Creditcardfree's Personal Finance Blog

We use McAfee internet protection software on our computer. We have been notified a few times recently that it is about to expire. Two years ago, I received a free one year subscription from our mortgage company, a large bank. Last year I renewed it...for probably around $35. This year the renewal rate is the same.

I could have just paid it the rate and moved on. Today, I took the time search for a better deal. I went to our main bank USAA and noticed that I could get upgraded protection for $40.50. For two years! Sign me up. I used that credit card that should now have a $5+ credit on it from yesterday Kohl's return, to bring my out of pocket expense down even further.

I think there are free resources out there as well, but I have found McAfee to be very, very reliable. Do you pay for internet protection?

I ran errands this morning in the very cold wind! Eek. I returned a shirt I bought my husband for Christmas. I noticed he wasn't wearing it and he confirmed he didn't really like it. I got a good deal when I bought it, so I received $5.56 back to the Chase card I bought it with. Now I have a credit on that card...and I was getting close to closing that one!

I also returned some buttons for $1.96 cash back. I bought Velcro at Walmart instead for $0.84. The difference will likely go to the Christmas fund. I picked up packets of vitamin C at Walmart. I usually buy these at Target. Turns out Target charges $1 more! Annoying since I really prefer to shop Target. Thankful for the savings today.

I bought hair product for my daughter. Hair products that keep our frizzy, curly hair intact are a big priority. The product retails for $16. It was on sale for Buy 2, get 1 free and I have a $3.50 coupon. My total was $30.49. Each tube cost us just over $10 and lasts about 1 month. We are stocked up again.

At my daughter's flute lesson today, I am going to cancel next weeks lesson. We are going to be out of town for an appointment earlier in the day. It will be too rushed to make it back on time. I'm sure the teacher would like to reschedule, but I'm going to pass and apply the $20 lesson fee to some music that we have on order.

That the money tidbits for today!

I have already earned my five $5 Amazon gift cards on Swagbucks this month. I am now accumulating points towards a $25 Paypal deposit by the end of the month. I need to average about 110 Swagbucks per day to meet the goal.

I am adding $6.03 to the Christmas fund. This is the ATM rebate money and interest from our bank for the current month.

I will make a small grocery run today. I know we have enough things on hand for two evening meals. I just need to get some lunch items for the girls and my husband. I will make a bigger store run later in the week. I will pick up the Valentine's candy then. I also plan to make my cards for the girls and my husband. Unfortunately, I know he already bought me a card that cost $5. Ugh!

My sister gave me four, or maybe six, curtain panels that are a bright cheery stripe pattern. I will make one into a cover for her dog's bed. I will make button holes on the six tab tops, add the buttons I bought for less than $2, and it will actually close! It is a lot of fabric but would work well for napkins, or fabric bins. I will probably be sick of the pattern by the time I'm done using it! But she gave it to me for free so I hope to make the best of it.

I'm enjoying the free sample of cat litter, but I know that I wouldn't buy it if it came out on the market. Odor good, but messy. The sample means I haven't had to dig into the new bag I bought 10 days ago.

I finally used up a lotion, one conditioner, and two shampoo bottles. I'm working on another shampoo and a small body wash sample.

I spent $30 on jeans for my youngest daughter at Old Navy yesterday. We all get by on two pairs at a time. She has grown since the last pairs were purchased and one was about to get a hole in the knee. I would have liked to have waited until the end of the month because I think I may be earning a $20 reward! The only thing we buy there is her jeans at this point. And this may actually be the last set, since she is about ready for junior sizes and we have found their women's jeans aren't that great for my older daughter. If I get that reward, I may have to purchase another set, and then return them with my first receipt. Do you think that is acceptable?

Today we are making heart shaped sugar cookies. I splurged and bought the Wilton frosting that comes out like liquid by firms up soon after decorating. It was about $4. Maybe I could make that at home...I'm not a frosting expert. It will make for some fun on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

We did redeem our free Papa Murphy's pizza last night. Yummy!

Are you doing anything frugal today?

Last I reported here, we were going to owe the Federal government $161. Things have changed...for the better.

