Creditcardfree's Personal Finance Blog

We hit another milestone on the van. We are under $6k!! Yipee.

We could technically pay off the van with cash on hand, still have an emergency fund and be debt free, except the mortgage. But we'll just keep on paying a little bit each month and hope to be done by February 2010 at the latest.

Specifically, we paid $741 to the loan, bringing our new balance to $5,999.

I added our regular $215 to our emergency fund, plus another $6 that seemed to be hanging around! That's $221 to the goal.

New Balance: $6,551.29

Getting closer!! Only $448.71 to go.

I made another half.com sale last night. The person bought three of our books! They are in the mailbox and ready to go. Net profit: $4.44. I already added this to my ebay challenge totals.

I have 7 items on ebay that end tomorrow. Only two with bids, but a few watchers on the others. I don't expect them all to sell, but will keep relisting while the listing and buy it now options are free. I do have two items I need to add to my listings.

I have earned another $5 amazon gift card on swagbucks. I'm definitely shopping on amazon for a few holiday gifts this year, so it will help lower the balance.

It's cold and rainy here. I think we'll stay inside and bake. That makes today a no spend day!

Just thinking...if we did not save extra in our emergency fund we probably would have paid off the van by now. Nice to think of. I do like having the extra emergency fund cash though.

My purchase I mentioned in the last post is getting delayed one day. Boo!

Potatoes and Chicken Italian Style
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 c nonfat italian salad dressing
2 tsp dried italian seasoning
1 c. nonfat parmesan cheese
4 baking potatoes, cut into wedges

Spray inside of slow cooker with cooking spray(this tip has saved me so much time.) Place chicken breasts in bottom of slow cooker. Sprinkle half the salad dressing, italian seasoning and cheese on top of chicken; top with potatoes and repeat with remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on low heat for 6-8 hours or high heat for 3-4 hours.

I've actually made it with out potatoes and loved it too! Enjoy.

Later today, I'm getting a deal on an item I saw on craigslist. The item is usually close to $100, but this person is selling it for $50, nearly new still in the box! The item is for someone on my Christmas list...who sometimes reads the blog.

Just happy to be getting a deal and wanted to share. If I remember I'll disclose the item after the holidays.

Check out craigslist for deals in your area. Some are new! You help out the person selling the item get some needed cash and declutter their home. Win. Win.

I bought my daughters coat and snow pants on Land's End using a great coupon. It's their Friends and Family discount.

Save 30% on entire order if you spend $50 or more, plus get free shipping. Good until November 15th.
Promotion Code: LEFF Pin: 1560

This code saved me $27!

Land's End has quality items. Can be returned to your Sears store if they don't work out for any reason. The items also have a great resale value on ebay!

Of course, don't buy unless you can afford it!! Happy Shopping.

I've just read that ESA's or Coverdale Savings Accounts are going to revert back to a limit of $500 per year investment limit in 2011, unless Congress makes changes. We have been saving in ESA's. So...now we have to make changes.

I liked the flexibility of the ESA, but it looks that most of our money will now need to go to a 529 plan. With having it in a state plan, it just seems frustrating if we move from state to state while we are saving. Have to give the state tax deduction back...at least I think that is what I read. For now, I think I'll just leave the ESA money where it is and start anew.

We also have UGMA accounts for our girls which we have not regularly been investing in. I guess I need to consider it all.

Anyone have thoughts or ideas for me?

I sold three of the six items I had listed for a total of $37.99. No complaints here. The one item I had purchased at a garage sale for $1, sold for $20.50!

I relisted the other three and hope to put up a couple more items on Tuesday as five day listings. Right now it is free to list items at any starting price and include a buy it now option for free also! So why not keep putting it out there for someone to see.

I think some craigslist items I listed a month ago are expiring off the site. Time to relist those, too. Maybe a lower price is needed also.

My ebay sales end today. I have six items listed. Half have bids. The other three are being watched. If I sell all at current bids and the other at the original price, I make $44! Here's hoping.

If I get to it, I might add a couple more items to start tonight. I've noticed my mind is definitely consumed with Christmas shopping. Hunting for deals, trying to earn more reward cards, pre shopping online for ideas...but so far I've only purchased a couple gifts.

I bought two wood puzzles for a neice at Target using a gift card I earned. I also purchased some stationary items for a couple of friends and a teacher online. Those should arrive this week. Nice to cross off several people. My girls are getting ideas for their lists. The earlier the list, the easier it is to buy.

