When we moved in July, I signed up for internet, a land line and the minimum basic television service. Our internet service is fast (fiber optic I think) and could probably be downgraded. However, I'm thinking I will probably drop the land line instead. We get more calls from telemarketers on that phone than anything.

We use the internet all the time. We have three laptops, two Nooks, a Wii and a Blue Ray player that can all access the internet. It is nice that we don't have to lose connectivity to one device when someone is streaming a video or movie.

We currently pay $29.74 for our land line. This includes all the taxes. I'm thinking I will invest in a VoIP phone/router as a land line alternative. There will likely be an upfront cost of $50-$150 depending on the set up we go with. We will still owe taxes just under $4 a month. We would break even in 6 month or less.

My husband uses VoIP at work and never has any issues. When he calls me the connection is completely clear. I can't tell any difference.

I suppose I should cancel it and try to go without a land line while I'm investigating the switch. That would save the most money!

I don't have a huge need to keep the same phone number. It is so new, not too many people have the number. Most friends and relatives have our cell phone numbers which we did not change. If I desired to switch the number it would likely cost about $40.

So tell me do you still have a land line? If not, how does it work for you? Does anyone have the VoIP and how is that going?

When we moved in July, I signed up for internet, a land line and the minimum basic television service. Our internet service is fast (fiber optic I think) and could probably be downgraded. However, I'm thinking I will probably drop the land line instead. We get more calls from telemarketers on that phone than anything.

We use the internet all the time. We have three laptops, two Nooks, a Wii and a Blue Ray player that can all access the internet. It is nice that we don't have to lose connectivity to one device when someone is streaming a video or movie.

We currently pay $29.74 for our land line. This includes all the taxes. I'm thinking I will invest in a VoIP phone/router as a land line alternative. There will likely be an upfront cost of $50-$150 depending on the set up we go with. We will still owe taxes just under $4 a month. We would break even in 6 month or less.

My husband uses VoIP at work and never has any issues. When he calls me the connection is completely clear. I can't tell any difference.

I suppose I should cancel it and try to go without a land line while I'm investigating the switch. That would save the most money!

I don't have a huge need to keep the same phone number. It is so new, not too many people have the number. Most friends and relatives have our cell phone numbers which we did not change. If I desired to switch the number it would likely cost about $40.

So tell me do you still have a land line? If not, how does it work for you? Does anyone have the VoIP and how is that going?

It's come up on the blogs recently about how to keep snowflakes separate from your regular income so they don't melt while you are saving them for a particular goal. So I'll share mine. It may be too complicated or simple, but it works for me.

I have a running total in Excel of snowflakes by month and source. It looks like this:



When I receive a Pinecone Payment I simply increase the amount by the amount of the payment, which is always $3 in the case of Pinecone surveys. I do the same with the other lines of the spreadsheet as well.

I keep all physical gift cards in an old bank deposit bag that I keep in my desk at home. I also include physical cash here as well.

My Amazon.com gift cards are kept in my Amazon.com account! I usually get these from

Swagbucks and simply copy the gift card code to my Amazon account for safe keeping.

I have earned and redeemed Swagbucks for electronic gift cards. I keep these in my Swagbucks account until I'm ready to print them for use. I only print if I'm taking them to a physical store or giving as a gift.

I don't keep money in my PayPal account for more than one month. I do this primarily so that if I buy something using my PayPal account, the money I've earned from Ebay sales, Pinecone surveys, or Swagbucks does not get spent. This means this money actually ends up in our checking account along with spending money. Doesn't sound like a good idea does it? Especially, since I save my snowflakes for Christmas.

However, I do actually keep my money there. When I look at our checking account balance I don't just see a balance that can be spent. I see a total of about four different pots of money, which are Christmas, escrow, emergency fund, and spending money. I could say I have a fifth pot, but it really is just money sitting there ready to be pulled for an automatic bill payment.



I keep track of how much money is in each pot. I've done this with pen and paper, spreadsheets, a sticky note on my computer and they all work. I update them anytime a balance changes, which is generally on payday twice per month.

Every once in awhile I will make sure my Christmas fund money is correct. I total up cash and gift cards on hand, money in my PayPal account if any, e gift cards in my Swagbucks account, and the cash I have in our checking account. If it all matches my spreadsheet total, I'm good. Occasionally it is not correct. Usually this is because I forgot to add something in. I may have received a rebate in the mail, deposited in the checking account, but did not register it on my Christmas/Snowflake register. If I can't find it I just adjust the cash in my checking account, usually up, to agree with the balance I'm tracking on my spreadsheet.

