Creditcardfree's Personal Finance Blog

The guest room was put together pretty quickly, but we think it turned out great for a first time visit. After all we just moved in just over two weeks ago!

Here are the pictures:







We bought the bed, sheets, bedskirt, gray blanket, comforter, two pillows and shams all new. Cost was nearly $1,000. The bookcase and items on it, lamps, black dresser, sheet as a curtain, knick knacks, cedar chest with blanket and white blanket also on bed were from our current stash of things.

My parents enjoyed their visit and said the bed was terrific. Firm, just like they like and apparently better than their current bed.

I read My Money Blog with some frequency. Today's post is about an offer by Chase for 0% interest for 15 months and a zero balance transfer fee. How often can you transfer for free?

Here's the

We received an offer by email from FNBODirect (First National Bank of Omaha) that we can receive 1.35% APY interest on new money above the amount we currently have in our account. This rate is a promotion rate for just six months. After that the money earns the current rate of .65%.

I was keeping my eyes open for good rates. I did see several CD's that were a similar rate, but lock the money in for two year or more. I think this offer seems like a good idea for at least the next six months for our house proceeds.

I'm more likely to get the money earning some cash with an account I already have open. In the meantime, fingers crossed, rates may go up a bit! I'm also willing to move the money before the six months are up, if I see an even better rate.

So, that's the plan for our excess cash for now. Is anyone else a FNBODirect investor? Did you get the offer?

I believe this offer is for current accounts, rather than a new offer on new deposits. Check the website to be sure!

This tends to happen when one makes a debt payment, your principal balance is lower! Yipee!!

Our regular truck payment posted this week. The principal portion was $299.44. We paid $29.69 in interest, just under $1 a day.

Our new principal balance on the truck is $10,336.61. We are close to being under 10K. Since next months principal payment will not bring the balance under $10K, I might just make an extra principal payment. It's always fun to make the extra effort.

In the upcoming months, I will be evaluating the idea of paying the truck off in full with the cash we have on hand. We are paying about 3%, which is more than we could earn in interest. Will need to decide if it is the right thing for right now.

My parents love to visit us. Unfortunately, at our last house we didn't have a guest room. They often slept on the girls twin beds and the girls would sleep on the floor. The girls didn't mind at all. My parents always felt bad about displacing them.

At our new home we have a fourth bedroom in the basement right next to a full bathroom. It will be a perfect place for guests. However, we needed a bed for our guests.

We purchased a queen mattress and boxspring Monday night, which is being delivered for free today! We did splurge a bit to get a firm mattress with extra padding. Total cost was just under $800 with tax, bed frame and a mattress cover. I expect we will have it for many many years!

Of course, I will need a set of sheets and a comforter or quilt too. The sheets I need as soon as possible, but I have blankets and pillows that can work until I find something I like!

What kinds of amenities do you appreciate in a guest bedroom at someone's house? Extra blankets, a place to sit, a mirror? Tell me about it. I want to make this a relaxing and welcoming place to stay!

In the process of moving, we cancelled and bought homeowner's insurance. We previouslly paid our insurance directly. We know will have an escrow account with the bank.

Luckily the new homeowner's insurance premium is about $300 less than before. It seems this is attributed to the house being new primarily.

We paid our new homeowner's policy at closing and that has been applied to our account. It seems we now have a credit balance of $291.08. Our statement says they will hold the balance towards future installments, but we can request the money to be sent to us. Ummm...yes. Please send our money back!!

I'm not sure when it will arrive, but I will save this money as part of our house proceeds.

We now have library cards for our new town. We actually have a very small library in our town, but we have access to the library in the big town right next to us. That's two cards and about four libraries we have access to!

It was hard to go so long without checking out books particularly for my oldest daughter. She reads so much so fast, we would spend a lot on books if it were not for the library.

Do you use your library? Does anyone not have access to one? What do you do to keep your book spending down?

We put our Roth IRA and college fund investments on hold while DH was living in another state. We did fund our Roth IRA's in full for 2011, but have not started on 2012 yet.

I just set the investments up to begin auto withdrawing from our checking account again. It feels good to get this back on track. Right now we are six months behind if I want to fund everything by December 31st.

I may end up making a few lump sum payments to get us caught up, but I will determine that in the next month or two. We are still waiting on travel money from the Army, but I expect it in the next couple weeks. It also seems we will have to get a water softener for this house. The water is VERY hard. We can rent that, but may also buy one outright since it would be good to have one to leave with the house for resale purposes. I'll keep you posted!

How are your investment deposits going this year? Behind, on track or ahead?