Are you already Christmas hunting? Is anyone done?

I had enough points with MySurveys to collect $20. I will receive it in my paypal account in about 10 days.

I also received a $10 Rewards, because it is my birthday month, from World Market. I actually went there today, but could not decide what to buy, so I didn't buy anything. Crazy, huh?

Panera now has a rewards card. I signed up a couple weeks ago. I have a free pastry or sweet available to me just for signing up. You can bet I will pick that up sometime this holiday season when I'm out shopping.

I'm getting closer to another Amazon gift card from Swagbucks. I don't seem to rack up the points as fast as some of you. I have limits on things I will sign up for. And I don't use the search too often. I can usually get about 10 points a day. I did start watching some videos for points.

I was paid today for a pinecone survey. Another $3 in my paypal account is always nice.

How are you racking up small bits of cash? Or big bits?

This post is just some of my thoughts about next years goals. Things are iffy since we could be moving. The income will stay the same. The expenses could change.

We will continue to save at least 15% towards retirement.
We will contribute to our daughters college funds.
We will pay off the van very early in 2011!!
We will pay a large percentage in cash for a new to us truck.
Then...we pay off the small loan on the truck. If there is one.
And we will go on a couple's vacation and a family vacation with cash!
I will also look into converting some more rollover money to Roth Ira's.
I need to consider more to the emergency fund.
If we don't move, I need to look into refinancing or at least pay extra on the mortgage.

I'll round out all those goals out later with numbers.

Wow! It seems there are several good financial things happening this week. They are small, but fun!

Our water bill arrived this week. I was almost $9 less than usual. Cool.

Today we went clothes shopping for the girls. We bought needs only. First we bought a pair of ballet flats at Payless Shoes for $13.24. My daughter will wear these for band performances.

At JC Penney we bought a black pair of pants (band), dress (vocal performance), white pajama top, and a package of silly band rings. The total for those four items, with tax, $16.45!! I had a coupon for $10 off a $25 purchase. I actually had to buy the silly bands $1.99) just to get my total above $25! The dress was on clearance for $7.97, after the discount was applied it cost me only $4.85. I'm thrilled with the deal.

And to top it off one of the items I'm selling on ebay has a bid. I bought the item at a garage sale for $1 a couple weeks ago. I knew it would sell on ebay. So far the bid is up to $10.50!! Nice return.

And can I just say it is nice to see the stock market moving up, too! What good financial things are happening in your world?

I made a half.com sale today. They always surprise me a bit since I don't sell the books that often. In fact, I may only have four listed now.

Profit: $1.77

I was adding ebay listings at the time I noticed the sale. I found six items to list this week. I made them 5 day listings since I prefer to end them on Sunday evenings. I will try to have a few more items ready to post for Sunday.

I'm way behind on my challenge for ebay. I was hoping for an average of $100 per month. So far, I'm under $80. Of course, no complaints. I'll take what I can get accomplished!

I made a large principal payment of $1450 towards our van loan today. The new balance is now below $7K!!

New Balance: $6740

It feels really good to be getting the balance down this low. I must admit I'm a little bit behind based on my planning, but life gets in the way sometimes. I'll take what we have been able to accomplish because it is still fantastic!!

Are you staying focused on your goals even despite setbacks? Only two more months of 2010! What can you accomplish?

We earned a mere $3.39 in our money market account this month. I'm adding it to our emergency fund goal.

New Balance: $6330.29

Generally, this time of month (payday) I would add $215 to this goal as well. This pay period I'm skipping that to put the money towards the van, since we earned around $225 from the SDP account.

We are still on track to meet our goal by the end of the year! Yipee.

I spent too much out of my checking account this month by $40. I'm not sure how it happened, yet. Likely, I forgot to record something and then spent money I didn't have! This NEVER happens to me. I'm so diligent with recording and know what is available to spend. Apparently not this time.

I have been doing a lot of buying for this evenings Halloween party...so I'm guess the error is there somewhere. I will investigate when party festivies are over.

Boo!!

I'm finally done sewing the costume! Princess Daisy will get to dress up for our party on Friday and beg for candy on Saturday. (Umm...Halloween is different here.)



The things we mothers do for our children huh?