Oh my...does that sound complicated? It can be. Another way to handle it, would be to try to convert all extra dollars to cash as soon as possible. Spend that Target gift card on something you buy anyway, but withdraw the same amount from your checking account and save the money in an envelope.

Do you have a nifty way to track your snowflake money? Comment here, or post your explanation on your blog.

I didn't end up getting my ebates payout on February 15, because I didn't meet the minimum redemption of $5.01. I'm at $3.28. My next opportunity to receive this money is May 15. I just need to remember to use the site for any online purchases.

I did a survey Friday for Pinecone. I expect to receive my $3 Paypal deposit today. I try to hold the money in my Paypal account until the end of the month, when I redeem all deposits in there and move them to our checking account in a lump sum.

I have over 600

Swagbucks in my account. I'm going to try to get to 2500 by months end. I might not make it, but it is a goal. That will equal $25 in Paypal cash. If I don't I will have Swagbucks ready for the beginning of the month to redeem for the $5 Amazon gift cards, which are 450 Swagbucks each.

I'm taking a road trip today back to our old town. My daughter has an orthodontist appointment. For now it is worth it to go back once a year to have her retainers checked. I've already paid the orthodontist for the visits, so might as well. It will cost some gas though.

It was a bit of a spendy weekend. I bought a large bag of cat food, flute music, groceries, and a new rechargeable toothbrush for my husband (it was on clearance). All of that was around $200. It seems sometimes money flows out rather quickly, luckily not all of the time.

Have a super Monday!

I received payment from Pinecone today for a follow up survey I took yesterday. I receive my money through Paypal not a check, so it is very fast! I will add this money to my Christmas Snowflake fund.

I'm reusing fabric today to make my sister a cover for her dogs bed. The fabric was once a curtain panel. It will be secured with that Velcro that I bought at Walmart two days ago. I will only end up needing 1/4 of what I bought. The total out of pocket cost for the project is $0.21.

It looks to be a no spend day...unless the flute music we ordered is available when I pick up the repaired flute. The repair was covered under a 6 month maintenance plan, which was included with purchase. I like that!

I'm taking today off from working on taxes. I'll get back to it tomorrow...and hopefully get them submitted.

We use McAfee internet protection software on our computer. We have been notified a few times recently that it is about to expire. Two years ago, I received a free one year subscription from our mortgage company, a large bank. Last year I renewed it...for probably around $35. This year the renewal rate is the same.

I could have just paid it the rate and moved on. Today, I took the time search for a better deal. I went to our main bank USAA and noticed that I could get upgraded protection for $40.50. For two years! Sign me up. I used that credit card that should now have a $5+ credit on it from yesterday Kohl's return, to bring my out of pocket expense down even further.

I think there are free resources out there as well, but I have found McAfee to be very, very reliable. Do you pay for internet protection?

I ran errands this morning in the very cold wind! Eek. I returned a shirt I bought my husband for Christmas. I noticed he wasn't wearing it and he confirmed he didn't really like it. I got a good deal when I bought it, so I received $5.56 back to the Chase card I bought it with. Now I have a credit on that card...and I was getting close to closing that one!

I also returned some buttons for $1.96 cash back. I bought Velcro at Walmart instead for $0.84. The difference will likely go to the Christmas fund. I picked up packets of vitamin C at Walmart. I usually buy these at Target. Turns out Target charges $1 more! Annoying since I really prefer to shop Target. Thankful for the savings today.

I bought hair product for my daughter. Hair products that keep our frizzy, curly hair intact are a big priority. The product retails for $16. It was on sale for Buy 2, get 1 free and I have a $3.50 coupon. My total was $30.49. Each tube cost us just over $10 and lasts about 1 month. We are stocked up again.

At my daughter's flute lesson today, I am going to cancel next weeks lesson. We are going to be out of town for an appointment earlier in the day. It will be too rushed to make it back on time. I'm sure the teacher would like to reschedule, but I'm going to pass and apply the $20 lesson fee to some music that we have on order.

That the money tidbits for today!

I have already earned my five $5 Amazon gift cards on Swagbucks this month. I am now accumulating points towards a $25 Paypal deposit by the end of the month. I need to average about 110 Swagbucks per day to meet the goal.

