Contributions to our Pot of Possibilities (POP) for June!

Paycheck 6/1 $260
Paycheck 6/15 $260
Oldest Allowance $100
Total Interest $92.85
US Bank $12.32
Chase Rewards $17.87
Amex Rewards $51.39
Discover Rewards $0.37
USAA ATM refund 3.50

June Total $798.30

YTD Total $4,593.16
New Big Goal Total $76,677.09

Potentially could have included an Army Travel payment made to us this month which was over $1000, but for now we are holding it seperate for some potential expenses. I may reconsider however!

It's time to report interest income. Interest rates are far lower, and we lost a great rate when a recent CD matured.

FNBO $27.20
NFCU $65.43
USAA $0.22
Total $92.85

That's about $70 less than last month. Interesting times. The good times don't always last do they? However, we are very grateful for what we do have.

These funds have been added to our Pot of Possibilities!

It's the time of the month where I redeem credit card rewards and add them to our Pot of Possibilities!

I redeemed the following:
US Bank Visa $12.32
American Express $51.39
Chase Freedom $17.87
Total $81.58

Our US Bank Rewards will drop next month by about $8 since I will no longer use for our cell phone bill. We have been able to use a credit card to pay our rent the last three months, as the office staff has waived the associated fees since they are not working on site.

I decided a couple months ago to stop messing around with Swagbucks. It is a bit of a time suck, although I did limit the time I spent on it. I decided I do not support their advertising content, that I am clicking on to raise it's prevalence to the public. I can find other ethical ways to bring in another $300 a year. It was a good run of bringing in some cash however and I am thankful for the times it helped us out.

Everything seems up for review these days!

Yesterday, I switched our cell phone plan to their lowest cost unlimited plan, which ended up saving us about $22 a month. I did have to switch to paying our bill with our checking account. I had been using our US Bank Credit card to receive 5% back, however the math still worked in our favor to switch. I think I had seen this offer before, but the math didn't seem to add up in our favor. I'm wondering if something else changed or if I just didn't do the math right last time!

I may close the US Bank credit card if I can figure out if another one of our credit cards gives 5% back on internet. I think one of them does. That will be the only charge going to that card, so I'm interested in consolidating if I can and still be getting decent cash back.

We also get Disney+ for one year for signing up for our new cell plan. We will use it I'm sure, but I wasn't wanting to add another streaming service when it first came out. The value of that is $6.99 per month, so definitely a nice bonus.

The other financial change is setting up some new Certificates of Deposits. I'm not thrilled with the rates as they have fallen. But I we have a lot of cash on hand and I have to have it earning something! I opened one for $25K, and will probably open a second one in a week or two for a similar amount. We decided we didn't want the a large $50K CD, as the interest rate doesn't benefit us. Instead we will have two $25K CDs, as a way to keep our options open a bit. I locked one today for 1.25% with Navy Federal. I unfortunately missed their last 'special rate'.

I started a batch of sauerkraut yesterday(first time ever) and today I began working on growing a batch of sourdough starter (also my first time). We all can grow and learn anything at any time.

Have you found a service to change or stop recently? Have you ever made any fermented food?

It's that time of the month where we add up our interest we earned on our cash savings last month. Rates are declining and our large CD expires this month, so numbers will likely go down for awhile.

FNBO $34.79
NFCU $129.37
USAA $0.21
Total $164.37

We threw all interest into our Pot of Possibilities!

My husband is out of town for work. He finally had two days off in a row on Saturday and Sunday, but worked Monday (Memorial Day) Strange times we are in, where the time off happens away from the family. But this is really like a deployment for many, so I have to look at it through that lens and be thankful that most days I have been able to see him.

They gave him the option of flying or driving to the destination. He could also have rented a car. He decided to drive his truck, which then prompted us to get some maintenance done that we knew was going to be needed soon. He got four new tires, rear brakes, brake fluid flushed and an alignment for about $1300.

The destination is about 900 miles each way. Mileage is paid at 57.5 cents per mile. This will give us a payment for about $1,035. I think we will bank this money in our Pot of Possibilities once it arrives. We had already been saving for the maintenance and that account is still flush with funds.