First, I realized I had entered in our locality tax incorrectly. Instead of 1%, I was entering the full tax rate of 7%. That sure made it look like we had much more sales tax to deduct than the tables indicated. I was confused about that one for some time! That error was not in our favor, and it looked like we owed $271. I was okay with this since this more accurately matched my estimate I computed this summer.

Today we received in the mail a 1098 from our mortgage lender. It seemed odd to me, since we already had it emailed to us. At the bottom, and on the form itself, it was noted this was a correct 1098. Apparently, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 extended mortgage deduction for mortgage insurance premiums. This figure was added to our form.

We took out our first VA loan this time around, which requires a 'funding fee' paid to the Department of Veteran's affairs. This was actually mortgage insurance and it turns out is fully deductible this year! That means that once I add in the figure, we are now deducting quite a bit more from our income tax (read: more than the standard deduction) and have a refund. A refund of $434.

Weird how these things work out sometimes. That is a net change of $705. Once we have the refund in hand, I'm going to add the amount we would have owed the IRS to it and knock down the truck loan a bit more.

We are still waiting for the 1099INT from Sharebuilder, where I earned $75 in interest last year. It should be here this time next week. I have already included it in my calculations, but want the form in hand before I file.

Have you had any good news on the tax front?

I made our goals very early in January and didn't give them a lot of thought. In fact, I still haven't!

One of our goals is to save 15% of our gross income for retirement. Some was to go to my husband's TSP, and the rest to max out our Roth IRA's. Turns out what we are actually saving for retirement is 17.3% of my husband's gross income. Clearly we were saving more than 15% before his raise and increased Roth IRA contributions limits! I just didn't realize it. Another good reason to automate savings.

Another goal was to save at least $500 for each of our daughter's college funds. I thought the $2000 limit for Coverdall IRA (ESA's) was expiring last year, which would have put the limit back to $500. Now we are on track to save them each $2000 in their college funds.

We are saving nearly 22% of our income for retirement and college. Amazing! Do you know how much as a percentage of your income you are saving? Doesn't take long to do a quick calculation.

My snowflakes for February are starting to add up. I have already redeemed $10 worth of Amazon.com gift cards through Swagbucks. I have enough to redeem another $5, and will likely have enough for another $5 AGC very soon. If you followed that math, I'm looking at $20 in Amazon credit for February so far!

I can see I will get paid from Ebates on February 15. It's only $3.28, but I know these small amounts add up big by the end of the year, so I will take it.

I've thought of another way to save small amounts of money. It is our own money, but I would funnel it towards the Christmas Snowflake Fund. My husband often goes to an ATM that charges him $1, occasionally $2, for withdrawal. Our bank, USAA, reimburses us each month, up to $15, for these fees. Luckily he never goes over that limit...thus I do not complain. When these are reimbursed, I will take that amount and add it to our Christmas Fund. This will easily be another $5 per month on average. We usually get a couple pennies of interest at the same time, so I might as well throw those in there too!

Do you have any new sources of snowflakes you would like to share?

Oh boy! The electric bill arrived in my inbox this morning. It is nearly $50 higher than last month. Yikes! The full bill amount is $179. Last month it was $131. There are some factors at play. Very cold month, with many days in single digits. I also know my husband has been increasing the temperature quite often when he is around. We also have space heaters that we have used in our bathroom and in our basement. I'm guessing those are not as efficient as the furnace.

The gas bill was up by about $35 as well. Luckily, we have the cash to pay our bills. We will attempt to adjust accordingly. I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable in our home.

I look forward to July, when I hope the utility companies can put us on a budget billing cycle. We will have been in this home for one year. I much prefer that method financially.

I will be grateful for all the warmer days to come. Is your weather warming or cooling this week?

I sent in a big fat principal payment of $480 today. That brings our truck balance to $3226.02. We are getting closer to that next milestone, which will come mid February when our regular payment posts.

I mentioned how I've been contemplating just paying off the balance in our cash account and then paying ourselves back. Most of you thought we should just do it. MonkeyMama's gut says I will pay it off once it gets under $2K to $3K. I think her gut is right! You know me too well. Once this next payment hits I'll see how it feels to send in a lump sum and be done once and for all.

