I had a couple items listed on craigslist. I thought I had an interested buyer. Yesterday they were a no show. I did have an email much later in the day, indicating they were no longer interested. That was nice. I guess. I was looking forward to a $40 sale. Darn.

Today, I'll be painting our interior garage door with paint I have on hand. Free home repairs make me happy!

Once I'm done with that, I need to clean bathrooms. DH will be home for several days this weekend. Yipee!

One weeks worth of groceries for three came to $71.41. Actually, it may be eight days worth of meals.

Pasta x2 with sauce
Baked chicken, corn on the cob
Soup and Salad
Breakfast (eggs or pancakes)
Tacos (have frozen beans and meat in freezer)
Micro meals x3
Homemade pizza

We supplement our meals with fresh fruits and veggies. We have grapes, strawberries, apples, carrots, cucumber and corn on the cob. Yum!!

We also bought basics like bread, butter, skim milk, almond milk, eggs, two boxes of cereal and granola bars. And I bought the very bad for you diet pepsi and ice cream. The girls indulged in the ice cream. The pop was mine. I'm trying to cut back!

In other news, we sold three books on half.com. It was one buyer, so we made a little extra with the shipping for a total of $3.90 profit. My daughter will receive $2 and I will retain the remainder. Fun to get a surprise sale here and there.

The money is flowing in. So very grateful.

Paycheck $3,426.11
Travel Payment $3,042.59
Debit Card Rewards $100
Paypal Deposit $61.55

I guess there will be a small interest payment in our money market account tomorrow. Probably only $10. It does feel good to have the money flowing in. Of course, much of it will flow back out. But for now, it is all good!

Did you know you can collect Box Tops for Education and sell them on ebay? Yep. I just did. Received over $9 for 100 of them.

I have in the past given them to our elementary school which collects them, however...I don't have elementary aged children any longer.

On a whim, I check ebay. And they are a hot item!

Now, I wouldn't go buying products you don't normally buy just to sell the box tops, but if you buy them already then it is just a bonus to cut those things off!

Do you know of other interesting things that sell well on ebay?

Eight of my ebay listings ended tonight. Seven sold. My sales total $51.72. I'm thrilled with the outcome. The item that didn't sell, will be set aside for the fall garage sale. I have at least two, maybe three, items I could still list for auction. Those will wait for another time.

I have two more listings. For books. That end tomorrow. One lot will sell. The girls will receive that money. They are up to $15.50 on that auction!

So now to collect payments and get those items mailed off to the buyers. I hope they all pay tonight. I have to say this set of items was well worth my time to sell. Yipee!!

I have 10 items listed on ebay. Four have bids, another 4 or 5 have people watching the item. The auctions end tomorrow night. And those last seconds are when most of the activitiy occurs! Fingers crossed for high bids.

We have learned in the last week that our housing allowance will go down, since my husband is now stationed in another state. It will go down from $1521 per month to $1422, a drop in our income of $99 per month, or about $50 per pay period.

I did decide to cancel the newspaper subscription. It became effective this week. We are very aware that it is missing. It is one expense we got a fair amount of enjoyment out of. But, it's a trial for now. The cancellation saves us $17.39 per month.

We have $100 worth of rewards from our debit card that can be redeemed. I'm resisting at the moment since it seems it could be worth more as we get closer to the holidays and that money will come in handy.

I was invoiced this week for our sliding door, siding repair and painting. Total outflow for those expenses was $3,209.45. It was a necessary expense that will help avoid issues when we go to sell. I do really like the new sliding door. It works so well!!

With the repair and recent expense for my husband's move we have nearly depleted the extra $7000 that we saved last year. That is really hard to watch, but I know without saving that money it would have been far worse! The good news is that we will receive money from the Army for the move. Right now, I'm estimating we will receive about $4100. Not bad, huh?

In other good money news, DH's paycheck will be about $225 more than usual next week. This is a result of taking vacation or leave that he earned in a combat zone. Those days were non taxable earnings, thus less money was taken out for tax withholding.

It seems most of these updates are good. I'm starting to feel much better about our cash situation. It is all going to work out! Whew.

I have 10 items listed on ebay. Four have bids, another 4 or 5 have people watching the item. The auctions end tomorrow night. And those last seconds are when most of the activitiy occurs! Fingers crossed for high bids.

We have learned in the last week that our housing allowance will go down, since my husband is now stationed in another state. It will go down from $1521 per month to $1422, a drop in our income of $99 per month, or about $50 per pay period.