Don't worry planning for the second wave is happening, as is planning for hurricane relief in the age of CV. My husband, along with his team, have submitted these plans to higher ups multiple times. There are so many inefficiencies in government, so frustrating to observe. The Army Reserves is rarely deployed on the homeland, so a whole new era of responsibility.

My husband IS on the promotion list for Lieutenant Colonel. Now we wait for orders to make it official. It may take 6 months to get those, as only so many are processed and approved each month. We are grateful for increasing income and feel very blessed to have employment in a time when many others do not.

And on a completely different note, I'm buying a slightly used Crockpot today for $20. The one I had from our wedding (24 years) ago went out around Christmas. I have been pondering an Instant Pot, but haven't found the right price. So a crockpot it is for now. I have a lot of dried beans I have been putting off making because of it. Yes, I know I can use the stove and a pot, but I'm so used to the CrockPot! I am excited.

We have our auto insurance through USAA. We have three cars on our policy. Just like many of you we received a credit recently because fewer people are on the road, less risk, ect. That first credit was $97.45.

We were notified this week we are receiving another one month credit, specifically 20% of what is equal to one month premium. For us that is $46.39.

Our six month premium was due May 4, so the first credit did reduce our payment owed. Now we have this credit, so I assume it will get refunded to our checking account. Or maybe it will just sit there until our next insurance payment is due. I should look into the specifics.

I am going to put these credits into our Pot of Possibilities, so they can do their magic. 😀

Are you getting another return of your auto insurance premium?

A few credit card rewards have been tossed into the Pot of Possibilities this month. I usually report these at the end of the month and I will again at the end of May. But it's kind of fun to write about tossing them into our new pot!

Chase Freedom $49.38
US Bank $12.32
American Express $52.86

That is $114.56 into the pot in addition to our two monthly contributions of $260 each. These happen on payday.

Next month I'm increasing the two monthly contribution to $310 each because we are discontinuing giving our oldest daughter her monthly allowance, which was $100 per month.

Looks like my husband is traveling for work and will be gone about two weeks. I expect there will be some per diem money that we can save in June after his expenses are submitted.

The Pot is growing!

In my last blog post, I mentioned the need to change the name of what I have been referring to as our Big Goal for the last couple years, which was originally started as a house downpayment goal for our next home, potentially four years from now when my husband retires. Sooner if we love the next place we get stationed with the military.

The new name needed to have a more positive vibration, as I was starting to feel like Big Goal sounded like something unattainable or just really hard to do. I think how we feel about something can affect the outcome.

As you can tell, I have taken several days to consider some ideas that came out in a couple brainstorming sessions. We have decided not to attach a specific number to this name or goal. Of course,I will always know what our original amount was, but I'm not going to track that as an end goal.

The new name for this cash accumulation is the Pot of Possibilities!! I have this image in my mind that I will throw various amounts into the pot and that numerous possibilities can be created with those funds. It may be a pot that allows for a house, or maybe a house AND something else. It's the seed money in some respects to the new life we begin to create when retirement comes around. Oh, the possibilities!

(Multiple posts today...check them out!)

I just reported on our Big Goal progress for April. We are very close to the milestone of $75K. I have been thinking for awhile about changing the name of our goal. There is a bit of a negative connotation to the term 'big goal' almost implying that it is unattainable or that it would take a miracle to reach. I truly want to believe that it is possible, so I need a new name. I don't know what it is, but if anyone wants to make a suggestion I'm sure open to ideas. The money was originally intended as a downpayment on our next house, so it could be home related. But in these unknown times I simply see it as cash that can be used to sustain us in the hard times. But again the term I use has to have a positive vibration to it. Because I know things are going to work out and this is an attainable goal. I'm also open to not having a number attached, because of course, if more is supposed to come our way it will!

I might also be hurting ourselves by not throwing every penny toward the goal. I did not include the stimulus money in the goal, or any housing refunds, or the money we were able to save this money simply by not being as active in the retail world or driving as much (specifically able to set aside $1,030.24!)