I am adding $6.03 to the Christmas fund. This is the ATM rebate money and interest from our bank for the current month.

I will make a small grocery run today. I know we have enough things on hand for two evening meals. I just need to get some lunch items for the girls and my husband. I will make a bigger store run later in the week. I will pick up the Valentine's candy then. I also plan to make my cards for the girls and my husband. Unfortunately, I know he already bought me a card that cost $5. Ugh!

My sister gave me four, or maybe six, curtain panels that are a bright cheery stripe pattern. I will make one into a cover for her dog's bed. I will make button holes on the six tab tops, add the buttons I bought for less than $2, and it will actually close! It is a lot of fabric but would work well for napkins, or fabric bins. I will probably be sick of the pattern by the time I'm done using it! But she gave it to me for free so I hope to make the best of it.

I'm enjoying the free sample of cat litter, but I know that I wouldn't buy it if it came out on the market. Odor good, but messy. The sample means I haven't had to dig into the new bag I bought 10 days ago.

I finally used up a lotion, one conditioner, and two shampoo bottles. I'm working on another shampoo and a small body wash sample.

I spent $30 on jeans for my youngest daughter at Old Navy yesterday. We all get by on two pairs at a time. She has grown since the last pairs were purchased and one was about to get a hole in the knee. I would have liked to have waited until the end of the month because I think I may be earning a $20 reward! The only thing we buy there is her jeans at this point. And this may actually be the last set, since she is about ready for junior sizes and we have found their women's jeans aren't that great for my older daughter. If I get that reward, I may have to purchase another set, and then return them with my first receipt. Do you think that is acceptable?

Today we are making heart shaped sugar cookies. I splurged and bought the Wilton frosting that comes out like liquid by firms up soon after decorating. It was about $4. Maybe I could make that at home...I'm not a frosting expert. It will make for some fun on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

We did redeem our free Papa Murphy's pizza last night. Yummy!

Are you doing anything frugal today?

I made our goals very early in January and didn't give them a lot of thought. In fact, I still haven't!

One of our goals is to save 15% of our gross income for retirement. Some was to go to my husband's TSP, and the rest to max out our Roth IRA's. Turns out what we are actually saving for retirement is 17.3% of my husband's gross income. Clearly we were saving more than 15% before his raise and increased Roth IRA contributions limits! I just didn't realize it. Another good reason to automate savings.

Another goal was to save at least $500 for each of our daughter's college funds. I thought the $2000 limit for Coverdall IRA (ESA's) was expiring last year, which would have put the limit back to $500. Now we are on track to save them each $2000 in their college funds.

We are saving nearly 22% of our income for retirement and college. Amazing! Do you know how much as a percentage of your income you are saving? Doesn't take long to do a quick calculation.

My snowflakes for February are starting to add up. I have already redeemed $10 worth of Amazon.com gift cards through Swagbucks. I have enough to redeem another $5, and will likely have enough for another $5 AGC very soon. If you followed that math, I'm looking at $20 in Amazon credit for February so far!

I can see I will get paid from Ebates on February 15. It's only $3.28, but I know these small amounts add up big by the end of the year, so I will take it.

I've thought of another way to save small amounts of money. It is our own money, but I would funnel it towards the Christmas Snowflake Fund. My husband often goes to an ATM that charges him $1, occasionally $2, for withdrawal. Our bank, USAA, reimburses us each month, up to $15, for these fees. Luckily he never goes over that limit...thus I do not complain. When these are reimbursed, I will take that amount and add it to our Christmas Fund. This will easily be another $5 per month on average. We usually get a couple pennies of interest at the same time, so I might as well throw those in there too!

Do you have any new sources of snowflakes you would like to share?

We have a credit card that my husband uses for work expenses. He had charged about $25, and the other day I noticed the balance was under $10 on that card. I looked it up and found a credit of $15.56. I inquired and this goes all the way back to July when we noticed some odd charges on the card that were not ours. They switched card numbers for us, and moved the balance over, but did not get to the credit for one of the charges until this week! This was shortly after our move, so I was not keeping track that closely. Nice surprise!

Payday is tomorrow. We were left with just over $12 from our regular budget money. I will make sure to put that money where it counts!