Now the party spending begins. I'm really trying to keep the costs down, but things add up. Luckily many of them can be used again. I'm also providing dinner for the group. It will be lots of fun and we are all looking forward to it.

Okay, an update is needed. I am almost done with the Princess Daisy costume. I just need to hem the bottom. But I'm too tired tonight to do a good job.

Today I did very little because I realized my girls needed to stay home for a head lice treatment! Ugh!! Sounds easy, but lots of combing. They both have very long hair. Of course, I had to wash bedding, too. Luckily, one of them was caught VERY early it seems. The other...not so much. I think I missed diagnosing it over the weekend. I thought it was just a dry scalp. She has that too, but it interferred in understanding the itchy problem.

So...nothing financial, except buying head lice treatments! We are approaching payday and I expect to make another large payment on the van loan!!

We made an out of town trip this weekend. As a result I spent some money. Gas, snacks, food for the event we attended and money for Princess Daisy's wig!

Now that I'm back, the sewing contines on the Princess Daisy costume. I am getting closer to finishing, but I bet I need several more hours. Until you see the completed costume pictures, you'll know where I am.

Sewing!

I'm sewing a princess daisy (from Mario Kart) costumef from Mario Kart for my daughter. We couldn't find one that even exists premade...so I winging it by sewing from a 99 cent pattern and sale fabric. I think I spent less than $10 total. However the hours that I spent on this costume are crazy!! I feel like I have been working on it for days and I'm not done yet.

I'll post a picture when it is complete. I can say it has kept me from browsing garage sales or surfing the net or spending too much money!

We sold our car on Sunday, so I cancelled the insurance that I had just renewed earlier this month. The refund was $159.54. Can't complain!

Right now I'm working out whether or not I should send this in to the van loan. It may need to be saved for other things.

I do have to return the plates and registration to the county, but I do not expect a refund. The registration was due this month and I simply did not pay it.

Finally, I get to share that we have earned $225 in our SDP (Savings Deposit Program)!! We deposited funds back in July and at the end of September were credited with the interest. Unfortunately, until today I could not see the statement showing the interest. But now I can, so it is official!!

I will add this to our emergency fund goal of $7,000.

New Balance: $6,326.90

I just know we are going to meet this goal by the end of the year. Very happy about that!!

Note: The SDP is available to those serving in a combat zone. It pays 10% interest.

I just sold our car to our neice. We now have $2500 to deposit into the emergency fund.

New Balance: $6101.90

Less than $900 to go to the goal of $7K.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the regular payment on our van loan was deducted from our checking account but not showing on the lenders site. But I checked again this evening and the payment is now official.

The principal portion of the payment was $462.09. Therefore, the new balance is $8,190. Plus or minus a few cents!

If only I could get the balance down faster, I'd be even happier. I am happy. But I'd be happy-er!

I wanted to update our van loan balance to reflect our regular payment, but the online balance isn't showing our payment yet. It has been deducted from our checking account. Customer service isn't open again until Monday. Darn.

So...I'll just say that our balance has to be under $8,200 with our regular payment. Yip. Ee.

I'll update the sidebar and post again when it is confirmed online.

On a side note, I think I need to get back to my ebay challenge this week. I have several things that would be good to sell now. And the cash would be nice.

I made our regular deposit to our emergency fund goal in the amount of $215. The balance just keeps growing!

New Balance: $3601.90

Goal is still $7,000. We expect to meet or exceed this by the end of the year.

I made another pricipal payment to our van loan today in the amount of $515. (See I added the $15 mentioned yesterday here!) This payment is smaller than the last one, but it all counts.

New Van Balance: $8,652

We are now under $9,000. Yipee! Another milestone. The regular payment should pull very soon, so I'll be updating again soon.

I'm painting our master bedroom today. I hope to get it done quickly. The nice thing is the rebate for the paint arrived yesterday. The check is for $15.

Crazy as it sounds, I need to decided where to put the $15. Right now it feels like I'm squirreling away bits of cash for different reasons: holidays, van loan, money for clothes. I guess it is a good problem to have. Decisions,decisions.

Do you ever have indecision over small amounts of money? Or is it just me?

Someone mentioned the Dow was over 11,000 which made me curious enough to look at our retirement accounts. I was pleasantly surprised! They are all up...even the ones we don't contribute to. Yipee!!

Have you checked in on your investments lately? How are you doing?