There is no major risk to taking this cash out. We have plenty on hand for major emergencies. If it were to drain us in a big big way, I would not even consider it.

Less debt on payday always makes me happy!

We have a credit card that my husband uses for work expenses. He had charged about $25, and the other day I noticed the balance was under $10 on that card. I looked it up and found a credit of $15.56. I inquired and this goes all the way back to July when we noticed some odd charges on the card that were not ours. They switched card numbers for us, and moved the balance over, but did not get to the credit for one of the charges until this week! This was shortly after our move, so I was not keeping track that closely. Nice surprise!

Payday is tomorrow. We were left with just over $12 from our regular budget money. I will make sure to put that money where it counts!

I had an offer from Sharebuilder to deposit at least $10K and get $75. Deposit $25K and get $150. Tempting, but I could not tell how much interest their accounts pay in addition to the bonus. I have some cash I could put in the account but I would like to know the interest rate. I did some searching, but was only coming up with margin interest rates. I know I will not pay those fees. I do not expect to be using the money to buy any investments, so the money would just be sitting in cash. I did put the promotion code in my account, since it expired today. I have until late March to put the money in. In the meantime, I think I will skip it, since I cannot find the interest rate.

I renewed our newspaper subscription. I purchased our first three months with airline miles. Unfortunately, it seems to be a one time offer. I paid nearly $65 for 13 weeks of the daily newspaper. The girls love to read the comics. My older daughter watches for local high school news and pictures. I glance at it everyday. I think it is helpful to have the local paper when you first move to a new town. It helps you understand the issues in the community, as well as, local events. It was hard to make that payment though. I will revist the need for the paper when it comes up for renewal in May.

We are having an artic blast here. The roads are very icy, the wind is blowing and drifting the snow from Wednesday. It was negative 17 degrees with the windchill earlier today. It will get even colder tonight. As you can guess our furnace is running quite a bit!!

And that my friends are my financial musings for the day. You all come back again!

The market has been zooming in January, along with all of last year. It appears to be down today as I write this, but yesterday was a milestone. The total value of our retirement accounts has reached just over $200,000! It has only taken 37 months to make this second 100 grand. We will take it, and watch to see how long it takes to get to the next milestone.

You might check your retirement accounts today, to see how much as changed recently. You might be surprised. And don't forget to keep investing! Or start now, if you have not started yet.

At this point, I think I have a finalized total for January snowflakes. I can't say I tried to hard to accumulate them. I only sold one book and that was already listed before January on Half.com. I have not been motivated yet to get my Ebay sales listed.



Pinecone Surveys and Swagbucks were instrumental to my total this month. The Target gift cards I accumulated for stocking up on some good deals like toilet paper and laundry detergent were a nice bonus too.

Again, I didn't try to hard, but yet I found nearly $100 to save for next years Christmas gifts. Did you find any snowflakes to save this month?

This thought has entered my mind several times in the last two weeks: We have enough money in cash that we could pay off the truck today. It would still leave us with plenty of cash for other emergencies, too.

I think the thought comes from impatience. I want to be done with the loan. I spend too much time making calculations as to how soon I can pay it off. I'm annoying myself!!

The pros: We own the truck free and clear. We pay no more interest on the loan. I don't have to make calculations and record the loan. We still have plenty of emergency fund money. We will have only mortgage debt.

The cons: We have to use emergency cash. We lose interest on the cash (although it's very little). I have to focus on paying ourselves back...which will require calculations, too.

I suppose I would need to consider any risk to this payoff scenario. I did read on USAA's website, that with the fiscal cliff negotiations looming, there is a higher probability of a government shutdown. This could lead to a delay of pay for the amount of time it takes. It might be nice to have that truck loan cash on hand if that occurred.

I won't decide right away. Payday is later this week. I expect to send in close to $450 to the truck loan at that time. Once mid month rolls around I expect the loan to be under $3K in a very short time.

I'm off to do more calculating. What would you do if this option was open to you? Pay off with cash on hand, and repay to your savings? Or just keep working to pay it down and off fast?