I had an offer from Sharebuilder to deposit at least $10K and get $75. Deposit $25K and get $150. Tempting, but I could not tell how much interest their accounts pay in addition to the bonus. I have some cash I could put in the account but I would like to know the interest rate. I did some searching, but was only coming up with margin interest rates. I know I will not pay those fees. I do not expect to be using the money to buy any investments, so the money would just be sitting in cash. I did put the promotion code in my account, since it expired today. I have until late March to put the money in. In the meantime, I think I will skip it, since I cannot find the interest rate.

I renewed our newspaper subscription. I purchased our first three months with airline miles. Unfortunately, it seems to be a one time offer. I paid nearly $65 for 13 weeks of the daily newspaper. The girls love to read the comics. My older daughter watches for local high school news and pictures. I glance at it everyday. I think it is helpful to have the local paper when you first move to a new town. It helps you understand the issues in the community, as well as, local events. It was hard to make that payment though. I will revist the need for the paper when it comes up for renewal in May.

We are having an artic blast here. The roads are very icy, the wind is blowing and drifting the snow from Wednesday. It was negative 17 degrees with the windchill earlier today. It will get even colder tonight. As you can guess our furnace is running quite a bit!!

And that my friends are my financial musings for the day. You all come back again!

The market has been zooming in January, along with all of last year. It appears to be down today as I write this, but yesterday was a milestone. The total value of our retirement accounts has reached just over $200,000! It has only taken 37 months to make this second 100 grand. We will take it, and watch to see how long it takes to get to the next milestone.

You might check your retirement accounts today, to see how much as changed recently. You might be surprised. And don't forget to keep investing! Or start now, if you have not started yet.

At this point, I think I have a finalized total for January snowflakes. I can't say I tried to hard to accumulate them. I only sold one book and that was already listed before January on Half.com. I have not been motivated yet to get my Ebay sales listed.



Pinecone Surveys and Swagbucks were instrumental to my total this month. The Target gift cards I accumulated for stocking up on some good deals like toilet paper and laundry detergent were a nice bonus too.

Again, I didn't try to hard, but yet I found nearly $100 to save for next years Christmas gifts. Did you find any snowflakes to save this month?

I don't follow our retirement accounts too closely, but I did record the values at year end and then looked again last night before the markets opened up again today. And they were up again today!

We have a good portion in the S&P 500 index fund and it is up 4.65% since December 31. That doesn't seem like much, but once you reach that century mark of $100K, things start moving up pretty fast. We are closing in our next $100K...so will be watching for the day that it does that.

We are dollar cost averaging our purchases in every month with automatic investment and payroll deduction. It makes it so easy to invest and not think too much about it. How do you invest for your retirement? Payroll deductions, auto invest, mail a check? Lump sum or dollar cost average?

I know I've been accumulating snowflakes here and there this month, but had yet to put them in my spreadsheet or add them up. I did that today, and was surprised I have $55.85 already.



The goal for the year is a minimum of $750. This means I need to save an average of $62.50 per month in snowflakes. Snowflakes at our house are for our Christmas fund! It does help to start early.

I did a Pinecone survey today and expect I will be paid the $3 on Monday. Of course, I will add, too! Any one else have a snowflake update?

I have already saved $55.85 in Snowflakes for the month of January. I was a little surprised. I knew I had been accumulating them, but didn't realize how quickly things were adding up!

Since the goal is $750 for the year. I need to save on average $62.50 per month. I'm on track to make that monthly goal with no problem.



I did complete a survey with Pinecone today, so there will be another $3 to add on Monday. Anyone else have a Snowflake update?

I did the same thing last year. I procrastinated on making our yearly goals. So, right now this is what I'll say our goals are:

1) Save 15% to retirement, which will max out our Roth IRA's and put the remainder in my husband's TSP.

2) Pay off truck loan...only $4500 to go!

3) Snowflake a Free Christmas, goal again is $750.

4) Save for college, minimum $500 for each daughter. However, I'd prefer $1500 each. Still working on the math for that.

5) Pay for new intermediate flute with cash, about $1500.

6) Save $2K for vacation. Not sure where we might go, so that is a pretty vague goal at this point!

7) Landscaping and furniture purchases. Pay with cash and decide on a limit!

I guess it isn't really the goals that I'm stuck on as how to approach the goals. One at a time? Get the flute, pay off the truck then attack the savings goals. Or do it all along the way? I'm so focused on that truck payoff that it is hard to not make it a priority. I'll get it figured out by the next payday and generally these are all flexible, so I can change things up if I need to.

