I received another $3 Pinecone survey payment yesterday. This money will be added to the Free Christmas Challenge. I'm also pretty close to redeeming another $5 Amazon gift card on Swagbucks. It's a bit addicting. I'm not sure I can keep up the pace!

The truck payment posted yesterday, with $35.79 to interest and $293.34 to principal. Our new balance on the loan is $12,118.72. Less debt always makes me happy.

It looks like our new window pane will be installed tomorrow. That will be an outflow of $232.04. I have my fingers crossed that the Citi card I applied for might arrive in the mail today, so that I could use it for payment. That would make a nice dent in the $500 minimum I need to get the $200 bonus.

It's cold here and it looks like we'll be getting snow every other day for the next week. I shoveled yesterday, but I need to see if the snowblower will start up for this next round.

I was able to redeem Swagbuck points for another $5 Amazon gift card yesterday. I will be up to $25 with those. I accumulated all of those in the last three weeks, maybe two weeks.

I received a $5 rebate check in the mail yesterday. It has been deposited and added to the Christmas fund as well.

We went out to our local Botanical Garden yesterday. Nice to see so much green and take in the wonderful smells of flowers too. Spent $16. I decided to look at the expense as supporting a local business.

After the garden experience, we used a $10 Groupon for frozen yogurt. The $10 was absoultely free, with a coupon Groupon offered at the beginning of the year. At checkout, I paid $2.89 for four people to experience a flavor treat. An excellent deal!

DH heads back to school later today. It has been awesome to have him home for a month. Even with parking fees we will have broke even for the month. We stayed within our regular budget for spending. I'm interested to see what his utility bills are since he unplugged everything, but left the heat at a very low setting. I'll know in a couple days.

The statement cycle for my Chase Freedom card ended yesterday. Today, I received notification that my new rewards balance was 30,502. This is the card that is giving 30,000 point for making one purchase. I made two. One very small one at Old Navy and a donation to the Red Cross, since charities were 5% cash back last quarter.

I redeemed all the points for a check that will amount to $305.02. Can't wait to see that nice bonus check in week or so! And of course, the account balance is zero.

In other credit card news, I applied and was approved for a Citi Dividend Card. I will need to spend $500 in 3 months to earn a $200 bonus. I likely will just use the card to buy regular purchases during the next month and be done with it.

DH is not interested in opening any accounts in his name. If he was we could double these rewards. Oh well. It's his choice.

Ugh...wrote this post, forgot to right click and copy...thus I lost it. Frustrating. Why is this a problem on the blogs?

I sold the last item I had listed on ebay today at the Buy It Now price. We also sold a book on half.com this morning. Both items are in the mail and I settled my ebay fees as well.

It looks like I netted $23.33 on the ebay sales and $9.91 on the half.com sales.

I plan to pull the Paypal balance to my checking account (which has $15 in Pinecone Survey money in it). Once the half.com money arrives in my checking account, I will withdraw all of it in cash to save for the Christmas Fund.

I actually have a $9 rebate in my checking account as well. It will also get cashed out. If I figured correctly, I should be able to withdraw $57 for the Christmas Fund!

I sold the last item on I had listed on ebay today. It ended at the Buy It Now price! We also sold a book on half.com this morning as well. Both items are already in the mail.

I paid the online fees to ebay. Ebay sales on two items netted $23.33. The half.com sales netted $9.91. That's $33.23 for the four items we sold. Happy. Happy!

In addition to the ebay sales money in my paypal account, I have $15 from Pinecone surveys. I will withdraw this money to my checking account. Once the half.com money arrives I will withdraw all of the money in cash to save for the Christmas Fund! I actually have a $9 rebate waiting to be withdrawn, too.

I believe the total cash I will be to save for the Christmas fund is just over $57! Now that is nice.

I kind of knew I had a couple of gift cards in my purse, but today I found them and they surprised me! One is for Old Navy for $5.83 and the other to Scheel's (a sporting goods company) $12.71. Both cards were from returning merchandise.

I will keep the cards to put towards the 2012 Christmas Fund. If I end up making a purchase at either store prior to Christmas shopping, I will simply reimburse the fund in cash. I want to be able to shop where I need, rather than only where I have gift cards.

After English Castle mentioned her daughter's lunch account, I remembered that one of my daughter's has a $4 balance in her account. And it's been that way for over a year, since she always takes her lunch from home. The other daughter does the same. I sent an email to the nutrition department asking for the return of the funds. Once received I'll put those towards the 2012 Christmas Fund as well.

Last I heard, small amounts add up!!