ETA: Interest rate is 3.39%, balance is $3706.02, regular payment is $329.13, and we have about $900 extra a month to send to the loan.

I've been using HR Block online tax software to file our tax return today. I'm not real thrilled with their set up. I'm using them because it is free to military personnel. I usually use Turbo Tax, and I would highly suggest it to anyone who isn't tax savvy.

I had estimated we would owe over $600 when I realized we received a 1099G from our state for last years tax refund. We did itemize, and generally this would be taxable. However, we used the sales tax method rather than income tax on our Schedule A. Sales tax deduction apparently isn't taxable the next year, like it would be if we used our state income tax. We use the sales tax because my husband's income is exempt from income tax in our state. This changes the amount we owe to about $161. I have one more interest income statement to add, that is only for $75, so it won't change too much.

I was most annoyed with HR Block's state return portion because it asked for type of employment. I clicked military. Yet, the calculator was still showing his entire income as taxable, even though it should be exempt. I had to change it in an adjustments to income part of our return. It wasn't obvious at all. I did find it, but I think it is confusing to the average user. I even had to fill in the amount that was tax exempt. I think Turbo Tax handled it better last year if I remember right.

I like that the amount is much lower than I thought. I hope to have the return finalized in mid February. I'm always jumping around from different software options to get the best deal. I prefer free! Do you use the same software every year, or jump around to get the lowest price?

I think I'm pretty frugal when it comes to my beauty regimen. Part of it comes from what I'm willing to put on and in my body, and the rest come just from being frugal.

I use the following everyday:
Bar Soap
Shampoo
Conditioner
Deodorant (happens to last nearly a year)
Mousse
Lotion
Toothpaste
All in one contact solution

I use a razor and make the blade last. If I start getting small cuts, I know it's time to replace. I have the same razor handle since college.

I wear makeup only a couple times a month. I have one of each in my makeup bag:
Eye shadow
Eye liner
Blush
Lipstick
Liquid foundation
Loose powder

I used a hair dryer. Pull my hair back in a headband, or pony tail. I never use hair color or have my hair dyed. It's natural (and yes, there are a few gray hairs). I have two nail polish colors that I will wear on my toenails in the summer months. The rest of the year, nothing! Yes, I own a metal nail file, handed down from my mother.

I have a body spray my husband gave me a couple years ago. I wear it a couple times a month. I don't know if you have read, but 'fragrance' as an ingredient could be anything. Companies don't have to disclose where it comes from.

I probably won't win a beauty pageant, but I haven't scared anyone away with my looks or my smell yet! This routine does cost money, but by many women's standards it does tend to the low end. Do you have a frugal beauty routine? How much do you think you spend on your hygiene? Could you find a way to spend less, or skip part of your routine?

I'm waiting on one tax form now that my husband's W2 showed up on DFAS today. I'm waiting for an interest statement from Sharebuilder.

Way back in December of 2011, I opened an account with them for a bonus of $75. I earned the money in 2012. I withdrew the money and did something with it...it's probably on my blog somewhere. I don't think I put in the Christmas fund though. Anyway......it's now 2013 and I'm waiting for that tax form. The Sharebuilder website states it will be available by February 15. I'm hoping sooner. I don't know why I'm so excited to do our taxes. I already know we have to pay.

I'm planning to use an HR block website this year. I found that on Military One Source it is free to file our Federal return and up to 3 state returns. I like free!

How do you plan to do your taxes this year?
If your adjusted gross income is under $57,000 you are eligible to file your Federal tax return for free, per the

I don't follow our retirement accounts too closely, but I did record the values at year end and then looked again last night before the markets opened up again today. And they were up again today!

We have a good portion in the S&P 500 index fund and it is up 4.65% since December 31. That doesn't seem like much, but once you reach that century mark of $100K, things start moving up pretty fast. We are closing in our next $100K...so will be watching for the day that it does that.

We are dollar cost averaging our purchases in every month with automatic investment and payroll deduction. It makes it so easy to invest and not think too much about it. How do you invest for your retirement? Payroll deductions, auto invest, mail a check? Lump sum or dollar cost average?

