I redeemed Swagbucks recently for $25 deposit to my PayPal account. I sold two items on eBay and netted just over $15. I just transferred the money to our savings account. This is Big Goal money!

I did a ShopTracker for Pinecone Research, but I have not seen the credit to my account yet. That should be $3 when it arrives. And I JUST got the email that it has been credited as I was writing this. Timing is an amusing thing!

Payday is on Thursday, so I just paid off all credit cards and they are now back to zero. I do this twice per month, no interest is ever paid on the credit cards we use. Our February spending actually ended up being only $75 more than in January! I was surprised, as we had guests and we weren't trying.

I'm looking forward to adding up our interest for the month of February. I noticed that one of our accounts has increased the interest rate to 1.60%. Such a relief to us savers to see interest rates moving in a favorable direction.

I will balance and reconcile all accounts in YNAB later today or tomorrow. Some accounts are simple as we use them for just a few transactions a month. Other accounts take a little longer. Once they are all up to date, then I toss nearly all receipts, keeping only those that I may need for a return or for long term reasons, such as insurance claims or taxes.

I redeemed Swagbucks recently for $25 deposit to my PayPal account. I sold two items on eBay and netted just over $15. I just transferred the money to our savings account. This is Big Goal money!

I did a ShopTracker for Pinecone Research, but I have not seen the credit to my account yet. That should be $3 when it arrives. And I JUST got the email that it has been credited as I was writing this. Timing is an amusing thing!

Payday is on Thursday, so I just paid off all credit cards and they are now back to zero. I do this twice per month, no interest is ever paid on the credit cards we use. Our February spending actually ended up being only $75 more than in January! I was surprised, as we had guests and we weren't trying.

I'm looking forward to adding up our interest for the month of February. I noticed that one of our accounts has increased the interest rate to 1.60%. Such a relief to us savers to see interest rates moving in a favorable direction.

I will balance and reconcile all accounts in YNAB later today or tomorrow. Some accounts are simple as we use them for just a few transactions a month. Other accounts take a little longer. Once they are all up to date, then I toss nearly all receipts, keeping only those that I may need for a return or for long term reasons, such as insurance claims or taxes.

I cashed out my Ibotta account last night. The funds were immediately transferred to my PayPal account. Just this morning I moved those funds to savings, not sure why I waited! I was able to cash out $41.38.

I also had proceeds from an item I sold on eBay yesterday as well, so I transferred those to savings. In total I added $49.56 to our Big Goal funds.

It does take awhile for Ibotta coupon savings to add up and you need a $20 balance to withdraw, but I find it easier than cutting or printing coupons. If you are interested in saving this way, you can sign up under me

here.

I mentioned in my post yesterday that I was waiting to hear back from US Bank about earning 5% cash back on our daughter's computer purchase with Dell. I had selected 5% cash back on Electronics and Cell Phones (I always select this one) for the first quarter of the year.

Turns out Dell does not designate themselves as an Electronics Store but as Computer & Computer Software retailer. I really should have asked this question in advance. I took a chance. I had even considered buying Dell gift cards at a discount site, but then figured I wouldn't get the 5% back since that would be a gift card purchase. In the end that is what I should have done because those gift cards were at a 4% discount.

I did get 1% back on the purchase with Dell, so saved $14.61. I also clicked through Ebates for 2% cash back or $27.88. I will get that money in May when Ebates send me my Big Fat Check (that's what they call it). I see now they have 10% cash back on Dell. Ugh. I have to trust that I got a good deal on the site at the time. If I remember right the computer was discounted by 10%.

My husband was paid today. I put $108 into our Big Goal Fund since this is the amount of his paycheck that is over what he was receiving before. So important to save as much of our raises as possible, so we don't get the creep of lifestyle inflation.

I also sold another item on eBay. Net is probably about $7.50. It will go to the goal too. It adds up!

I found some cash yesterday! I made sure to get all of it deposited into our savings accounts to go to the Big Goal. If you are new here, I call found money snowflakes. It's a term that comes from adding small amounts of money to your debt snowball to pay the debt off quickly. I also use the term when adding small amounts to my big savings goals.