I have a feeling that health and sustainability are going to be big lessons for many of us in the coming years. We actually just had a power outage of 21 hours this week. I was grateful once again to the neighbor who let us hook to their generator for our fridge and to charge our devices (our daughter was trying to still do homework!) I think sharing in that way is beautiful, but I also think some self reliance is important too. We may be using some (or all) of our stimulus money to buy some things that help us be more self reliant, such as a generator or a camping stove. We may also use money to invest in more glass food containers, or having a bigger stockpile of foods on hand. I don't have it all figured out, but it seems like that investment may be helpful in addition to keeping cash.

In another note, I'm glad we don't eat a lot of meat or dairy. We do use some and it would be missed, but we are able to live without it. I do find it sad for the farmers who are forced (or choose) to kill their livestock before getting it to market. So many repercussions of the actions taken. But again I believe this will all work out. It will be bumpy for awhile, but we will collectively come to a better way of living in the world that is sustainable and healthier for everyone. We all want health and vibrancy and our natural world can provide it! We just have to come back into balance.

May you be well. May you be happy. 🦋

We make automatic deposits to our money market savings account each pay period! For nearly a year I had been directing extra funds to paying ourselves back for the downpayment on our daughter's car. This month I can add those to the Big Goal progress!

April Big Goal Additions
Paycheck 4/1 $260
Paycheck 4/15 $260
Total Interest $156.31
US Bank $12.33
Chase Rewards $3.35
Amex Rewards $66.92
Swagbucks (Paypal) $10
Ebay Sales $7.46
Utility Refund $35.18
April Total $811.55

YTD Total $2,880.99
New Big Goal Total $74,964.92

Goal is $200,000. We are at 37.48% of goal. I celebrate every deposit and every milestone on the way there!

We are paying ourselves back for money we put down on our daughter's car in May 2019. I am putting all sources of extra funds towards that goal. Here's what I found in March:

US Bank $12.33
Chase Rewards $9.92
Amex Rewards $45.03
Swagbucks (Paypal) $25
Ebay Sales $22.28
Pinecone $3.00
USAA Rebate $3.00
Army Travel Excess $119.42

Total $239.98

Prior Payback Balance: $254.69
New Payback Balance: $14.71

Well isn't that interesting! So close to payoff. I think it is time to call it paid back though. I'm pretty sure I sold at least two items locally for $5 each this past month...a bit of a blur, but I know I didn't allocate those funds to any pot of money. And I know we added money to our emergency fund far in excess of $4.71, so....

it's paid off!! Happy, happy dancing'!!

New Payback Balance: $0.00

All of these types of funds will go towards the BIg Goal starting this month.

We make automatic deposits to our money savings account each pay period! So easy. Highly recommend!

March Big Goal Additions
Paycheck 3/1 $260
Paycheck 3/15 $260
Total Interest $173.11
Total Contribution $693.11

YTD Total $2,069.44
New Big Goal Total $74,153.37

Goal is $200,000. We are at 37.08% of goal. I celebrate every deposit and every milestone on the way there!

This month I am grateful my husband has a job and it still getting paid.

We are paying ourselves back for money we put down on our daughter's car in May 2019. I am putting all sources of extra funds towards that goal. Here's what I found in February:

US Bank $12.33
Chase Rewards $7.10
Amex Rewards $46.06
Swagbucks (Paypal) $25
Ebay Sales $30.81
Army Travel Excess $122.15

Total $243.45

Prior Payback Balance: $498.14
New Payback Balance: $254.69

So tempting to just throw some extra funds we had at the end of the month on it, but I also know that we have another round of airline tickets needing to be purchased, possibly this week, so I'm just going to do the same as February and know that our rewards, sales and military travel payments will likely have this paid back this month!!

Looking forward to the debt payoff happy dance! Yes, I considered this a debt, even if it was to ourselves. 😀

We make automatic deposits to our money savings account each pay period! So easy. Highly recommend!

February Big Goal Additions
Paycheck 2/1 $260
Paycheck 2/15 $260
Total Interest $172.34
Total Contribution $692.34

YTD Total $1,376.33
New Big Goal Total $73,460.26

Goal is $200,000. We are at 36.7% of goal. I celebrate every deposit and every milestone on the way there!

Here's the interest we earned on our cash savings last month:

FNBO $54.55
NFCU $117.62
USAA $0.17
Total $172.34

All interest was saved towards our Big Goal.