My husband went back to work this morning. My girls have one more day off from school. Because they have all been home, I haven't spent the time to focus on our 2013 goals. I have a vague idea, but I'd like to have them more concrete before posting them online.

I will say that I have a couple snowflakes. One was the book I sold on half.com for $0.83 profit, there was one Pinecone survey I was paid for late last month for $3 as well. I used a Menard's rebate of $3 to purchase kitty litter which I have a rebate to send in for a free bag. Eventually, a check will arrive to compensate for that.

I was not on Swagbucks much at all in the month of December, because I wanted to focus on the season and spend more time with family. It was definitely worth it! I still managed to accumulate enough points for a $5 Amazon gift card because I did just a few daily points here and there, search wins while online shopping, and search wins from a referral or two. I'm to attempting to meet the daily goal for the day and will start stock piling Amazon.com gift cards again for next Christmas!

One of my tricks last year, was to primarily purchase Amazon gift cards. If I bought something on Amazon during the year, I would use the gift cards in my account, but then deduct the amount from my checking balance to be held in our Christmas fund account, so that I had some cash to purchase gifts in stores or give the nieces and nephews.

Clearly one of my goals is to accumulate another free Christmas in 2013, one snowflake at a time!

Here are the goals we had for 2012, along with how we did. We did very good considering the first half of the year involved DH living on the east coast and then we moved this summer.

1) Complete 2011 Roth contributions. Used tax refund money. Deadline April 15, 2012. Complete!

2) Pay off tires. Remaining balance $600. Use $300 Chase rewards and $160 tire rebate. Remaining balance out of pocket $140. Deadline March 31, 2012. Completed

3) Contribute 7% to TSP. This was on autopilot and easily accomplished.

4) Contribute maximum amount to our Roth IRA's for 2012. Preferred deadline December 31, 2012. Final contributions made last week. We each contributed $5000.

5) Contribute something to college. $500 each minimum. Also completed last week.

6) Save for a Free Christmas. Goal $700 or more. Saved up over $1400 out of non income sources, called snowflakes on my blog. Spent over $900 on gifts and sent the remainder to the truck loan!

7) Increase emergency fund by $3,000. Or at least end the year with the same amount we started the year with. We started the year with $17K in our emergency fund. We dropped below a few times this year, but when I look at our cash accounts and money I set aside for furniture, we actually have over $20K. So in some ways we have met the goal, but in reality some of that money may get spent. We definitely didn't back track in a big way, so for that I am counting this complete!

8) Pay extra to truck loan. Get the balance under $8K would be ideal! Yep, we did get under $8K. Current year end balance is $4500.

Goals really do help you accomplish big things. I know without some sort of road map for our finances we wouldn't be where we are today. How did you do with your goals in 2012?

We sold a book on half.com overnight. Net profit only $0.83, but I'll take it. The book is already at the post office on it's way to the new owner.

We made another trip to Target today. Our youngest daughter wanted to buy a Wii game. She had a pajama shirt to return that we gave her for Christmas. She also returned a gift from a friend that she received for her birthday back in July. Both items netted her $24.32 in Target credit.

The game she wanted was $49.99, but noticed before we left that it was $16.09 on Amazon.com. In the end we left Target empty handed and ordered the game online. She decided to pay another $8.99 to have it delivered tomorrow. I would have completely discouraged this normally, but the price was so good on Amazon and it will arrive with plenty of time to play before school starts again. And she did buy it with gift money.

On our way out of Target, I noticed some type of coupon on the ground. I went to pick up it up and realized it was $3 off coupon for Target. There were two others nearby upside down.

I do feel bad for someone though. These were 'apology' coupons. They read: $3 off with our apologies. We are sorry for any delays you experienced in our store today. As a token of our appreciation for your patience, please accept this coupon valid for any purchase at any Target store. We hope to see you soon.

In the end I have $9 to use at Target. I think these will be added to the 2013 Snowflake Fund!

I've figured out that I have $473.44 left in my Christmas Snowflake fund that will not be needed for Christmas shopping. I know this because I'm done shopping!!