Here's what I found:
$1.33 Discover Rewards
$4.59 Ebay Proceeds
$19.10 Chase Freedom Rewards
$3.11 USAA ATM rebate and interest
$28.13 TOTAL

I also have some rewards with US Bank, but I'm checking with them about the amount. I think I'm owed more after purchasing a computer from Dell and having 5% cash back on electronics chose for this quarter.

Not big money, but I'm telling it where to go so it will make a difference in our goals. I share so that if you have any snowflakes you might be inspired to put that money towards your financial goal, whether that is paying off debt or saving. The small amounts add up.

Where do you find your snowflakes?

So finally, after many issues last month, I was able to log on to the free version of H&R Block to file our taxes. We are able to file free as military members through the Military One Source website. The filing was free for Federal and State. We owe $91 to the federal government, which is better than the expected $400 I had in mind. And we are exempt from state income tax in our state of legal residence, since they do not tax Active Duty Pay. I have already schedule payment from our checking account to take place on March 1st. I could have waited longer obviously, but I just want to get it done!

I think for now I will keep our withholding allowances at 9. Dido made me aware that there will be a $500 credit per dependent over age 17 beginning in 2018, so that reduces the tax owed by $1000. I may actually increase it later in the year, but I will wait until we know what the actual college expenses we pay are. Right now it could be as much as a $2500 American Opportunity tax credit and maybe $400 Lifetime Learning Credit. As it stands now, we will have $3918 withheld for 2018, and likely actual tax would be $6900. So we are in the right place with withholding.

And I can see that our next paycheck is higher due to the new withholding tables. The amount is $45.70 more per pay period or $91.40 per month. We were already getting an additional $63.15 per pay period due to my husband's raise. So since December we have $217 more in our pockets each month. And more going to retirement because of the raise! Can't complain about that.

In other news, I sold three more items on eBay in the last week. Not big money, but it all adds up. It goes to the Big Goal...as should that extra income above.

After a low spend January, we had extra funds to allocate. I finally took care of that yesterday, by adding $1000 to our vacation budget. We are definitely going to be on the move this year, so the budget needs help.

We potentially have a small beach vacation with family that will visit in June. The beach is about two hours away, so no airline tickets, but contribution to a rental for sure. And food!

We are going to need to travel to our youngest daughter's college for orientation in June. We likely could skip it living so far away, but we think since we can make it work, it will be helpful as part of the adjustment living away from us to have more experience on campus. We will likely fly for this event. Hotels also needed.

We also want to fly with our daughter and help her move in to her dorm in the fall. Ironically, while typing this message a parent online was asking about storage and moving solutions for out of state students. In helping her I found two that we may be able to use to have her items transported so we don't need to drive 20 hours! We think we will send her bike, so that is bulky. Although maybe it's better to sell it, and buy another one. All things we need to figure out.

Then we would like to visit both girls in late fall, maybe for Thanksgiving. The point is our budget for travel is going to start to be a bigger expense than ever. So it felt good to add $1000 in just one month.

I think I can cover spring break for our daughter with Southwest points. Yay!

Totaled up January interest for all of our accounts today. Grand total earned was $92.79. We have more money earning higher interest, but the amount earned is a little lower, primarily because I missed moving a matured CD immediately to a new CD. Lost out on about 10+ days of interest. Probably only lost $5...too lazy to figure out the exact amount.

I transferred $131 that went to a savings account from my husband's paycheck into a CD earning 2%. I make a point to do this every month. Not all CDs let you add new money, but we currently have at least two that do!

I also made sure to add $63.15 to our Big Goal. Currently this is the amount of increased pay after my husband's raise. This is twice per month. Once I figure out the new withholding I will probably add this money to the $131 we send to savings...so around $250 a month.

We are on our second snow day. Yesterday, could have been a school day as the snow didn't start falling until after 7pm. Yes, rain earlier, but temps didn't drop until much later as well. I guess other northern areas of the county did get snow earlier. That means no driving for me or my husband to go into work. Of course, since the temperatures dropped the heat pump is running constantly.

My husband picked up some more Diet Coke and snacks at the store. Husband and I are limiting snacks and he was just suppose to get one thing for our daughter. Instead three snack items came home. He spent $17+ at the store. Snacks should last awhile because we are not mindfully putting our hands into the package. We measure it all out.