I filed our tax return for 2019 on Sunday. The IRS and our home state where we file have both accepted the returns. My husband's income is exempt in our home state, so we owe nothing and since we didn't have any state withholding taken, there is also no refund.

We are getting a $1,308 refund from Federal. I had several years in the past where we tried to get closer to zero refund or owed, but I have skipped that the last two years because of tax changes and different credits applying for college expenses.

We have decided this refund will be set aside to assist with our youngest daughter's tuition bill. Her junior and senior years are higher tuition because she is an engineering major, so starting in the fall we will have an additional $1000 per semester on top of what we already pay. It is possible that she will get a scholarship that will reduce the costs.

I did run my oldest daughter's taxes through a program and she is getting a $94 refund from Federal and $34 from the state. We have not filed it yet, as I do want to run through it with her so she understands it.

In other money news, we had to buy a Blu Ray player. It sort of sounds archaic to buy one, because we do stream a lot of content, but we do also own DVDs and Blu Ray discs. We have also started renting newer releases for $0.60 from Redbox (after coupon code), which is less expensive than rentals through Amazon, ect. Our old player was cutting off the sound intermittently during playback. We paid $62.99 after a coupon and it's more than I really wanted to pay but we did shop around a bit and this was the one for the right price with the features we wanted.

I redeemed Swagbucks for a $25 Amazon gift card, and American Express rewards for $36.06. I also sold another item on eBay last night that needs to be mailed out.

What will you do with any tax refund you get this year? Save? Pay off debt? Or make an purchase?

I've been watching a couple that's on YouTube work on getting out of a lot of debt. They were behind on their mortgage and didn't know until people started commenting that they needed to get current first!! When you are behind on payments that IS a debt and one that can get bad very fast, potentially losing a home or a car.

They have been gazelle intense on selling lots of things and their house is on the market to sell. They are finding cash in their home, including redeeming Ibotta rewards and credit card rewards for cash and gift cards, things that just weren't on their radar.

They are creating budgets, using cash envelopes, stopping monthly subscriptions and eating out. They shopped at Aldi for the first time. The skipped buying each other Valentine's gifts this year. They are rocking it!! And it's very inspiring. If you are in major debt, or looking to figure out what to do, find those that are making it work and follow their example for inspiration. There are lots of people who live debt free, and are climbing out of debt.

Yes, it's overwhelming to be in debt, but it's freedom to make the changes and strive to live a debt free life! Now go find yourself someone to inspire you if you have lost your way.

I've listed quite a few things on eBay. I've already sold a pair of brand new jeans I never wore when I was that size! The other items may or may not be in demand. I have noticed that it is easy to keep listings up long term, through the Buy It Now option. Eventually someone seems buy many of them. I just have to manage how long I want the items that I no longer want sitting in my closet!

My husband traveled for work in January. His travel payment came through this week. He kept his expenses under the allowed per diem, which made us $122.15. That money will be allocated towards the Big Goal.

By the way our Big Goal is to save $200K towards our next home, possibly four years from now. It's BIG. It may not be realistic, or attainable, but we are moving in that direction. It may be some of the funds will get used for something other than a house. But I didn't want to spend years renting and not making some headway towards a home if that make sense. The effort and the progress is where I am currently focused. It's not necessarily what we do with the money when the time comes. As a saver it may be really hard to part with a large pile of cash, but I also want to keep debt, if any, realistic, too!

Are you decluttering? Are you selling anything to bring in extra funds?

As mentioned earlier this month I have increased the amount we save automatically each pay period going forward to create at least an additional $2,020 in 2020! In the future this will be $260 per pay period.

January Big Goal Additions
Paycheck 1/1 $175
Paycheck 1/15 $200
Extra contribution $125
Total Interest $183.99
Total Contribution $683.99

YTD Total $683.99
New Big Goal Total $72,767.92

Oh, how I would love to to get to $100k! We will just keep plugging along.

Here's the interest we earned on our cash savings last month:

FNBO $58.54
NFCU $125.42
USAA $0.03
Total $183.99

All interest was saved towards our Big Goal.

Interest adds up. I was a bit shocked at the total on one of the 1099 INT statements that came in the mail. Over $1400 on one account alone. Best year yet for interest!