We are experiencing cold cold weather here in the midwest today. We have wind gusts up to 30 miles per hour which makes for negative wind chills. My husband and girls are home from school for the holiday. We watched the inauguration this morning by the gas fireplace. But it is now off. The furnace is running at it's regular temperature of 69 degrees. I ate leftover mushroom barley soup for lunch and actually feel toasty warm.

The cold weather will keep us inside, except to go to my daughter's flute lesson, where I'll drop her teacher a $20 bill. We are keeping ourselves entertained. My husband is has been taking an online class for work. The girls have been drawing, writing, reading books and generally hanging out. I can hear them laughing in one of the bedrooms.

A low spend day, no needs or wants. It's all good!

I've been trying to pay attention to the things I do that are frugal. I know I do them, and often take them for granted. I figure someone may find them useful.

I made my grocery list for the week while taking inventory of my cupboards. I found cream of wheat,barley, frozen onion/celery, refried beans, pasta, and ground beef. Luckily, I won't be using those for one dish! I'm going to use the cream of wheat up for my breakfast this week and maybe even next! I will add a pound of mushrooms to make mushroom barley soup, which will include the onion and celery. We will have taco dip. I had to buy sour cream, tomatoes and tortilla chips. The pasta and ground beef will go together. I picked up fresh green beans to eat with it. It does help to use what you have on hand!

I cut open a tube of lotion this morning. It was enough for one more rub down after my shower. I also scavenged the bottle of lotion my husband threw in the trash. I will use the remainder he failed to use for tomorrow. I will also recycle the bottle rather than throw it away. (He does have some bad habits.)

I combined trips today, to save on gas. I went by the library to drop off books on my way to the grocery store. I noticed on my way to the library there is a dry cleaner nearby. I like that we don't have dry clean clothes, thus no money needs to be spent there.

I did three loads of laundry. I used half the amount of soap, and half a dryer sheet for each load, since we have soft water.

Other than coffee, I drank water today. Straight from the tap. I even took my own water bottle to the gym.

We have spent part of our evening listening to music we already own, watching broadcast television and one quick show on Netflix. Simple, inexpensive entertainment. I will probably read my library book right before bed, too.

What did you do today that was frugal?

My husband, daughter and I went flute shopping yesterday. We have upgraded her from her first flute to an intermediate flute, which has the silver head joint and open holed keys. She was very excited.

The flute is a brand new Yamaha. We paid $1,478 plus tax. We asked our daughter to pay 10% (before tax) of her own money, just so she would have a little skin in the game. Her portion was $148. Our portion ends up being $1433.46.

We did put the purchase on our Chase Freedom card. We will earn 1% on the purchase in rewards. We will pay the balance from our savings account. My plan is to pay ourselves back over the course of the year. I thought of opening a card with 0% interest, since I have seen a few offers for 18 months financing. However, I didn't want another card, or the hassle of making the payment on their terms. We have the cash and are not earning much of anything on it, so might as well just pay ourselves back as the year progresses.

We did not trade in her original flute because she will have two more years of marching band. Marching band is hard on instruments, since they are out there sweating while they play them, laying them on the turf, the sidewalk, and so forth. The new flute will be her concert flute. The sound is so pretty and will be awesome to hear her play her solo piece in the acoustic friendly concert hall our district has.

Did you play an instrument in high school? Do you still own it? If not, what did you do with your instrument after you stopped playing?

I did a rough estimate of taxes owed to the US Federal Government this morning using Turbo Tax TaxCaster. As I expected we will owe money. The estimate is $623. I can handle that.

I did an estimate this summer and came up with $262 that we would owe. However, as with many estimates, it didn't include a few things. I did not include last years state tax refund, which was over $2K, or some of the interest we earned. I just forgot about these when I did my estimate.

We also paid far less in real estate taxes this year because we moved into a new home where the full value of the home has yet to be taxed. This means we don't have enough expenses to itemize. Usually we have about $13,000 in expenses we can itemize, but not this year, just under the standard deduction of $11,900 by a few hundred dollars.

Since I have three months until this money is owed. I will be setting aside $100 for the next 6 pay periods, including the last one on April 15th. I will make payment that day.