My 2012 Christmas Fund total was $1,429.21, thus I must have spent $955.77 on Christmas gifts. That seems to be more than last year, based only on memory. However, it was all FREE money. Very little came from my husband's salary. I also know that I have been a little more generous with the gifts. The nieces and nephews are getting an additional $5 each. A good friend and her family are receiving $55 in gift cards, but last year I found great deals for them and only spent $10 out of pocket.

I had quite a few Amazon.com gift cards, so much of my shopping was done there, with free shipping with our Prime membership. I think some of the prices are a bit inflated compared to sales I might have been able to find in stores. I would have spent much more time in stores this season and I've enjoy not having to go out quite as often.

The really good news other than free Christmas gifts is that I'm sending the excess funds, $473.44 to the truck loan today!! I actually rounded the number up by $0.23 to make the principal balance an even dollar amount.

Old Balance $5,266.67
Excess Funds $473.67
New Balance $$4,793.00

We are under $5k!! I am so amazed at how fast this loan is going down. Makes me happy. I really don't want to make these payments anymore!! This loan will definitely be gone in 2013.

The 2013 BAH calculator for military was released today. You can find the calculator

here.

Basic Allowance for Housing is non taxable for US military members and is to provide for those of us who do not have access to housing on a military post or chose to live off post. The average increase was to be 4.2% over last year.

In our case, our housing allowance increased 14.67%. That is the first time our increase has ever been that high. In dollars it is an increase of $170. We are actually receiving less BAH in our new town as compared to our old one because housing is less expensive here.

With this new information on our housing allowance I can more closely estimate our paychecks for next year. We will definitely see an increase. I plan to put some towards meeting the new Roth IRA maximum contributions, which for us will be $83.34 each month. The remainder I plan to put towards that truck loan until it is paid off!! Right now that looks to be about $112.

I did base my paycheck calculations on the assumption that the payroll tax holiday will expire and increase our social security withholding by 2%. Not pretty, but at least we know what to expect there!

If you want to estimate your paycheck, look at at PaycheckCity. Have you estimated any changes in your paycheck for next year? Is it good or bad?

USAA deposited $48.78 into our account today! It's an annual thing...something to do with our auto insurance or just because it is a member bank. I don't really care why...I just know I like cash back. The longer you are with them the bigger the distributions generally.

I knew this was coming and was looking forward to it, but now I'm not sure what to do with it! I should put it towards that truck loan, but part of me just wants to keep it in savings. I think its because my savings account looks smaller now that I moved money to our Roth IRA's.

I will be making a principal payment soon, so I'll let you know what I decide. Ideas and opinions welcome!

Today I was out shopping for my 17 year old niece who we usually give money to, but was put into the adult drawing this year. So I decided to skip the cash and find some things to wrap up!!

Her mom said she could use jeans, so I looked at Old Navy, and Kohl's. I finally scored a pair of jeans off the clearance rack in her size for $9.90. After tax $10.60!

I went back to Old Navy to find shirts which her mother mentioned she needed as well. I found two shirts marked at $2.47 each, and a third shirt marked at $1.97. I threw in two pairs of gloves (one without finger tips), and a scarf for another $5. My total with tax was $12.74. However, I had a $10 gift card scored from Swagbucks earlier this year, thus only $2.74 out of my Christmas cash!

My niece asked for an iTunes gift card. Luckily, I had scored one of these earlier in the year from Swagbucks as well. She will get $25 to spend on her favorites songs!!

It's been fun to find deals with the cash and gift cards I've earned this year. I'm pretty sure I am way under in the Christmas spending, although I have not added it up yet. I will soon, so I know how much extra cash I have stashed away to send to the truck loan!

I think I'm 90% done shopping. How far along are you?

I made our final catch up contribution for 2012. We didn't contribute to our Roth IRAs for the first six months of this year because of my husband renting an apartment for school on the East coast.

We started up again in July with our regular contributions. I have been making some rather large lump sums lately to catch us up. I made a $825 contribution for each of us today.

It makes my bank account look lighter in funds, but hopefully it will boost the retirement account!! It does seem things are on the rise again. Maybe. Overall, it has been a good year for the stock market. Do you agree?

Our final Roth contributions will be made in about 10 days to bring us up to the maximum amount for the year. Next year we get to bump that up to $5,500 each! Do you have a retirement plan? Could you start saving $50 a month into a Roth IRA? Make it a goal for 2013 to start investing for your future.

It takes quite a bit of time to accumulate those snowflakes, but in the last two days, I have spent quite a bit of it!