I plan to save an additional $2,020 for the year. I've decided to simply automate this, and add it to the Big Goal total. Prior to making this decision I had already increased our automated savings of $175 each pay period to $200. This works out to an additional $50 per month saved.

In order to make the $2,020 increase for the year, I will change the automatic savings amount to $260. This increases each savings deposit by $85, compared to last year.

$85 x 24 pay periods is $2,040, which meets the goal exceeds it just a little.

I realized I didn't actually change the amount from $175 to the new $200 until the 15th of January. So I am short on both January deposits by $145 total.

I am moving that shortage today to make that the full $520 saved for the month. I will also adjust our automatic transfers as of February 1 to be $260 per pay period.

I have some apprehension in making this increase despite knowing my husbands annual raise was only enough to cover the added insurance premium for our daughter. This means we are forcing ourselves to have less to spend each month by $170 per month.

I think if it gets pulled out each pay period we just won't see it and will not have it to spend. At least that is the hope. Worse case scenario, I have over saved and can use the money if needed. I'm just going on some faith that the money will be there.

I'm not kidding, but seconds after I typed that I was going on faith, I received a notification on my phone that I sold a book on eBay. I'm taking that as a sign that we definitely should do this extra savings. The money we need will be there when we need it.

Are you saving more in 2020? How are you making it happen? Or if you have debt, are you paying more towards your debt?

Note to self, added $125 for January shortage, since additional $20 would actually put over goal. Transfers set up as $260 twice per month beginning February 1.

I have not been good at focusing on much of anything lately, including getting a blog post together. So this is all just random.

I paid our youngest daughter's tuition and housing bill. I had saved $500 a month for the last five months to pay the tuition out of pocket. I used her ESA to pay $5700 to pay for room and board. No loans for her yet!

Our oldest daughter's tuition and housing bill is at about $9,294. She is only taking six credits to finish up this May with her two degrees. I have $6,170 in our account towards that and I believe her loan and a couple small scholarships total $3471. So we will have nearly $300 left. I will likely give this to her at graduation to put towards the loans. No point in doing it earlier, as the loans are subsidized interest.

We got a utility refund for being under the average. That was $27.30. This program is likely going away at least in the short term while they do a military housing wide evaluation, due to complaints. I can see the next refund will be larger at $32.11 and appears to be pending now. I save this money towards our Big Goal.

I redeemed credit card rewards recently. Amex $67.30 and Chase Freedom $3.82, and US Bank $13.00. It all adds up!

I earned an Amazon gift card ($25) from Swagbucks since January 1. I earned $506 in gift cards in 2019. Many of which I think I failed to count towards our Big Goal.

I have kept my eye out of for some Christmas cards on clearance and finally found a box of 14 cards by Papyrus for 90% off. I paid just $1.89 at the local exchange store. This is the only Christmas item I was in need of.

This weekend I went to Dollar Tree and bought 9 cards for $6. 8 were 2 for $1. The valentine card my husband picked out for me was $1. This is a win, as he probably would have ended up elsewhere for a card and paid $7! I also bought some of those foil containers with a lid for food. I put a meal in the set of three for a neighbor who is recovering from surgery. Great deal so they won't have to worry about returning dishes.

I did decide to keep YNAB for now. It is a time saver as far as reconciling accounts, and helps me keep good records of our spending and savings. That will be charged to our account today for $75.59. I have looked at other options but will say they don't quite add up to what YNAB can do.

I think I mentioned this once but my husband raise for the year (not the likely upcoming promotion), is going to end up covering our oldest daughters insurance premium. It sort of doesn't feel like a raise when you don't feel like you get to decide what to do with it. But in reality I'm grateful the money came at the right time for the additional expense and didn't have reduce our savings.

It's going to be a busy year. Lots of travel for my husband. Our oldest daughter will graduate in May (with unknown plans after). Will she move elsewhere? What job will she get? She just seems very focused on finishing up. We will travel to her town for graduation. I just made a hotel reservation and probably am lucky I found something at a reasonable price at this late date!