I did purchase several kinds of Vitamins for my oldest daughter. I buy a couple different ones for her and she was basically about out of all of them. I spent $49. That was not budgeted, although she did mention needing them soon. I was hoping to wait until February. It is what it is. We can afford it.

The other cash spent was on my husband's haircut. He spent $13.70. I had budgeted for this!

I'm losing track of what I have reported for snowflakes. Did I mention that I redeemed Chase Freedom rewards for $24.28? That was deposited into our checking account the other day. I listed some items on eBay. No luck on selling yet, but that doesn't surprise me as I'm sure many people are shopped out after the holidays.

I also added $63.15 to the Big Goal. This is the current after tax increase in my husband's paycheck each pay period. I expect the amount will change with the new withholding changes.

Oh, I received notification from Verizon that they gave us a $10 credit for recycling my daughter's old cell phone. Not much, but we'll take it considering it was a 3.5 year old phone.

Keeping busy on the snow days getting cleaning done, updating financials and tax planning, as well as decluttering. Oh, and watching YouTube videos for recipes! All free activities at home.

We have a bill that will be sent out in the next week for our University expenses. The final amount, including books that we were charged is $4,383.69. All of that is housing for the second semester. And we will get reimbursed from the VA over the next few months for just under that amount. Specifically we will receive $4,336.80 to cover housing.

I currently have $5,854 set aside in our college category in our checking account. So there will be no issue paying the bill when it is due in early February. After the bill is paid that will leave $1,470. I expect to need at least $3,700 to cover two online classes this summer. The bill will be due early June. My goal is to pay those out of pocket, and I have been setting aside $410 per month to make that happen. It does appear we are on track!

I increased our younger daughter's Educational Savings amount to $333.33 from $166.66. The maximum amount you can contribute each year is $2000. She turns 18 in July. At that time you can no longer contribute to the account. I increased it in order to get the full amount funded by her birthday.

You add those two amounts up ($410 +333.33) and we are setting aside $743 each month for college expenses. That is what saving and cash flowing look like. And if we had car payments like so many American's it would be even more difficult to make this happen. So happy my 2007 Honda Odyssey with 130K miles still looks and runs great!

We have a bill that will be sent out in the next week for our University expenses. The final amount, including books that we were charged is $4,383.69. All of that is housing for the second semester. And we will get reimbursed from the VA over the next few months for just under that amount. Specifically we will receive $4,336.80 to cover housing.

I currently have $5,854 set aside in our college category in our checking account. So there will be no issue paying the bill when it is due in early February. After the bill is paid that will leave $1,470. I expect to need at least $3,700 to cover two online classes this summer. The bill will be due early June. My goal is to pay those out of pocket, and I have been setting aside $410 per month to make that happen. It does appear we are on track!

I increased our younger daughter's Educational Savings amount to $333.33 from $166.66. The maximum amount you can contribute each year is $2000. She turns 18 in July. At that time you can no longer contribute to the account. I increased it in order to get the full amount funded by her birthday.

You add those two amounts up ($410 +333.33) and we are setting aside $743 each month for college expenses. That is what saving and cash flowing look like. And if we had car payments like so many American's it would be even more difficult to make this happen. So happy my 2007 Honda Odyssey with 130K miles still looks and runs great!

I just realized this morning that we had a CD mature at the end of December. The money was moved to our savings account, but I forgot to move it to a new CD that I had opened earlier in December. At least not too much time passed. The transfer of $10,375 is now complete and earning 2% interest until sometime in early 2019.

My daughter sent me the 1098T for 2017. This form shows how much in qualified tuition expenses we paid and how many scholarship and grant dollars were applied to her account. The difference between the two numbers is how much we paid out of pocket for tuition. That amount can be applied for the American Opportunity Tax credit. In our case the amount is over the maximum for 2017, so we can claim the full $4,000 in tuition paid result in a $2,500 benefit to us. This won't result in a refund for us though as I already figured it into our withholding for the year...we've been getting the benefit all year long!