I received that $20 Mastercard Debit card for the online promotion they had back in December. I'm pretty sure that our phone bill helped us reach the $200 online purchase threshold, because I probably only made $40 in online purchases during the promotion.

I noticed the debit card expires in June of this year. Thus, I can't literally save it for Christmas spending. However, I'll use it soon and pay the Christmas fund back in cash. It works out the same. I'm glad I noticed because it would have been diappointing to lose out!

We sold a book on half.com yesterday. Profit of just over $2. It's all ready to be mailed today.

I will redeem more Swagbucks today for another 2 $5 Amazon.com gift cards. That's $20 that I will have to spend with them. I'd love to rack that much up each month!! We'll see.

And I am tracking my Christmas fund money in a spreadsheet, but I don't like how I have it organized yet. I also have unredeemed money in MySurvey and my Paypal account. I have a personal threshold I put in place for each. Once I meet those, I will redeem/withdraw for cash.

Did anyone else get the Mastercard $20 deal? Make sure you check your expiration date!!

I sold one item on ebay last night. I think my profit is about $8. The other item has at least five people watching it. I started it at $0.99 which would be like stealing it from me, but I expect the price to rise. I added a Buy It Now option, too. It's possible it could sell before next Sunday.

I redeemed points for 2 $5 Amazon.com gift cards from Swagbucks today. I have enough for two more. I just forgot that you can't redeem more than two things per day! I will redeem the other two tomorrow.

The gift cards and ebay profit money will go towards 2012 Free Christmas Challenge. At some point, I will get a tracking system set up for all to see.

I listed two items on ebay this afternoon and three books on half.com. As usual, I would prefer they sell fast!

I will add this money to the 2012 Free Christmas Challenge.

Anyone else selling on ebay or somewhere else right now?

I received a rebate check in the mail for the Armor All products I bought my brother in law for Christmas in the amount of $8.99. It will deposit to our online bank today with our scanner. I really love that feature. I will add this money to my Christmas 2012 fund. I will need to make a page or spreadsheet to start tracking those funds.

I found $0.26 on the floor in front of the ticket counter where we purchased movie tickets to see War Horse this morning. It was a pretty good movie considering it did contain war scenes.

We are still waiting for a call about our flooring estimate. I need to see that one before I can make decisions on the other repair estimates we received.

Back in November we bought new Goodyear tires for the van. We opened a credit card with them in order to qualify for a few rebates. The first one, for military personnel, arrived today in the amount of $40. We are still waiting for $160 check to arrive. I think I submitted it a week later, so maybe it will be here shortly.

The Goodyear credit card is interest free for 6 months. I have made one $100 payment. Today I made another. I sent the $40 rebate, plus $10 and change that we didn't have to spend on our water bill this month. A fifty dollar and some change payment in total.

Our balance is now an even $600. I could pay it now, but since it is zero interest, I'm just taking my time. I might pay it all off once we get the final rebate check. And then, of course, cancel the card.

I received an email from Groupon today offering $5 off any purchase. I didn't exactly need to buy anything, but it was worth a look.

I chose to buy the TCBY (frozen yogurt) offer which provides $10 worth of yogurt for $5. After the $5 off a Groupon purchase, I received that $10 Groupon for free.

Free frozen yogurt here we come!

Are you a Groupon user? What is your best deal? If not, you can click

here to join. It is my referral link. And it's free to receive offers.

I did receive my $20 Serve check in the mail. It's now in the bank. Right now the plan is to save it for Christmas 2012.

It did seem to take awhile to get the check. But it did arrive. Is everyone else getting their check?

I opened a Sharebuilder account today. I heard of an offer to earn $75 by just opening an account with $100. It does seem the $75 takes a few weeks to show up and must remain in the account for around 120 days, but it seems like a great rate of return on such a small sum of cash. No need to make any trades, either.

I learned about the offer from

My Money Blog.

You do need to complete this offer by December 31, 2011. That's just a couple days away, so if you are interested get click on the offer now!

I finally totalled up my receipts for Christmas spending. Not bad and definitely less than last year.

Total spent on gifts and miscellaneous related items was $611.68. This total already includes some gift cards and store coupons that were offered. That amount equalled about $144.54!! So I guess closer to $750 in gifts purchased.

We also accumulated cash from craigslist and the fall garage sale in the amount of $211. We sold on ebay, too. Funds from surveys added to a Paypal redemption of $74.32. One item had a rebate for $8.99. We accumulated another $95 in Target gift cards. We redeemed debit card rewards for $25. And I have to add in the $100 cash my MIL gave towards gifts, since those gift totals are included above.

The total above is $514.31!!