Our youngest has talked about study abroad for this summer, but I'm insistent that any classes she does take must count for her major or minor. So far, we may be striking out. While the experience would be great, it doesn't make sense to pay for a class that doesn't count.

My parents will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary just after Christmas this year. They have talked about wanting to take a trip with my family and my sisters family on a trip. We have said we will definitely go, but we have no idea where or what the trip may cost.

That potential trip has me wanting to sock away more money in 2020! I mentioned before the year end that some are looking to save $2,020 and I'm thinking of adding that to my savings plans to help with this trip. Hopefully in my next blog post I can try to have it flushed out where I will find this money! I think I just have to make it happen like a bill ($2,020/24 pay periods is $84.17 or $168.34 a month).

Thanks for listening to my brain dump! I didn't even mention taxes...I will save that for another time, too.

I'll attempt to include a screenshot of my

December 2009 post, but the run down I posted then was that we contributed $14,147 to retirement, our retirement accounts had increased by $33,219, and the value had exceed $100K for the first time.



We had paid over $10K on a home equity loan, with total debt decreasing by $17K. Not sure our total debt amount, but we may have had a loan on my van and home debt. If I had to guess $160K to $175K in debt.

I also reported paying our daughter's braces in cash along with a trip to Disney World. We were also getting ready for my husband to deploy to the Middle East for the second time.

Ten years later:

Husband is cosigner on a car loan for our daughter which had a balance of $4,959 at the end of December 2019. Otherwise we have zero debt.

We do not own a home and live on a military installation. We pay rent equal to our housing allowance. At this point we have rented since June of 2015.

We have $95,327 in cash (most of it invested in high interest rate CDs.) Part of that, $72,083.93, is cash towards our Big Savings Goal of $200,000.

We saved $21,627.56 in 2019 towards retirement. Our retirement accounts increased $172,287.30 in one year, with an ending balance of $660,822.27.

In 2019 both of our daughters were in college full time for the first time. Tuition bills were paid in full, with our oldest daughter taking out her first loan in the fall for $2,750. No parent loans thus far!

Our 2007 Honda vehicles are still paid off. While they have lots of miles they still run and look fantastic.

In ten years there has been significant progress in retirement and we have mostly stayed out of debt (just a little help for our daughter).

It's fun to look back and I look forward to another ten years of financial progress. It should make for an interesting story!

While we continue to pay ourselves back for the car down payment we continue to send money to our savings goal.

December Big Goal Additions
Paycheck 12/1 $175.00
Paycheck 12/15 $175.00
Total Interest $185.03
Total $535.03
New YTD Big Goal Total $9,098.48
New Big Goal Total $72,083.93

December's tally brings us 36.04% of goal.

Another $9K added to our goal this year. If we weren't paying ourselves back for the car down payment we would have exceeded $10K. I predict that next year we will exceed that mark! In fact, that is going to be the goal.

I am increasing our two paycheck contributions to $200 per pay period starting with the January 15 paycheck, as that is when my husband's annual raise begins. Later in the year when he is promoted I hope to increase this significantly more!

Here's the interest we earned on our cash savings last month:

FNBO $59.60
NFCU $125.40
USAA $0.03
Total $185.03

All interest was saved towards our Big Goal. Progress on that for the year in a separate post.

On this last day of the year I thought I'd reflect on a few things, but expect more detailed financial posts in the coming days.

It was an unpredictable year.

I didn't plan for buying our daughter a car, yet the writing was on the wall. That lack of planning resulted in a loan in her name with my husband as cosigner. We are currently making the payment of $133.50 per month because our daughter has a very part time internship. She uses her earnings to cover groceries and gas on the vehicle. The balance is currently $4,949.50. We are not currently making extra payments. I'm mixed about this loan considering we have the cash on hand. But on some level this should be hers to complete once she has a full time job.

We did put $3000 cash down on the vehicle and are currently paying ourselves back for this. I will have an update in a couple days on our progress on this.

Our oldest daughter also has taken on two student loans, each $2750. One is just about to be disbursed for spring. This are the first and only loans she has had to take out. I'm also mixed on these because yes we have the cash, yet I think it is okay for her to have some skin in the game. On the other hand she double majored and we will have supported her for five years by the time!! It's still amazing to me that we were able to get her through school with this small amount of debt.