In 2018 we have the potential for claiming the American Opportunity Tax Credit for two college students. Right now I expect we will claim whatever we pay in summer tuition for our older daughter. Her tuition for 2018 will likely all be paid by the Post 911 GI Bill so no other tuition to claim. And our younger daughter's tuition is still yet to be determined but at this point I don't expect it to pay out anything near $4,000 for tuition. It's going to get more interesting that is for sure!

I received a check in the mail from my claim with Blue Buffalo. Amount of the check is $114.09. It could have been up to $200, but they had lots of claimants. I'm happy either way!

Yesterday, I redeemed Swagbucks for $50 cash through PayPal. I received that money in my PayPal account.

I will add this extra money to our Big Goal!

It's been a good money day!

Yesterday before I made our grocery list and meal plan I wrote down everything we have in our pantry, fridge and freezer. It was actually quite a bit of stuff! I would list it all but it really is too much.

I then got quite overwhelmed (yes, a few tears) trying to make my meal list. I was trying to balance what we need to use up with what my husband and I would prefer to eat on our diet and with my daughter's food preferences. I was also overwhelmed with the amount of leftovers that I feel are only mine to take care of. My husband and daughter rarely eat them. Although without saying anything my husband did eat a leftover stuffed pepper and a chicken sausage dog after grocery shopping. Hooray!

I finally decided my overwhelm was trying to get it perfect. I let that perfection go. I know there may still be some food waste. But we will do our best.

We spent $88.42 on food for the week yesterday. Had to go to two stores as the commissary was out of salad greens! I'm sure a weather issue getting produce to the store.

Last night we used up five hard taco shells, a tomato and some lettuce. We used up half a can of refried beans. I froze the rest.

This morning for breakfast, I ate the last stuffed pepper with two eggs. For lunch, I will likely eat the chicken sausage dog and make a salad. I have romaine, a cucumber, fresh broccoli some sliced mushrooms and diced tomatoes to use. For dinner we will have fried rice (using veggies from the freezer and the last of the rice) and tilapia that I bought at the store. My husband and I are increasing our protein during our diet.

I'm hoping to use up more things as the week goes on, so will try to remember to share. I expect maybe next week grocery planning will be easier with less things in the pantry, fridge and freezer to use. At least I will have a little more time to think about it than I did on Sunday.

Are you eating all the food? Are you making sure to buy only what you will eat?

Earlier this year, I decided we should start working towards a big goal of saving $200,000 towards our next home. Since we rent it is similar to paying down a mortgage early, especially if you are following Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps.

We already had $40K in equity from previous homes we owned. So the new goal is another $160K to reach $200,000. I think the deadline is by the end of 2023, which is six years from now.

The amounts I earmarked towards the Big Goal this year came to $6,836.39! It's actually more than I thought it might be. I know I had around $2K in June according to one post I found where I reported it. I only came up with the idea in March of this year, so to save nearly $7K in 9 or 10 months is pretty good.

So in the end we can say we have $46,836.39 saved for our next home. Like Amber I'm tempted to add a little more to get it to an even number! I'll have to look at our budget categories and see if I can make that happen.

While I'd like to be on a faster pace with this goal, I knew that the first couple years would be slower with paying for college. It's when my husband gets his next raise that it will likely move faster.

I am very pleased that I started, since I know from experience if I don't make a plan for the money it gets frittered away. Maybe some of it still is, but at least I know have much more than I started.

So now on to 2018 to save even more towards the Big Goal!

I was watching a few videos about no spend, low spend months on YouTube. I know many here are participating in Frugalwoods Uber Frugal Month Challenge in January. It brought the question up, what do you do with the money you save by not spending so freely?

My guess is many of these types of challenges came about in order to pay down more debt or to save more for emergency funds, or even specific savings goals.

I am just beginning to ponder our specific why for this January Challenge. What will we do with the money? Here are a few ideas I'm pondering:

Vacation fund
College funding
Big Goal

I also could split the savings amongst all of these! The college needs are the probably the most important in 2018. Our daughter will take summer classes, tuition due mid June, which needs to come from our current cash, rather than the small amount (okay almost $5K) in her Educational Savings account, which right now I'm saving for spring 2019 semester. The vacation is a bit unknown, but sure would be nice to get away sometime soon with our girls before they start going there separate ways in life. And as always, if I can squirrel money away to the Big Goal that makes a big difference in the long run.