I did decide to cancel the newspaper subscription. It became effective this week. We are very aware that it is missing. It is one expense we got a fair amount of enjoyment out of. But, it's a trial for now. The cancellation saves us $17.39 per month.

We have $100 worth of rewards from our debit card that can be redeemed. I'm resisting at the moment since it seems it could be worth more as we get closer to the holidays and that money will come in handy.

I was invoiced this week for our sliding door, siding repair and painting. Total outflow for those expenses was $3,209.45. It was a necessary expense that will help avoid issues when we go to sell. I do really like the new sliding door. It works so well!!

With the repair and recent expense for my husband's move we have nearly depleted the extra $7000 that we saved last year. That is really hard to watch, but I know without saving that money it would have been far worse! The good news is that we will receive money from the Army for the move. Right now, I'm estimating we will receive about $4100. Not bad, huh?

In other good money news, DH's paycheck will be about $225 more than usual next week. This is a result of taking vacation or leave that he earned in a combat zone. Those days were non taxable earnings, thus less money was taken out for tax withholding.

It seems most of those updates are good news. I am starting to feel better about our cash situation. It is all going to work out.

This morning I posted 17 books and one DVD to Half.com. Most are children's chapter books and not worth much. One daughter wants to make some cash on her books that didn't sell at the garage sale. So we'll try for now on Half.com. After awhile, we'll take those that don't sell to a used book store.

I tried posting two items on craigslist. It gave me a warning that my ad could not be posted because it was either similar to another recent post of mine, or included a phone number, url or email address. None of them were true. I'm a bit perplexed about why I cannot post.

In the processing of writing this ad, I realized that I could probably use Ebay's classified ads (Kijiji) instead of craigslist. I just posted those two items. Fingers crossed that site gets hits so I can sell my $60 worth of items.

I'm using the cash earned on these recent sales to pay for back to school supplies and needed clothing for the girls.

I'm getting ready to post about 8 items on ebay. It's been awhile since I listed anything. I might average about $5 an item, but I'll take $40 or more if I can get it!

I'm hoping I get get them up and running quickly, so that the time I invest is worth it. Ebay can be time consuming sometimes.

Anyone else using ebay these days? Right now, it is free to list up to 50 items, including adding a buy it now option. Seems like a good time to try to sell a few items.

Total sales for our one day garage sale with three families participating were $406. And it was free to advertise using well placed signs, leftover from previous sales, and an ad on craigslist.

Personally my sales came in at $150.50. I think that is a pretty good one day total. I have things left over to sell in the fall! When does one ever sell every last item, right? There are definitely a few items that are going to be listed on ebay soon, too.

I don't have specific plans for the cash. It will come in handy at some point.

My neighbor and I just now decided that we will have a garage sale on Friday! Yep, a one day only sale. It will probably be all we can handle with the high heat anyway.

Luckily, I have marked quite a few things even before making this decision. I will make a quick run through the house tonight. I will mark those items tomorrow, along with the things that are currently set aside but not marked.

I have a sleepover to throw Wednesday night for three of my daughter's friends. It's pretty well planned. We need to clean and make a trip to the grocery store, but I think we can make it work.

It's going to be a busy week, but I have my fingers crossed that the investment in time will be worth the proceeds. Wish me luck!!

Wow! I recently checked my Swagbucks account and was quite surprised. After months of not using the site, it seems I had earned quite a few points. In fact enough to redeem a $5 Amazon.com gift card.

It seems a few of you may have signed up using the link on my sidebar. And while you have been earning points, so have I. It's part of their referral program. Someone is earning points from me when I earn points I guess too. To those of you who did sign up under me, thank you! I appreciate your support.

I think I'm going to make more of an effort to use Swagbucks again in the coming months. I could use more Amazon.com gift cards for Christmas shopping. I mean it is more fun to shop online than in crowded stores in the cold of winter (although it sounds good today, since we reached over 100 degrees here).

Anyone want to join me in earning Swagbucks for Christmas? If you are not already a member, feel free to sign up using my link. Or not. No pressure. It is free to join.

I definitely don't sign up for all their offers. In fact, the fewer the better, since I don't want to receive junk emails from every company on the planet. I do use the search function, visit the survey page, the daily poll, and then skip through the No Obligation Offers page. I will occasionally watch a video or two for points. It is pretty easy and only takes a few minutes per day.