Our youngest daughter did not need to take out any loans. She still has ESA funds, a least a year of Post 911 GI bill eligibility. We currently save $500/mo (or $6000/yr) towards her tuition.

Our retirement balances have skyrocketed this year with returns exceeding 25%. It was a great year to be in the stock market. We increased my husband's Roth IRA contributions to account for his catch up eligibility since he turned 50 this year.

I'm still impressed with our ability to handle the travel costs associated with having our girls living over 1000 miles away. I think I'm making plane reservations every three months on average!

We did make progress on our Big Goal this year too, which I will report in detail in the next few days. It was an average year towards that goal. Sometimes the effort seems so slow, yet at the same time I'm grateful that we have this goal. I think this money would just slip away without it!

In non financial news, I lost about 15 pounds this year and have been able to keep most of it off all year. I did really well exercising at least 5 days week. I drink a good amount of water regularly. Healthy habits and progress towards a little more weight loss is the goal in the coming year too.

I'm going to count 2019 as a success! Happy New Year!!

We have been using Hulu Live TV recently, primarily to get our college football team games. Those are over for the season and our daughter who was in their marching band is done forever. Sad! We did cancel it for four months this summer when our expenses were especially high, and used an antenna to get over the air channels.

Hulu Live TV is increasing their price from $44.99 to $54.99. Really, really not worth it to me. My husband does like to have it so for now we are switching service providers. We will now stream with Sling TV for their Blue Plan for $30 per month. We will save $15 over our current price and avoid the $10 increase that Hulu Live was offering.

We may pause Sling here and there for additional savings. I personally could just be fine with an over the air programming, I only watch local news for severe weather information.

My daughter's phone was paid off this month too, so our bill will be lower by $13 a month. Not sure how long we will go until we purchase new ones, but for now I appreciate the savings.

Are you lowering any of your expenses in the coming year? I wish I could lower them all, but so many are rising. I guess I will put another post out on that at another time.

All Christmas gifts are bought, wrapped and those that needed to be shipped have been mailed! Our Christmas budget is $600 and we came in under budget by $17.75. I probably would have been a little over budget, but I did get a credit for an item that came slightly damaged from Amazon (so it was free), and I earned some Swagbucks $25 that I used to purchase one gift on Amazon, in addition to using about $15 in Amazon credit card rewards.

I have some snowflakes fall around here!

I redeemed $47.06 in American Express Rewards this morning. Those are redeemed as a credit, but I record it as money sent to our Big Goal in YNAB.

My husband received a travel reimbursement from work and it was $58.40 more than his expenses. I saved it of course.

I also sold a salt lamp on Facebook that we had been given as a gift. I was paid in cash, but used the cash for groceries so I moved $25 out of the grocery budget to the Big Goal.

I received $3 from a Pinecone Survey in my PayPal account, too.

And the final snowflake (small amounts of found money) is a sale on eBay which netted us $5.34.

I'm a big believer that small amounts of money can add up, of course large amounts can too, but don't discount the small amounts to add up to something!

Did you come in over, under or on budget for your holiday spending this year?

I've seen some talk on the internet about a 2020 Savings Challenge. The idea is to save up $2,020 next year, by setting aside $38.85 per payday, assuming you are paid weekly. I'm primarily sharing, in case you were wanting to find a way to challenge yourself to save more money in 2020.

I'm pondering some sort of challenge to save more. I'm not sure yet what that would be. In this scenario, my husband is paid twice per month, so that would be $84.17 per pay period.I 'think' we could technically do this, but I need to run numbers.

We have added a new expense this year...health insurance premium for our oldest daughter. She can stay on current plan, but because as of next week she will not be full time at school, AND in March she turns 23 which ages her out of the option to stay on the plan without a premium. Fingers crossed she gets a job with health insurance, so we can cut that expense. We are happy to provide it, just not excited about paying it...who ever really is right?

The exciting thing about 2020 for us is that we expect my husband to be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, which is a very nice raise of nearly 18%! We do not expect that to happen until May or June.

Generally, we save what we save. But it can be easy to become complacent and not save as much as possible. Are saving challenges helpful to you? Are you planning to do one in 2020?