So what will you do with the savings, if you are participating in a no spend, low spend or uber frugal month?

December interest earned from all cash accounts is $99.14. Starting to approach $100!

I expect that we will exceed $100 a month in interest earned in the coming year. I have added even more cash, specifically $8,000, to higher interest accounts. And it seems interest rates have finally started creeping back up. That is a big deal for savers. We have had a lot of years with very low interest rates. We are earning 1.4% on our online savings account and between 2.0% and 2.25% on three different CDs.

I will include all 2017 interest in my Big Goal total since I am using that money to help meet that goal.

We officially ended 2017 with $500,483.61. Even if we made it by one penny, I'd be thrilled. This was always my hope for this year. And I knew it had to be a year of high returns to make it. Definitely happy dancing!!!

Last year's ending balance was $392,814.02. That's a change of $107, 669.59 or 27.4%.

We contributed the max to our Roth IRA's, $5,500 each. My husband turned 48 this year, so soon we will be able to contribute even more each year. Specifically, in 2019 we will be able to contribute an additional $1000 for him. Luckily, this should be the same year our oldest daughter will graduate with her two bachelor's degrees.

In 2017, my husband contributed $10,067.11 of his base pay to the TSP. Total retirement contributions were $21,067.11 for 2017. Our total retirement contribution is 18% of our gross income.

I haven't decided yet if we will increase our retirement contribution to my husband's TSP. It's tempting to increase another 1%. I need to do some calculations once the new withholding and tax calculator's come out.

I want to point out that it is NEVER too late to start saving for retirement. Anything you save for it is better than nothing. And over time it adds up! Increasing 1% a year isn't noticed particularly if you get a raise of at least that amount.

How did you do with your retirement savings?

This post may be a bit all over the place...several money thoughts on my mind this morning that I simply want to share.

We bought a new camera just before Christmas. We have been without one for about two years. I personally could probably have passed, but my husband seemed very interested. He has made a great point of using it over the last several days, getting pictures and video of our family. We took a family picture to send out on Facebook. The cost of the camera was $299, plus tax. He also bought an HD SD card. I was mad about that part initially, but I do see it has some better features than some older cards we have, so I will deal. I applied my husband's birthday money that he hadn't yet spent, and the remaining Christmas budget to cover most of it. After that I just took some cash from other budget areas so we can make it work.

We shopped for some grocery and personal care needs at Target yesterday. I used a $2 coupon along with the gift cards I bought for 10% off after Thanksgiving. So no new money out of pocket for things we needed. I was thinking of going to the store again, but I think I'm going to see if we can make it through Friday or Saturday night and just get our regular groceries for the first week in January.

Our final 2017 education and retirement contributions have been made. We added $2K to our youngest's Coverdell account and maxed out our Roth IRA's. These are all on automatic investment from our checking account, so it's easy to make it happen. I will need to double our payment in 2018 for our daughter's final contributions. She turns 18 in July, after which we we can no longer contribute. I think I may actually just take $1000 from savings and put it in for January. and then continue our regular $166.66 for the first six months of the year as we usually do. I can pay ourselves back the $1000 to savings for the remainder of the year.

I'm working on financial goals for 2018, but I need more time to focus. It's a little busy around here this week, with both girls off school and my husband home from work!

Our Discover statement closed the other day. We earned $15.53 in rewards. I'm going to redeem those and put them towards the Big Goal.

I transferred $8K we had in a second checking account to FNBO Direct yesterday. They have 1.4% interest rate, which is far better than our checking account.

We are about to buy my daughter a new cell phone. Her's is 3.5 years old, barely holds a charge and the camera on it no longer works. She is going to get the same phone I have, it will cost us $13 a month for the next 24 months. Since I charge our Verizon bill to US Bank for 5% back we will also get that same discount on the cost of the phone as well, which adds up to $15 in the end. But we will take it!

And finally, we are very close to purchasing a new laptop computer for our youngest daughter to take to school in the fall. We are going to buy it from the university she is going to attend. They offer a four year warranty, a discount and no sales tax. It's a Dell that will work for her engineering study needs. Cost will be $1299. I currently have $1,047 in the budget for it. We should have the rest of the money on Friday when my husband is paid.