It shouldn't be unexpected, but it was. We received a check from our previous mortgage company for $41.79. It says it is an escrow refund, but I believe it is actually excess interest. We did not have an escrow account with them, as we paid our own taxes and insurance.

I think the closing agent asked for a payoff date that was a few days out from actual closing, thus the excess interest.

I'm going to add it to our home sale proceeds since technically that is what it is. I'm going to keep that money separate for the time being. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a good interest rate on a CD! Anyone know of a good one. I'm looking for something over a year, but no more than 3. I don't want to lock it all in to low for too long. Aren't rates suppose to go up at some point?!

My husband did some yard work this weekend and found a $20 bill. It was stuck under some rocks and dirt. It did rip a bit as he pulled it out, but it is basically intact. I just washed off the dirt and let it dry.

Of course, this is another snowflake towards our Christmas fund! Clearly free money.

Have you ever found a $20 bill or another large denomination of cash?

We purchased a new internet router for our home on Saturday. We bought it at Target and used our Red Card to receive 5% off. There was also a sale on the router that offered a $10 Target gift card. That gift card is our first snowflake for July. I will save it for Christmas shopping!

We received a check in the mail yesterday for $56. It appears to be a refund of overpayment for internet services DH was using on the east coast. We'll take it. Right now, I'm not planning to add this to the snowflake account. Although if we weren't in the middle of moving in and many new expenses I probably would!

Anyone going to start saving snowflakes for Christmas that hasn't started yet? It is not too late to save something!

Our new house is actually new. We are the first owners. Therefore, there are zero window coverings. We currently have sheets taped up to the windows for privacy in the bedrooms.

We purchased faux wood blinds for a few of our windows at our previous home. We really liked them. While we were waiting to get into the house, we ordered samples, so we could decide on a color right away.

We ordered blinds for 11 windows from JustBlinds.com in a chestnut color that matches the woodwork in our house. One window is very large and required an additional charge to ship. It is actually three blinds on one headrail, too.

Our total order was $908. It seems like a lot, but seems pretty reasonable for 11 blinds, with many of them being large. No regrets on that purchase. I think any bigger purchases will wait several weeks while we get settled and used to the space we are in.

Everything is out of moving boxes. I'm thinking of attempting to sell them on craigslist. We are not centrally located in town, so it may be a long shot. I will inventory those and put up an ad this week. If they don't get bought, I will have the moving company pick them up to free up the space.

When you move do you use a moving company or pack yourself? Where do you get your moving boxes? Do you pay for them or find them for free?

We are in our new home. Our beds and household goods arrived on Thursday. And I have to say that sleeping in our own bed after more than three weeks was bliss!

We have unpacked all but about 6 boxes. However, things are not organized in the least. I'm trying to figure out how to store the same stuff in fewer cabinets and closets. We do have a large storage room that I'm sure I will have to use!

Spending is at an all time high. I don't have meals planned. Our dryer isn't working since the move. And with a new home there are little things to buy, like shower curtain rods. We will be ordering blinds today for a majority of our windows. I expect to get a pretty good deal online for those.

There is still an inflow of cash to arrive. We expect to receive around $2000 because we used a Homes for Hereos realtor. Participating realtors discount their commissions for buyer and sellers. And then there is the travel money we expect to receive from the governmnet. Some of that money will reimburse us for 10 days of hotel expenses. Fingers crossed that travel voucher doesn't get rejected.

Cat lovers will appreciate knowing that our cats have adjusted well to the new home. They are finding new places to hide and enjoying our wide window sills where they can hang out.

Any great tips for moving into a new home? How did you get organized? How long did it take? Any money saving tips that go along with the move?

We did close on our house on Monday. Everything went smoothly. In the end we didn't need to bring money to closing. Thus I didn't need to wire any funds! That saved me $20.

The closing agent didn't originally have record of our $1000 escrow check that we provided when we made the offer on the house. Once that was confirmed, we got money back in the amount of $215.

I'll go into more details about the loan another time. Today let's celebrate the independence and freedom of living in the United States!!

We are scheduled to close at 2pm today! It should go smoothly, but as of this moment we are still waiting on the VA to approve our HUD settlement statement.

Once they do I will know the amount we need to bring to closing. Since we bank online, I need to authorize a wire transfer with our bank. This is going to cost us $20. We had the proceeds from the house we sold wired to our account as well. That wire cost us over $50!

It does make me question whether we should have a local bank. However, even if I had a local bank, I would have already moved and wouldn't be in town to get a cashier's check from that bank. So that doesn't really work either, unless I'm missing something.

Can't wait to get in the house! The cats will move in today, but our household goods are not arriving until later in the week, so we are doing a couple more nights at the hotel.

