned and hope to even get out in the yard and enjoy spring this weekend.

I've been looking into high yield dividend mutual funds as a possibility for investing our down payment money for the next house. This would be an alternative to keeping the money in our money market account paying 0.85%.

Blue Chip stocks are those companies that are generally worth billions, thus established in their field, often a household name, and pay steady or rising dividends each year (paraphrased from

Investopedia). The mutual funds I'm looking at invest in these blue chip stocks, like Coca Cola, IBM, UPS, and Exxon.

The returns on these funds the last few years are definitely better than the 0.85% we are getting on our money market. Of course, the money market account is less risky than stocks. Stocks do fluctuate, thus that risk scares me a little bit given this is a short term investment of 2 years...maybe 3.

I do need to convince my husband it is the right thing to do. I think he will trust my judgement. Thus I really need to convince myself!!

Generally, this isn't something I would advise anyone to do because of the risk, but with additional risk, often comes additional reward. Does anyone reading this know of anything that should keep me from taking the risk of investing in a Dividend Growth fund?

I'm looking at VDIGX and VDAIX, which are both held at Vanguard. Both have 5 star ratings from Morningstar. If we had held VDIGX two years ago, our money would have increased by nearly $7K by now. However, if our two year period was April 2007 to today, we would have lost $6,700 from our initial investment.

The dividends that are paid would be reinvested to buy more shares, and would be taxed just like ordinary income, which is no different than if we earned interest. If someone were to hold this fund in a retirement account, those reinvested dividends are tax deferred until retirement.

I feel positive about the over all outlook, so I think it should be a buy. What do you think? Anything else I should look at?

I checked my spam folder tonight, which I rarely do. Turns out I was receiving Pinecone Survey requests in the last couple weeks. I just didn't know it since they were in my spam folder! I was able to complete one survey tonight, but it seems I missed out on a couple others.

I wonder if this explains why I still have not been paid for returning a product to them. Maybe they thought I was inactive. Well, I'm active again as of tonight and will receive my $3 tomorrow in my PayPal account.

All Pinecone Survey money is added to my Snowflakes for Christmas fund. I was able to redeem my Swagbucks today for $25 in my PayPal account. I hope I receive that money by the end of the month, so I can count it towards this months snowflake total!

The only thing I have purchased since Sunday is gas for my van. I must not have filled up my van the last couple of weeks, because gas prices seemed lower to me. It still cost me over $50 to fill up my tank. I need to fill up about every 7-8 days right now.

That's all the news from here for now!

I noticed that I have some rewards with USAA. One was a $25 credit on our credit card statement for having spent over $250 at a home improvement store. We purchased a storm door, which easily helped us reach the goal for that reward. I will pay off the card and add $25 to our Christmas fund by the end of the month.

We also have accumulated enough reward points with USAA to redeem for $25. I will wait to redeem those until later in the year and hope there are more points to redeem at that time.

I plan to put two to three items up on Ebay tomorrow night. The proceeds will be added to our Christmas fund as well.

I've decided that if I accumulate more than $1000 in snowflakes this year, that I will put the remainder elsewhere. My first instinct is to put the money towards our mortgage, but the second thought is to start using it to fund vacations. Once I get to the $1K mark, I will decide for sure.

I'm also very close to earning that next $25 from Swagbucks that I will redeem for PayPal cash. It will take another three to four days most likely as I'm at 1925 SB's.

Anyone earning any great snowflakes, credit or debit card rewards? Selling on Ebay or craigslist?

I'm slow. I'm still investigating options for cash we have on hand. Right now the money is in a money market account, earning 0.85%.

I started noticing how many credit unions exist around our area. I'm taking note of the names and locations and researching online. One credit union has a 36 month CD for 1.50% which seems really good. Or I could really lock the money up with a 60 month CD at 2.0%.

However, this money is what we are holding on to for our next down payment. Which we might need in about 2 years at the earliest. So I'd be better looking at a 16 month special CD rate of 1.05%.

The rates just aren't that exciting. I want more interest!! I will do something soon, just still haven't decided.

What is the best interest rate you are getting on your cash? Is it with a credit union, bank or other institution? How long do you have to keep your money invested without a penalty?

Home repairs that you don't plan are never fun. Turns out our furnace wasn't turning on this morning. It was just 2 degrees lower than where it normally is set. My husband noticed first since he is ultra sensitive to cold...it would have taken me hours to notice it wasn't coming on.

We did try to figure out the problem on our own before calling someone. This furnace is very new since we are the first owners of the home. Our first thought was the breaker because we had so much lightening yesterday. But no go there.