Thanks for sticking with me on all my thoughts!

It looks like one of our money market accounts has raised their interest rate again! Money we have there will now earn 1.4%. It wasn't that long ago that it was earning just 0.95%. This is at FNBODirect if interested.

I also noticed that our Chase Freedom credit card is offering 5% cash back for the first quarter of 2018 for cable, internet and phone merchants. I think I'll take them up on that offer and pay our cable bill, Netflix and Ooma bill with that card. I already get 5% back on our wireless phone bill with US Bank, so I will leave that alone, but will pay the other two with Chase Freedom January through March. May only net me a few dollars, but I'll take it. Oh, and gas stations are included as well for the same quarter.

Starting to ponder goals for January, financial and others. I usually won't have those quite together until mid month of January, as that is when my husband's new pay starts. He is getting a raise, another $187 pretax per month to work with. This should go to the Big Goal. Some will go to retirement since we put 11% in his TSP off the top. I was disappointed for a second year in a row that our housing allowance did not increase. Based on the market around here, it does make sense. Not much I can do about it. It is what it is.

I sold another item on eBay today. I net about $15. Not bad for a used clothing item I was no longer wearing!

That money will go to the Big Goal. More on that can be found on a page on my sidebar if you aren't sure what I'm referring to.

Spending has been minimal, except I ran to the store today to pick up some things to help my daughter cope with a cold. She arrived home from college on Saturday and was recovering from another cold. It seems she picked something else up along the way home.

In other news, we have had a few days of warmer weather, with rain coming tomorrow. I enjoy these mild days knowing it keeps our electric bill lower.

I'm working on some year end posts. More to come soon!

We finally hit another retirement milestone today! And it's a big one at half a million dollars. Happy Dancing!!

Exact total at today's close for all of our accounts is $501,160.59. The change to our balance from Friday was $3,450.92. Yep, one day of trading can make that much of a difference in one day. The more you have the bigger a small percentage impact can make on the total balance.

We were at $392,814 at the very end of 2016. I really did want to reach $500K this year. I knew it would have to be a very good year to make it happen. So grateful it did!

Seriously...start investing if you have not yet! It compounds over time. Just 14.5 years ago we had $25K invested for retirement. You will have nothing if you don't start. And it is never to late to start. Something saved is better than zero saved.

Our retirement balances are close to another milestone. Actual amount at the close of today is $497,709.67...

half a million get ready!!

Honestly, I'm a little stunned. It's really hard to believe that just 14 years ago we had just $25K.

Invest. You won't regret it!

I've done more earning on

Swagbucks than I realized this year. I had taken some time off from it in the past because it can be a time suck. Usually, I just do it when I'm watching television (which is rare) or hanging out in the evening (not as rare).

I redeemed all but $25 of my Swagbucks for Amazon gift cards. I redeemed amounts ranging from $3 to $25. I think I often would redeem the smaller amounts when I knew I had an upcoming purchase on Amazon, so I would redeem to get some cash off those purchases.

The $25 that was not for Amazon was Paypal cash. I applied that money to my Big Goal (see side bar for explanation).

The total amount of cash equivalents redeemed in 2017 was $472! Almost $500. I do have enough Swagbucks to redeem for $15 right now. I will likely earn more and redeem in January. If I redeem before I will update this post with the correct amount earned!

Did you earn Swagbucks this year? How much did you end up with?

Check them out if you want to earn some gift cards and cash! My referral link is at the top!

I was balancing our checkbook on YNAB today and found a transaction that should have been recorded on our credit card. Turns out it was already recorded there too! So a double recording means that transaction can be deleted. That put $140.54 back into our budget.

I should probably put it towards the Big Goal, right?

It's tempting to throw it into a few other pots for some other short term savings goals. We are probably going to buy our youngest daughter a laptop (for college) here in the next month, if I can pull the cash together.

Heck, I will put it towards the Big Goal...I can always pull it out if needed.

I had an email this morning that our Netflix subscription amount is changing from $11.99 per month to $13.99 a month. Sounds like their will be more programs and the ability to download for later watching as benefits. Never a fan of price increases, but we will stick with Netflix for now.