I feel better knowing the amount. I realize it could change slightly, but I think this estimate is right on target and includes everything this time around. We shouldn't have to owe as much next year...unless my husband gets promoted. In that case, I will likely have to change his withholding, since we will be in a different tax bracket.

Maybe I can find a credit card to charge this payment on and get a cash bonus! Or does the government charge extra to process credit cards over debit cards? What is the most you have ever owed the government at tax time?

Our regular payment to the truck loan was processed yesterday in the amount of $329.13. We paid only $13.67 in interest; $315.46 went to principal.

The principal is now under $4K, with a balance of $3,706.02. Yipee! More progress. Always makes me happy!!

On a side note, I remembered a frugal happening from last week. I used the ends of the bread to make my toast. I hate to admit I often throw these out. I have saved them in the past to make bread crumbs, but we don't really make anything that needs bread crumbs anymore. Do you eat the ends of your bread? If not, do you throw out or reuse?

We are getting more tax forms in the mail. We received our 1099G from the state and W2 from the Army for taxable moving expenses. Our money market account posted our 1099INT online yesterday.

Things are rolling in. I'm not too excited about doing our taxes this year. I'm pretty sure we are going to owe money. The sooner I get them done, the sooner I will know the damage.

I think next week my husband's W2 should be available. Once it is I will start working. If we owe, I will be waiting until April to send in the money!

Do you have any of your tax documents? Do you have everything already?

I read on

Yesterday, while I disconnected from the internet, Chase kindly closed our statement for the month and award our account with the promised $400 in rewards!!

Our rewards balance this morning was 43,852, which included previous rewards, regular spending rewards and the bonus rewards. Those rewards equal $438.52 in cash. I decided to apply the rewards to our card as a statement credit, since the card does have a balance in excess of the reward amount. The remainder balance will, as ALWAYS, be paid off before the due date so that we don't accrue zero interest.

Now that I don't have to send in $438.52 to Chase, that money is sitting in our checking account. What to do? What to do? Of course, I sent it in to the truck loan! Are you kidding me? That has been the plan all along.

I actually sent in $478.52. The extra $40 is because of my husband's pay increase. Much of the pay increase went to increase our Roth IRA investments so we can meet the new $5500 limit this year. But the leftover, will go to debt.

The new balance on the truck loan is $4,021.48. After tomorrow's regular payment posts the balance will be below $4K!! Thanks Chase for the rewards bonus or as we like to call them here on Saving Advice...the snowflake.

Did you send a snowflake to debt this week?

I had a disconnect day, or a day unplugged from my computer yesterday. Looks like it was a good day to be off the computer with the site not running correctly! I did try to post Monday night about my plans for my disconnect day, but the site didn't accept my post. I did learn SA was changing servers.

The morning was productive. I did get to the gym. I did get meal planning done, and a grocery list made. I then made it to the store before lunch, which is rare for me these days. The rest of the day wasn't as productive, but probably needed rest time. I spent time reading a book and took a nap! I did talk to one of my daughters for what seems like quite awhile in the evening...she was in a good mood and I was 'available'. That is a positive!

I did run into a few minor problems without my computer. First thing I realized as I made my breakfast, was that I could not log into the computer to record my calories. I did write them down in the morning, but failed to write the rest of the days calories down.

I wasn't able to look up the ingredients for a recipe that I keep online, therefore, I wasn't able to purchase those items at the store. I will be making another trip later in the week for those items.

I had planned to work on my sister's lap quilt. I've never made one before, and the idea was from a blog online. I have the materials, but really wanted to look up the beginning steps. Since I didn't have access, I left that off my to do list.

We received a bill for our newspaper subscription in the mail. We originally signed up and paid with airline miles. I believe this is a one time offer. The prices seemed high for 7 days, so I wanted to see what the other options were...but one can't do that on a disconnect day.

Luckily, none of these were life and death emergencies. Life went one. It was calmer, more focused, but maybe less productive than I originally thought. Do you think you could disconnect from the internet and your computer for a full day? If you have done this experiment before, what did you think of it?