I spent/used $35 in gift cards at Target last night. Today, I used a $10 earned JCPenney gift card to purchase a wallet and paid just over $2 in accumulated cash on it as well. I also made an Amazon.com purchase for $62.71...using all the Amazon gift cards earned on Swagbucks.

There are still plenty of snowflakes available in the form of cash, Target and Amazon.com gift cards. It just seems strange to spend it now instead of accumulate it!!

I took a Pinecone survey today. I expect payment tomorrow in my PayPal account. I guess that will count as the first snowflake of 2013!

We earned $34.97 on our money market account for the month of November. It sure would be nice to live off interest, but at the current rates, we would need to have quite a bit more cash stashed away.

I don't save the interest as a snowflake, because I want our savings to grow, rather than use the savings to spend or put towards the truck loan. However, it is a good idea for those who might have an emergency fund and are paying down quite a bit of debt. That small interest payment each month could be added to your debt snowball. Or maybe you could at least save all the coins you receive each month. Cash them in at your bank and put that money towards your debt. We did that in our early years. Now, we rarely use cash!

If you didn't see my previous post, take a look...I reported the amount of snowflakes I saved since January! What do you do with the interest you earn? Save it, invest it, or spend it?

From January 1 through November 30, 2012 I have been accumulating small amounts of money, which I call snowflakes. The final grand total of all snowflakes is $1,429.21!! That averages out to $129.93 per month.

Want to know where I found all those snowflakes? Here's a basic breakdown:

$305.00 Amazon Gift Cards (Swagbucks) $305.00
$140.00 Miscellaneous Gift Cards (Swagbucks)
$137.00 Surveys (Pinecone & MySurvey)
_$75.00 Cash (Swagbucks)
$318.42 Ebay Sales
_$95.00 Craigslist Sales
_$20.00 Garage Sale
_$60.00 Target Gift Cards
_$42.11 Rebates
__$3.00 Lottery winnings
_$23.39 Half.com sales
_$22.77 Gifts returned for merchandise credit
_$35.00 Gift cards from MyPoints
_$10.00 Cash gift
_$40.00 Special Offers
__$9.50 Movie ticket (Lean Cuisine)
_$22.94 Utilities under budget
_$41.00 Unknown!
__$5.02 Debit card rewards
_$24.06 Found on the ground

The special offers were for opening a Serve account in January and some offer from Mastercard which I no longer remember the details for. For three months, I was under budget with our water bill at our previous home and I saved the difference. Yes, we literally found $20 in our new backyard! I think the rest is self explanatory.

It's just amazing to see the money grow as the months go by. The original intention has been to use this for Christmas, however, I know that it will not all be used. Once I'm done shopping the the excess cash will be sent to the truck loan. If I have leftover gift cards, I will use them in our regular spending and then send an equal amount to the loan at that time.

Anyone can do this! We might find our snowflakes in different places, but the cash adds up the same way. I'd love to hear about your snowflake sources.

I redeemed enough

Swagbucks for $50 cash to be sent to my Paypal account. I should receive it in another week or so.

This is the first time I have redeemed for cash over gift cards. I almost have too many Amazon.com gift cards for my Christmas spending. And not everything will be purchased on Amazon. A little cash will be very helpful.

I am adding this to the Christmas Fund balance, which as a reminder, I will use extra at the end of the year to put on the truck loan.

Tomorrow is payday and I will be sending in a principal payment in the amount of $62. The amount is equal to 2% of DH basic pay. The amount the payroll tax will increase on January 1. I figured if we are going to lose it then, we can afford to not have it in our spending now. It will help us get used to the new amount.

Has anyone else considered how the payroll tax increase will affect you on January 1? Are you prepared? Currently, you should see 4.2% of your gross pay taxed for social security/payroll tax (FICA). That rate will increase back to 6.2%. Do the math and you will see the change. This rate of 6.2% is the rate we paid prior to 2011 and it is likely expiring at the end of this year!

Just a quick thought...the payroll tax is likely to expire at the end of the year. Right now it is 4.2% down from 6.2% at the beginning of 2011. I was thinking as a way to prepare for the change, I should take that 2% and add the money to our truck loan. It's extra now....and in a few months it will be off to the government.

For us that looks like another $122 a month. Seems like a lot! Are you prepared for the possible and likely change?