June was a slower month for accumulating snowflakes to add to our Christmas Fund. I'm sure it is a result of being in the moving process.

I added $41.00 to the fund broken down like this:


The new total of the Christmas fund is now $583.86. The goal is still $750, with only $166 to go. I'm might even guess that I will exceed the goal!

It isn't to late to start accumulating snowflakes for your own Christmas fund. Something saved is better than zero. Good luck and let me know how you do!

I was able to snag another $5 Amazon gift card for the month of June from Swagbucks. This extra time in the hotel is worth something!

I used some of my free time to call all the utilities and services we will have at our new home. I actually have to put a deposit down with our city for water. They require this for all new customers. It will get credited/refunded back after 12 months of on time payments. A little irritating considering we are always on time with our bills. But it tends to be part of the moving process.

DH submitted his travel voucher with the Army. Fingers crossed he submitted it correctly. He wasn't too confident unfortunately. Hopefully, that money will arrive soon.

We definitely have lots of things we want to buy as we establish ourselves in our new home. We will just go all out and get it all done right away or try to cash flow it a bit. Undecided on that part. We just need to keep our heads out of the sand and make good financial decisions.

Closing on our home is Monday!! Everything seems to be on track for that to happen just as originally scheduled. The movers may not bring our things until after the holiday. It will all work out. We are definitely ready to be in our new home!

I used some of my free time hanging out at the hotel to earn some more Swagbucks. I earned another $5 Amazon gift card. I redeemed enough Swagbucks this month for $20 in AGC's! I feel that is pretty good for being in the middle of a move.

Swagbucks is free and will definitely be a huge part of my Christmas fund this year. If you are interested in joining click the ad on my sidebar!

Our appraisal was done yesterday. It was a bit of a surprise. I did not realize it had been scheduled. I'm not even sure that it was, but it was being done right at the same time I called my agent.

We have our walk through scheduled this afternoon. The builder and his agent will be there, as well as our agent. As of yesterday he still had not replaced the dead sod. It could be he is waiting to install closer to our closing.

Not clear yet if closing is on Friday or Monday. I hope to get this cleared up today, so I can contact our movers and get all the utilities going as soon as possible.

I received our last water bill from our previous home. It was about $40 over budget. I think it is a result of my husband watering our entire lawn several times in the last month. We had been really dry and were trying to keep the lawn somewhat green for the new owners. I guess I'll need to get used to larger water bills until the lawn is established at the new house, too.

A few more snowflakes have fallen and are being added to our 2012 Christmas Fund. I redeemed Swagbucks for another $5 Amazon gift card, my third this month. I'm a little slow with the Swagbucks this month because of moving.

We were given a convenience store gift card worth $10 last month when we watched a neighbors cats. I decided to use the gift card and save $10 in my checking account.

I expect to receive a $3 Pinecone deposit in my Paypal account today for a survey I completed last night.

Another $18 towards the Christmas Fund is a good thing. Have you had any snowflakes falling at your place? How big is your Christmas fund?

Our regular payment towards the truck loan was a couple days ago. We paid $31.53 in interest and $297.60 towards the principal balance.

Our new balance on the truck is $10,636.05. Right now this is our only debt since the house loan was paid off yesterday!

It is tempting to use some house proceeds to pay off this loan since it would free up a payment every month. I would at least have to continue to make payments to our savings account to pay ourselves back. Something to think about!

We are mortgage debt free!! Our loan was paid off today with proceeds from the sale of our house. It's an odd feeling. And a temporary situation. We will take on another mortgage in 10 days or so. I'll enjoy it while it lasts!

While we are in the hotel we are taking advantage of 'free' breakfasts and manager's reception dinners. And free coffee all day long. I guess it really is included in the daily hotel rate. We expect most of our stay to be reimbursed by the Army, so it's at least cheap!

DH has taken advantage of the gym equipment and we are trying to get in to use the pool, but there are lots of kids here! And everybody wants to use the pool.

We did end up finding a hotel that will allow pets, so our cats are with us. We paid a flat $75 charge to cover any cleaning expenses. So far they are doing pretty well. One is more relaxed than the other. We like being around them, so it helps us relax too!

Thanks for listening to my moving adventure stories. And fingers crossed we can close by the end of the month!

We are closing on the house we sold today. We actually don't have to do much since we already signed all the paperwork.

We stayed in a hotel last night. We are picking up our cats soon. One of them needs medication so she can relax a bit and maybe not be so loud! We also need to vaccuum up the cat hair. After that we'll leave the keys, lock the door and start traveling east.