Soooo....Christmas was nearly free at a cost of $97.37. We paid just under 13% of the total cost of gifts out of our own funds. Amazing!

And I have to laugh a little because my first run through with the numbers led me to believe Christmas was free. I forgot to include the cash we are giving to nieces and nephews which equalled $105! Darn kids. Just kidding!!

So for those of you doing the Free Christmas 2012 Holiday Challenge, I definitely think it can be done. And I'm in for next year, too.

Looks like a little more money is flowing in:

We just sold a new in package camping air mattress for $25 to a man who saw our ad on craigslist.

I received notification that Pinecone deposited $3 into my Paypal account.

I also was notified that the Mastercard (debit) account we registered met the online threshold for the $20 Mastercard gift card. That will arrive in 1-2 weeks. I believe we met the $200 minimum once our phonebill was posted for payment. Cool! Otherwise I didn't nearly spend that much online.

Now...if only that Serve check or any of the rebate checks I'm waiting for would arrive!

I've been earning quite a few swagbucks by watching videos while I'm doing other things online. I'm here anyway, might as well earn some points.

I even had a search yesterday that earned me 25 points. Tomorrow, MegaMonday, is suppose to be a great earning day on Swagbucks. Which means now would be a great time to sign up!

If you use my

link, I'll actually earn the same points you earn tomorrow. If you enter MegaMonday (just the way I typed it) when you sign up you will receive an additional 60 bonus bucks, too.

I generally use my swagbucks to purchase Amazon.com gift cards. They have everything there!! It could pay off towards a much reduced Christmas next year.

Are you already a swagbucks user? If so, what is your biggest reward you have snagged? Did you just sign up? Let me know if you have questions!

I sold my last item listed on ebay last night. Only another $5, but it counts! It's already out in the mail box for delivery.

We also received our annual deposit from USAA. I believe it is a return of premium for members. Our amount this year was $25.16. It was deposited directly into the emergency fund.

I have a few more things I may list on ebay, but I do have to get some cleaning done today. One daughter is having a friend over tomorrow and I can't let the house stay in the state that it is in.

Okay the deal is on again. If you are on Facebook and you search for Target's home page, there is a link for a coupon. The coupon gives you a $10 Target gift card when you purchase $50.

I personally shop there quite often since it is 3 minutes from my house. I was going to get groceries today so it works well. I can use the gift card towards a couple more gifts I will need to buy.

Last time the promotion was out, I was able to roll the gift cards as payment for the next purchase. I was able to print 4 coupons at that time.

And if you use coupons for things you are buying anyway and give the gift card coupon first, you end up spending less than $50 and still receive the gift card!

Let us know me know if you use the deal and how it went.

After I went to bed, I sold two more of the five items I listed on ebay yesterday. Only one remains available. The sales totaled $102.40. I made $100 in a very short amount of time. I would say that was one of my best sales ever.

Of course, I will need to pull ebay's fees from that, which are getting higher everytime I list something! And my daughter probably netted about $30 from that total for her camera.

Good luck to those of you who said you would be listing this week. My tip...add the Buy It Now option. It is free in most cases and if you make it reasonable, people will snap the item up.

Late this afternoon, I decided to get a few things listed on ebay. I have a fair number of items lying around that should be sold rather than donated.

Right now is a pretty good time of year to get up the gift type items and the holiday clothing.

The first thing I listed was an old iPod. I listed at an auction price and a Buy It Now...I don't think it was listed for more than 10 minutes before it sold!! Maybe I under priced it, but my research said it was a fair price. And I'm happy for the cash it brought.

Four auction items still up and running. They all have a Buy It Now option too. We'll see how it goes this week. Anyone else selling on ebay this holiday season?

Update: I sold another one already. A camera. This is fun!!

I redeemed some MyPoints recently for a Bath and Body Works gift card in the amount of $10. Lucky for me two people on my list wanted items from there!!

I happened upon a printable coupon that you can find at the

retailmenot.com website that offered one item free after a $10 purchase. The free item can be worth up to $13!!

I did two different purchases. The first purchase included Japanese Cherry Blossom body cream ($12.50) and two soaps ($5 each). In this case the body cream was free with the printable coupon. I used the $10 gift card to cover most of the $10.60 total. I only spent $0.60 out of pocket!

The second purchase included another Japanese Cherry Blossom body cream ($12.50). Can you tell someone likes this? I also bought a Shimmer Body Lotion ($14). With another copy of the printable coupon I received the body cream free. My out of pocket cost was $14.84.