What do you do to earn Swagbuck points? And what do you spend them on?

The girls rooms have been decluttered. Well, as much as one can actually declutter a 10 year olds room. They do love their trinkets.

I did shop garage sales yesterday, but came home with empty hands. I enjoyed the outing despite the heat. I did see some things I might look for in the future, but nothing that needed to be bought at that moment.

I came home quite energized to work with my girls on clearing out their rooms. We filled three traditional sized Rubbermaid bins with stuff to get rid of. Yipee!! Some will get tossed or recycled. Some will get donated and the rest will be sold in some form or another.

I moved those bins to the basement and will plan to sort those this weekend. Amazingly there are at least four more bins in the basement with stuff to sell. I really need to get stuff listed on ebay. For some reason I'm procrastinating.

Oh, I did receive my $38 payment from secondspin.com for the DVD's I sent them. Obviously declutter can pay off!

I'm conflicted this morning. Deciding what to do with my day. Part of me wants to hit some garage sales. Part of me wants to declutter and find things to sell. Hmmm...

I don't need anything specifically from the garage sales. I'm not even a big garage saler. I get burned out pretty quick after looking at other people's stuff. I just like get out once a season and I know of two neighborhood sales. Last year, I found some weight watcher books that I resold online and made $10. So, it can be profitable. Hmmm...

I already have a small swimming pool listed on craigslist and a pile of 13 items I should really start listing on ebay. I still need to declutter the girls rooms where I'm sure to find more things to get rid of. Hmmm...

I guess I could do both, right? Yep. That's the plan I'm going with. Thanks for listening. It's nice of you to lend an ear.

We have officially received two out of three rebates back from Verizon Wireless. We updated our phones and three of them qualified for $50 rebates. A total of $150 together.

Verizon sends the gift cards as a Visa debit gift card. It is definitely not my preferred method. It just encourages more spending in my opinion. However, on payday I will simply transfer the $150 to our slush account to replace the money we put out for the phones. I will use the Visa debit cards for our regular spending during the next pay period. It all works in the end!

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My dad has a birthday this weekend. I bought him three XL tall polo shirts for $32 a Kohl's yesterday. And I'm sharing the expense with my sister, so it's an even better deal on my pocket book!

Have a great Memorial Day weekend and don't spend too much!!

Less than a month ago, we cleaned out our entertainment center and found about 20 items to get rid of. Mostly DVD's. I listed them all on half.com. Only one sold in the last few weeks.

I guess I didn't have the patience to wait for the cash. Today, I boxed up 11 of the DVD's and mailed them to secondspin.com. I will receive $38 plus credit to cover the shipping cost. I requested the deposit to my paypal account.

There were 8 items that were not worth more than $0.25 each. I left them up on half.com. If they don't sell, I'll donate them.

I'm slowly working on getting rid of the clutter. The girls rooms need major help! I'm just sure there is something to sell in there.

We decided to clean out our entertainment center last night. The girls and my husband found over 20 items to get rid of!! I checked an online site that pays cash. Their offer is about $42.

For now, I will list the items on half.com first to see if I can get a little more with a direct sell. Anything left over in a few weeks will get sold to the online site for cash.

I'm on to declutter other areas. No plans for a spring garage sale, but I might consider a summer of fall one if I find enough items. Otherwise, those items will also be donated.

I think I have some possible ebay items that I would like to get posted by next Sunday. I need to find where I put them!

Happy Mother's Day to all my SA friends!!

My husband's Ipod which he purchased used for $100 stop working during the deployment. He brought it home on leave and we could never get it to charge using various methods. At that time, I checked the Apple store to find out that it would cost $59 to purchase a new battery. DH decided that was too much to spend since he did have another MP3 player that worked.

Fast forward to this weekend when he was using that MP3 player and he realized the headphone jack was no longer working because any headphones he used would not allow for easily uninterrupted listening.

Today we found a local battery store that could install a generic brand battery into the Ipod for less than $32. He now has access to all his music, as well as movies and tv shows that were originally on the Ipod when he purchased it. A very good deal!

I received a Pinecone survey payment today. And I deposited a $100 check that was given as a gift on our anniversary.

I had redeemed points awhile back from MyPoints. I picked a $25 gift card to Target. It arrived today in the mail. For now, I'm just going to set aside for later use. I might save it for Christmas expenses.

I love cash in the mail! Or any other place for that matter.