Purchased my daughter some vitamins on Amazon today. I used the Discover cash back for a credit of $2.38. Final cost was $12.36. I think I will send that cash back amount to our Big Goal. I should add in the coupon savings from Sunday, too.

I had to take a mental health break today. I had some stress and anxiety pop up on me this morning. I'm feeling better already. To help, I called my mom, went for a two mile walk, ate a good lunch, and then took an epson salt bath. Later I added some relaxing oils to my diffuser while I listed to some very nice relaxing YouTube music. I also got up and got busy in the kitchen making some muffins and hummus (not to eat together!).

I share because this time of year can be stressful for various reasons. It is okay to take a time out and take care of ourselves. And it doesn't have to cost anything! And be kind to those you meet as you don't know what their current struggles may be.

I took advantage of the Target gift card deal. 10% off online and another 5% cash back using my Discover card. I bought the maximum of $300. I checked and in the last year I have spent around $700 at Target. These gift cards will get used.

At the commissary today I redeem a physical coupon I found in the store for $0.50. I also used their rewards card to get another $2.40 off our bill. When I came home I redeemed rebates worth $2.75. Savings from those sources was $5.65. And theoretically, I'm saving 30% shopping at the commissary in the first place.

I totaled up the amount of interest earned on a money market account, a savings account and three CDs for the month of November. The amount earned was $84.77.

One account earns 1.15%
One CD matures at the end of the year and is earning 3%.
Two others are 2% and mature in April and June 2018.

If you hear of good CD rates at the end of the month, I'd will be interested to hear! Although, I'm just now remembering I may be able to roll that money in the 3% CD into one of the other ones. I will check that.

My daughters wanted a series of books. There are 12 in the series. I was told I could skip purchase book two as it is a combination of two other books my youngest daughter already owns.

Each book retails for $20. Thus this expense could have cost me $220!! No way was I going to pay that much out of pocket.

I figured if I could at least pay half of retail I would be doing good. I started purchasing earlier this fall. Two initial purchases came from buying used on eBay. One book was $12.40 with shipping and another was $11.13.

I mentioned that I sold some things back to a used book store and was able to use a $13+ credit towards a new book they had listed at the $20 retail price. I paid $7.70 out of pocket for that one.

The deals get better because I found three ex-library versions on eBay from one seller for $21.40. Average about $7 each.

And I made two separate purchase on eBay using Amazon gift cards I earned from Swagbucks over the last couple months. The book prices offered on Amazon varied from $13.59 to $17.36. One purchase was completely covered by gift cards and the other cost me $2.30 out of pocket.

In the end new books that could have cost me $220 new plus tax, were just $54.93 out of pocket. An average of $4.99 a book. A savings of 75%!

No worries that my girls will be offended by used books. They are fans of the library and know that book costs add up. And the used ones that did arrive are in very good shape! The three ex library books do have tags and tape on the side but again in very good shape! They will be very pleased, and hopefully surprised that I found all of the ones requested.

I do sort of wish I started earning the Swagbucks a little earlier so I could have reduced the out of pocket cost, but it is what it is! Still a great deal.

No spending here at our house today. I didn't go anywhere, except a walk around the neighborhood where I ran into a friend. We walked and talked while enjoying the nearly 70 degree weather. I'd much rather be chatting with a friend then out shopping!

The pay period is winding down. I did pull $50 that I put into savings as it looked like I didn't budget quite enough for our expenses. My daughter suddenly needed water filters (yes, that is a need), and we purchased a pair of workout pants for my husband. I thought the pants were going to be a present for Christmas, but no he decided to wear them before I could wrap them! So those came out of our current budget rather than the Christmas budget. I still have $18 of the $50 in our account, so may be able to move some of that money back.

I wrapped the gifts that arrived in the mail yesterday. I can't tell you the relief I have that my November shopping and preparing have paid off. I will get nearly all of December to enjoy the holiday season. No stress. The money spent will not be on credit cards held over until January like so many. In fact, the cards I did use (and never pay interest on) will be paid before Christmas!

I'm starting to wonder if December will be a low spend month? That seems like the rarest of possibilities, but I sure do like the idea!