In the end I ended up with five items from Bath and Body Works and spent $15.44. That averages out to $3.09 per item!! On an even more interesting note: the $14 item is a gift for my daughter but will be from my mother in law who gave me cash to do the shopping. So the other items actually were free and not paid from our cash! Yipee!!

That coupon is about the fourth item down on the list when you click on the link above. The coupon is good until December 24th. Don't forget to read the fine print. I don't believe it is good with any other offers.

I've got a few other good deals from the last several days. Stay tuned and I'll tell you about them! In the meantime, do you have any good deals those of us holiday shopping should know?

I redeemed rewards on our debit card equal to $25 and it has now been deposited in our checking account. This money is going to Christmas, too!

Most likely to purchase a $25 gift card for a family member. Free gifts! Gotta love them.

If you are buying gifts for free this season, tell us about it. It can be inspiring to those who haven't thought outside the box of credit for Christmas!

Turns out I had another great coupon in my stash and I used it this weekend. It was $5.00 off a $10 minimum purchase at Hallmark Gold Crown stores.

I bought an ornament for $9.95 to give to a friend for Christmas. This, of course, still put me short of my $10 minimum purchase. Ugh! However, I decided to buy my parents an anniversary card which arrives just days after Christmas. I picked out a very nice $0.99 card to bring my total purchase above $10. My total after the coupon and tax was $6.60.

I'm very pleased that I could get a nice gift for my friend as well as a card for my parents. Glad for a great deal! Did you get any great deals this weekend?

We are getting our new tires on Friday. We are going to apply for the Goodyear Credit Card to double our rebate. The rebate is $80 for four tires, but doubles on the credit card to $160! Plus no interest if paid in 6 months. I'll likely just pay it off and then close it.

Goodyear is also running a $10 rebate for each tire for military. Thus our entire rebate will total $200. That will more than cover one and part of another for the tires we are choosing.

And, get this, the shop we are getting tires from is having their "Turkey Sale", so we will get a voucher for a local grocery store to pick up a 12-14 pound turkey. I'm not having Thanksgiving, but I'm sure I can find ways to use up a free bird!

I'm adding to the Christmas Fund!!

I redeemed MyPoints yesterday for a $10 gift card to Bath & Bodyworks. If it arrives in time, I hope to use it as part of a Christmas gift.

I expect to be getting a $10 PayPal deposit from Pinecone for a recent survey. I also have $3 in the account from another survey. I expect to use this money towards Christmas as well.

With the addition of the above items here is the Christmas fund status:

Cash $186
Paypal $13
Target Gift Cards: $39.54
Old Navy Gift Card: $6.36
Home Depot Gift Card: $5.00
Bath & Bodyworks: $10
Total Christmas Funds: $259.90

I'm keeping my eye out for good ideas and deals. I will likely spend more than what I will accumulate in the fund. That additional money will come from current funds.

Is anyone done holiday shopping?

I received a $5 rebate from Home Depot in the mail today. It came in the form of a Prepaid Mastercard. I decided to save it for now.

I counted up the cash and gift cards on hand and found I have a total of $205.54! I think this is the beginning of the Christmas Fund.

I was also notified that I will be receiving a deposit from Half.com in the amount of $15.41. I forgot about those sales! I might just pull that cash out and add it to the above mentioned fund.

Are you saving for Christmas? If so, how do you save?

Sold several books to a used book store: $5
These were garage sale leftovers.

Pet sat 2 cats and 2 kittens for 2.5 days: $25
The kittens were soooo cute.

It feels good to see money trickling in. Of course, I'm not against seeing a flood of money!

Whew! Those sales are always a whirlwind. I've almost got the house back together.

I only saved two bins for a possible spring sale. Some items might get posted to ebay for the holidays.

I have about four small boxes of items to drop off at Goodwill. I'm also going to take some books into the used book store. I know it won't amount to much but I'd like a few dollars anyway!

The total sales for the two day sale were $664.50. My portion was $144.50. And considering I had a sale back in July and made $150, I think that is pretty good.

Okay back to work...still need to put tables and empty bins in the basement.

I'm participating in a garage sale this Thursday and Friday with my neighbors. It was a little up in the air if we were going to follow through. But we are!

I have all but a small bin of items already priced and ready to move down the street tomorrow. I'm donating a couple tables and putting up the signs. Of course, I will be there to staff the sale, too.

I'm REALLY looking forward to moving these items on. If they don't sell, I expect most of them to be donated to Goodwill. A few items might be held back to sell on ebay.

Today I need to wrap up some errands around town. The cats need food and I have batteries and CD's to recycle. I think Best Buy has a drop box for those.

And if you were at all wondering: I did get all my windows and blinds cleaned last week! They look fabulous.