I received a $5 rebate in the mail.

And it's snowing here. Expecting about 6 inches.

Waiting for payday. Expecting a van loan payoff!

I filled a prescription yesterday at Target and redeemed a coupon for a $10 gift card. I'm not sure when I expect to use it. I might just see how long I can hold on to it!

I'm spending the day baking breads to give as gifts. It smells yummy in here!

I'm also going to make a run to goodwill with some final donations. Turns out the items I listed last week on craigslist did not sell. Again. So it is time to just let go.

Here are the final numbers for my ebay challenge. The goal was to earn an average of $100 per month selling items our household no longer used on ebay, garage sales, craiglists and online sites that pay cash.

2010 Ebay Challenge Totals
January: $201.89
February: $46.40
March: $55.50
April: $4.74
May: $265.99
June: $0
July: $0
August: $3.04
September: $23.95
October: $217.00
November: $71.90
December: $28.20

Total sales: $918.61
Monthly average: $76.55

I did not meet my goal for 2010. I had the same goal in 2009 and did not meet it then either. My average in 2009 was $56.48. Sooo....I beat my average from last year by $20 per month!!! Yipee. I'll take improvement.

I think I'll keep the same goal for 2011 and see what happens. The garage sales seemed to be my biggest money makers and I expect to have only one, instead of two.

I redeemed points from MyPoints for a $25 Target gift card. I shop at Target often, since it is so close to my house. It's actually a SuperTarget and I buy my groceries there. The gift card will be used for normal purchases, or maybe a gift for a January birthday (if it arrives in time).

Or I could really try hard not to spend it until next Christmas. Wow. That would be impressive! At any rate, I like free money.

I'm looking forward to DH's payday. And it is not because there is no money. I actually have $45 that could be spent, but I don't think I need anything!

Payday means we finish up that emergency fund. It also means we make our regular van payment and an additional van loan payment. I love to see those balances change.

Payday is just two days away! Do you have big plans for your next payday?

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On a side note: I posted three items on craigslist tonight. I'm keeping them up for one week. If they don't sell, we are donating them. They have all been up on craigslist before with no luck. Fingers crossed this time!

I sold two items on ebay this evening. I relisted the item that did not sell. It had five watchers...maybe someone will buy it later.

Total sales: $18.75

Ebay is a pretty good deal right now since there are no fees to list. You only pay fees if the item sells. I like that!

I redeemed enough points from MySurveys today for $15 to be deposited into my Paypal account in the next 10 days. It seems the number of surveys are increasing from what they have been in the last couple years. I noticed this with Pincone, too.

I have three items on ebay that end tomorrow. One will sell and likely the other two, but I have to wait to see. A little extra cash is always a good thing!

I put an item up for sale yesterday as a buy it now and it sold a few hours later. I made $11.95!

November Ebay Challenge Total: $71.90

Now on to December. I'm not certain yet how fruitful of a month it will be. I'm torn about working on the challenge vs donating to ease stress and help someone out at the same time. I'll let you know as December rolls on!

Can you believe tomorrow is December already?

I've been around. It seems I'm consumed with getting the Christmas shopping done as soon as possible! I've shopped primarily online, but did get out here and there the last few weeks. I skipped Black Friday, except for picking up a pedicure gift certificate. I'm not done, but getting much closer.

It's been fun making use of cash on hand, rewards earned from MyPoints, money earned from ebay and surveys, as well as rewards earned from our debit card over the past year. I think all of those things have help to cover the cost of at least half my Christmas list!

I really want to do a better job next year of saving for Christmas with rewards and surveys. I might have to make it a challenge for myself on my blog! So stay tuned.

After selling seven things on ebay and four books on half.com this month I have an update to the ebay challenge. The total sales for November were $59.95!! I'm still short of the $100 goal.

I must say having a goal is motivational. Even if I don't quite get to the goal this year, I can keep trying. If I didn't have this goal, I'm almost sure that I would not have done as well as I have.

Are your goals motivating you?

For the first time, I roasted a pumpkin and pureed it to use in a pumpkin pie. I actually cut it up and put it in the crockpot for about five hours. Very easy!

Of four items listed on ebay, it appears only one will sell. I was hoping for all three. I guess these just aren't the in demand items. I think it is time to donate!

I increased dosage on a prescription and was able to use the Target Pharmacy coupon that gave me a $10 gift card. That will definitely be added to my stash for Christmas shopping.

Make it a grateful week!