The nice thing is we are walking away with cash from the sale. And it's more than we put down. I think paying off our home equity loan a couple years ago made a big difference. The money is being wired to our bank account. I'll need to start looking into ways to earn some money on the cash.

The closing on the next home is less than two weeks away. Can't wait to stop living out of a suitcase and get back to blogging about something other than moving!

My DH is transitioning with work from an active duty post to a reserve unit. I just logged on to see his paystub for this upcoming payday on Friday as we are expecting a few pay changes. Unfortunately, there is no paystub(LES).

In this case, no paystub, no paycheck! Luckily we have a pretty good cash cushion right now, so things will work out.

His new boss did mention today that there may be a delay in pay. The person who handles it at the new unit is out of town for Army training until the end of the month. Likely this will delay pay for a whole month!!

I guess this is another reminder about having an emergency fund and cash cushion. The nice thing is because of the cash cushion, I'm not even worried. It's definitely a good thing.

Our movers arrive tomorrow to start packing our things. It is one of the nice perks of the Army. We have had to separate out some things, such as our clothes we want to wear, a few kitchen items, valuable things including pictures and files.

Our house is a mess, but we are in very good shape.

We decided to go with a VA loan this time. Our first VA loan actually. We also went with an adjustable rate of 2.75%. It will remain fixed for five years and then can adjust up 1% each year after...up to a max of 5%. Considering we have been in our home for 5.5 years and have been paying a fixed 6%...this feels like the best deal given our situation. We don't expect to be in this next location for more than 6 years.

I would have liked to rented, but the area we are moving to just didn't seem to have what we were looking for. We do like owing our home, so that we can really make it our own while we are there.

Off to cancel some utilities and fill out school paperwork!

I received $3 from Pinecone this morning. I also redeemed Swagbucks for two $5 Amazon gift cards. A good start for accumulating snowflakes for the month of June.

I also made a Half.com sale. However, I seemed to have donated that book. I had to refund the buyer. I suspended the other book I had listed, since I won't have access to that while we are moving.

I have a box of other things that I'd like to sale on ebay and craigslist, but those will also wait until after the move. Something to look forward to!

We booked a nice hotel that will allow our cats to be with us. It has a kitchette with refrigerator, two burners and a microwave...and dishes!!

We get internet, newspapers, acess to pool and workout room, breakfast daily and manager's receptions four nights a week.

I think we will make this 11 day stay in a hotel mangagable. The Army should cover most of the stay if not all if we manage our money right!

Less than a week before they pack up our belongings. It's really hard to believe and there is so much to do still. At least we finally went to the grocery store and should have enough food for most of the time we are here with a refrigerator.

We now have a deal on our new home. It's new construction. The neighborhood is very close to being filled in. A ranch, three bedrooms and two full bathrooms upstairs, finished basement with large storage area, another bedroom and full bathroom. Three car garage. It's a very nice layout. We are all excited.

We are attempting to close in about three weeks. It may not happen, but the seller had another deal fall through, so some of the abstract paperwork is ahead of schedule. Our lender is definitely on top of getting our loan paperwork submitted as soon as possible. Fingers crossed it could actually happen.

We want in as soon as we can since we will already have time in a hotel regardless. Right now we are trying to decide if we board our cats or keep them with us in a hotel. We like being with them, but I want them to be less stressed too. We could likely visit too. Any thoughts or experience with this?

In less than a week, our movers should be packing up our belongings and loading them on a truck. In the meantime, we are going to paint the caulked areas on the outside of our house, throw a birthday sleepover for our youngest daughter, and try to seperate out the items that we don't want packed!!

Remember that the buyers were wanting repairs done before closing and we were having trouble getting a contractor arranged in time, as well as, finding a good price?

We left it with the contractor we hired that the repair work was to be under $800. If the work was not finished once the limit was reached, we would complete the remainder.

The contractor arrived yesterday and completed the work in four hours rather than the 20 hours estimated. The cost was $274.40. Now that's more like it.

I think the company is losing business because they can't estimate the work well. We would have had more done, such as repairing a door and painting the nails they caulked over. Instead the door remains as is, and we are going to be up on a ladder painting.

I'm just glad our cost was less than we were expecting!!

In May, I added $109.50 to our Christmas Fund. The money came from various sources: a Target gift card, Ebay sales, Pinecone and MySurvey rewards and Amazon gift cards earned with Swagbucks.

I budget $60 for water/sewer/trash per month. Our actual bill was less, so I added the excess to the Christmas Fund as well.

The current balance of the Christmas Fund is $542.86. My goal is a minimum of $750. I think I will have no problem meeting that goal before Christmas shopping season.