In the end we decided to call someone out. Luckily this is a slow time of year for the repair people. He arrived within 30 minutes of my call. We needed a new pressure switch. The switch wasn't allowing the furnace to come on fully for safety reasons. We did get the warranty rate on the part, but with the service call and labor our total cost to have heat running again was $117.

Not terrible, but not where I would prefer to spend $117. I put it on a credit card for the rewards and will pay it off on May 1.

I'm really looking forward to have the heat turned off completely. I think we usually have ours off by mid May at the latest. The way this spring is going with the colder weather, I don't know if that will happen. When do you typically turn your heat off for the season? Is this year typical for you?

While I was at the gym today, I thought if one ever needed to lower their water bill that showering at the gym would help. Of course, that assumes you have access to a gym and that it wouldn't be costing you MORE to shower there.

I completed a Pinecone survey on a item that I got to try at home. I was required to return it by mail. I expect I will get compensated in the next week, after they have received it. That will go to the snowflakes for Christmas.

I got a quote on flood insurance. Coverage for our home was $458 per year. It said we were a medium risk for flooding. This town is actually recovering from a major flood from almost 5 years ago. We are not in a flood plain, but when it rains the water is quick to fill up in low lying areas...including a mini stream through our back yard. Not sure that we need the insurance, but at least I know what it might cost.

We are still waiting to hear about my husband's promotion. It could be another two months before we know, but I sure would like to know sooner than later!

I made a conscious effort to make all my long distance phone calls on my cell phone last month. Didn't even go over the limit. Easy. Except for people calling me, it does make me think that I could go to cell service entirely. At one time, I was interested in fiber optic phone service through Ooma. It is a significant upfront cost of over $150. Of course, this would be recouped with lower bills. We will definitely spend more by keeping our land line. Why it is so hard to cut the cord on a land line?

I plan to list at least two items on Ebay Sunday. One is a DVD set for a tv show. We bought it used on Ebay earlier this year and I expect I can sell it at the same price I bought it at. With the fees, I will recoup only part of that, but most is better than none. This show is now on Netflix if we decide to watch the episodes again.

I had considered taking four hour road trip this weekend, but decided there will be plenty of those trips coming up this summer for a graduation and a birthday. I decided we better stay home and save the cost of fuel and snacks. We do have some things to get done around the house.

I hope to earn another $25 PayPal fund from Swagbucks by the end of the month. I'm at 1336, so just need another 1164 in the next 13 days. That should be no problem.

Oh, the big money news, is that we saved $307 this pay period. We put it in our savings account. I would have liked to have saved more, but the storm door and our anniversary outing did dip into those extra funds we had. I'll take the three hundred and be grateful!

That the money news from here. I'll be back tomorrow...if I don't get washed away in all this rain!

I went to Menard's today to have our storm door price adjusted. We purchased the door for $299 plus tax. At the time there was an 11% rebate promotion going on, so I did send that in. The day after we purchased the door, it was on sale for $269. Whoa. A 10% mark down.

Menard's is a home improvement store if you aren't familiar with the name. They are interesting in that any rebates they offer come back to you in the form of a merchandise credit check. This can only be used in their stores.

Right now we have about $40 worth of rebates being processed, plus today I had the door price adjusted which resulted in another credit at the store in the amount of about $32!

I'm sure we will be buying more things there as summer arrives, so not a big deal that the money is a credit, but sometimes I really wish they would just give cash back!!

Do you like cash back as store credit or cash? Are you aware of Menard's? Do you like the store, or prefer others?

I went to Menard's today to have our storm door price adjusted. We purchased the door for $299 plus tax. At the time there was an 11% rebate promotion going on, so I did send that in. The day after we purchased the door, it was on sale for $269. Whoa. A 10% mark down.

Menard's is a home improvement store if you aren't familiar with the name. They are interesting in that any rebates they offer come back to you in the form of a merchandise credit check. This can only be used in their stores.

Right now we have about $40 worth of rebates being processed, plus today I had the door price adjusted which resulted in another credit at the store in the amount of about $32!

I'm sure we will be buying more things there as summer arrives, so not a big deal that the money is a credit, but sometimes I really wish they would just give cash back!!

Do you like cash back as store credit or cash? Are you aware of Menard's? Do you like the store, or prefer others?

Today is April 15th. The deadline to file your tax return is today.

So did everyone get their taxes done, or expect them to be done by the end of the day? Or did you have to file an extension? Let us know in the comments where you stand!