I woke late. My husband off to a battle assembly weekend of work. My girls starting to stir awake. I appreciated that the newspaper, paid for with airline miles, had been brought in out of the cold.

I warmed up water on the stove for tea. This is the start of a new habit. Tea instead of coffee and sugar. I enjoyed the first warm cup while I read the paper and clipped a couple coupons. Since I'm still working on the coffee change, I did break down and warmed up a cup of yesterday's leftover coffee and still added sugar. I purposely didn't make a new pot of coffee, because I expect that would have led to more than one cup of coffee.

I did not take a cold shower, which is too frugal for me, but used the conditioner I bought a year ago, since I never finished it. Curly hair can be stubborn at times, and requires a change of product, before said product has been used.

I have spent an hour or so reading my library book. It's a chick lit book, in my opinion, and not one I would normally pick. This author has grabbed my attention with her story telling. This is the third one of hers I have borrowed from the library and she has a few others I hope to read. I'm grateful for access to a library and the savings it brings to many.

We stayed home today, so we didn't use gas! We have played games, video and board. One daughter is drawing and using Photo Shop; the other is enjoying listening to a movie soundtrack she purchased with her iTunes gift card.

I took some time out to use some of my sewing skills today, too. I repaired a couple seams on two tote bags the girls use. I also began and finished a repair on my husband's uniform. He purchased hook and loop tape so that I could replace it with some that had lost it's ability to hook! I pulled off the old, and replaced the new. I actually had to partially remove two sleeve pockets in order to attach two of the pieces. Kind of a pain, but the repair did save a uniform shirt, which retails for about $40.

The other frugal event at our home today was laundry. Two big loads washed in cold water, with half the amount of detergent. We get away with less soap because of our soft water.

The sun has set and I see a dinner of pasta and vegetables in our near future. While the water boils, I will chop up some leftover celery and onion, and flash freeze it for a future soup. No waste today.

What did you do today that is considered frugal?

I'm waiting for our most recent Chase Sapphire credit card statement to close in order to receive our bonus reward of $400. The statement should close on Monday.

Currently we about $30 in rewards. So with the bonus, we should have $430+ in rewards to redeem. My plan is to have the rewards credited to the account, rather than receiving a check. I will then use the money I would have sent to Chase towards are truck loan. It doesn't quite feel the same as receiving a check, but it really is the same thing. The checks just take to long.

I closed the first Chase Sapphire card this last week. They mailed a special envelope to return the cards since they have metal embedded into them. It's been so funny to hand the card to cashiers who clearly notice the difference in the card because of the metal. I actually inquired as to how to destroy the cards, which is when they offered the mail in option to destroy the cards. Now I have to find what I did with them!!

We will close the current Chase Sapphire cards next month to make sure we don't get hit with their annual fee. Anyone know of any decent reward offers right now? I did see one somewhere that was for $250 in gift cards, but can't remember which one that might be. I tend to like cash, so I did ignore it, but wondering if I should consider it.

I know I've been accumulating snowflakes here and there this month, but had yet to put them in my spreadsheet or add them up. I did that today, and was surprised I have $55.85 already.



The goal for the year is a minimum of $750. This means I need to save an average of $62.50 per month in snowflakes. Snowflakes at our house are for our Christmas fund! It does help to start early.

I did a Pinecone survey today and expect I will be paid the $3 on Monday. Of course, I will add, too! Any one else have a snowflake update?

I have already saved $55.85 in Snowflakes for the month of January. I was a little surprised. I knew I had been accumulating them, but didn't realize how quickly things were adding up!

Since the goal is $750 for the year. I need to save on average $62.50 per month. I'm on track to make that monthly goal with no problem.



I did complete a survey with Pinecone today, so there will be another $3 to add on Monday. Anyone else have a Snowflake update?

We were scheduled to drive out of town today, but have now rescheduled it because of fog. It's a two hour trip and the fog will not have lifted in time to make the trip and arrive on time for the appointment. No need to spend extra money on gas makes me happy!

The girls are home from school, so I think it will be a no spend day. Although, I will likely give my oldest daughter a little cash for the concession stand at tonight's basketball game.