Our no spend month is around the corner. I did use some funds in January to stock up on toilet paper and a few other toiletries. And there was that ground beef on sale at the commissary. I've also been freezing extra portions of food.

My husband did get paid yesterday. I have paid all the current outstanding credit card balances. Only a few pending charges that cannot be paid until they post. I did budget the paycheck for February, specifically the first half since he will get paid again mid month.

I have to pay rent, water, electric, allowances, flute lessons, and trash at the beginning of the month. I have set aside $495 until the next pay day on February 15 for groceries, fuel, personal care, and a few other expenses. I did put a little money in clothing and some in spending. I really hope to keep them no spend, but I decided to put a little in to cover a need that could come up.

I set aside $1095 in several different savings categories for the month. Over half went to cover two airline tickets for mother in law and niece. They have not been purchased yet. But now the money is available! And in addition to saving for that I added money to our emergency fund, car maintenance, and home furnishings.

The cool thing is as I was writing this post, my daughter said a teacher was requesting donations for a science experiment. One item was Oreo cookies; another was plastic utensils. I picked the utensils since I have a significant amount of those on hand and that donation will cost me $0 out of pocket!

Who else is about to start a No Spend February?

I just purchased my daughter's airline ticket to come home for spring break and her birthday in late March. The charge round trip was $361. This is about 10% less than the last time I looked. Flight times are okay. We've found that we like her flying Southwest and through St. Louis which is a little smaller airport, so gates are super easy to find. The best part is I had $429 in our vacation fund to cover it!

We have offered to fly my mother in law and a niece (who has never flown) to visit us in April or May. I need to start watch fares and see if I can find something really great. We don't have the money set aside for this yet, but that is a goal for February. We also know with my husband's mother in her 80's (although in great health) it is okay to take out of savings if needed.

In other news, my youngest daughter has a very small cavity (her first). We opted to wait a few weeks so she wouldn't miss school. Sounds like it will only take 40 minutes at the most. And our out of pocket cost only $19.

I have a friend arriving today. Dinner is ready and I'm looking forward to lots of fun catching up!!

It's pay day! Everyone likes those right?

My husband is home today, so we did the budget together. We added money to our vacation fund, emergency fund, and some of our other short term accounts (Christmas, birthday, and car repairs).

And because most of our spending is done on credit cards for the rewards, I also went online and paid off all of our balances. No interest paid, as usual. It's always nice to see those zero balances.

Now to get through until the end of January on the money we budgeted. It seems possible, especially if I do the meal planning right.

I've been pondering some plans to get cash saved this year. Last year was such an upheaval physically and mental with the move, that I didn't have big savings goals. We did save for retirement and college since those are automatic. Very easy. I tracked snowflakes, but they didn't actually get set aside in a savings account. Well most of them anyway.

I'm thinking I will do the 52 Week Savings Challenge in some form. I was thinking something along the lines of saving Week 1, Week 52, Week 2, and Weak 51. Which I then see is really just $53 every two weeks. And this amount might just work just fine. This ends up being $1378 for the entire year.

We currently have $25 a month go to a savings account with Navy Federal Credit Union. It comes straight from my husband's paycheck. It's a requirement for one of the CDs we have invested there. That ends up as $300 saved per year.

I mentioned in a previous post that with changes in amounts we are investing, withholding, and a raise, we have $336 more available to worth with each month. We might as well save it if possible. We would save $4,032 by the end of the year.

I also would like to capture as many snowflakes(extra earnings) into dollars as possible. I will attempt to match spending done with gift cards. I will save all cash from surveys and eBay sales, as well as credit card rewards.

I think I can make all of those savings automatic except for the snowflakes will require making savings transfers.

We are still adjusting to college life and the needs our daughter has. The good news is she has a part time job on campus doing graphic design for the music department this semester. That job pays $10 an hour. She's excited to have a little more cash.

I can't guarantee that all the money saved will be in our account at year end, but making it automatic makes it much more likely than just wishing for it to be so.

What are your savings plans for 2016? Do you have any unique ways of saving?

I've been pondering some plans to get cash saved this year. Last year was such an upheaval physically and mental with the move, that I didn't have big savings goals. We did save for retirement and college since those are automatic. Very easy. I tracked snowflakes, but they didn't actually get set aside in a savings account. Well most of them anyway.

I'm thinking I will do the 52 Week Savings Challenge in some form. I was thinking something along the lines of saving Week 1, Week 52, Week 2, and Weak 51. Which I then see is really just $53 every two weeks. And this amount might just work just fine. This ends up being $1378 for the entire year.

We currently have $25 a month go to a savings account with Navy Federal Credit Union. It comes straight from my husband's paycheck. It's a requirement for one of the CDs we have invested there. That ends up as $300 saved per year.

I mentioned in a previous post that with changes in amounts we are investing, withholding, and a raise, we have $336 more available to worth with each month. We might as well save it if possible. We would save $4,032 by the end of the year.

I also would like to capture as many snowflakes(extra earnings) into dollars as possible. I will attempt to match spending done with gift cards. I will save all cash from surveys and eBay sales, as well as credit card rewards.

I think I can make all of those savings automatic except for the snowflakes will require making savings transfers.

We are still adjusting to college life and the needs our daughter has. The good news is she has a part time job on campus doing graphic design for the music department this semester. That job pays $10 an hour. She's excited to have a little more cash.

I can't guarantee that all the money saved will be in our account at year end, but making it automatic makes it much more likely than just wishing for it to be so.

What are your savings plans for 2016? Do you have any unique ways of saving?

I bought four things on Amazon yesterday. All needs. And I spent $0, since I had over $44 in Amazon.com gift cards. The total of the order was just over $40, so I still have a few dollars left for another time.

I bought a pair of earbuds for my daughter, a cabin filter and rear wiper blade for my van, and generic allergy medicine.

The Amazon.com gift cards came from a variety of sources this time. $5 from

Bing Rewards, $25 from Swagbucks, and $14.86 from TopCashBack. Those all add up!

It's kind of nice to have some needs covered with gift cards. More money stays in our pockets! I did record my earnings as snowflakes, too.

I mentioned in December that I would like to do a No Spend Month in February. For me, I see a no spend month as spending only on necessities. And to really consider what the necessities are! Is renting a movie a necessity? Are vitamins a necessity for one month? Are Valentine's a necessity? Can I clean the shower with a homemade concoction with ingredients on hand?

I feel there needs to be a little planning involved in order to make this happen. We will pay our rent, utilities, any tuition and books, flute lessons, fuel for our vehicles to get around to school and work, and buy the minimum groceries. The other part of the plan is to make sure that the family is on board, specifically my husband. I think he may think I'm a bit crazy. I've done No Spend months before, but he was usually living out of the country!

With February comes Valentine's Day. I decided to set aside some chocolate caramels we received as a gift for Christmas and use those as our candy for Valentine's. I have six Valentine cards and the same number of stamps, if I decide to send them. Again, there will need to be an agreement with husband not to buy flowers and cards!

There will be more planning. Specifically meal planning. I'll share more about that as I get that part together!

Some of you are doing a No Spend Month in January. How is that going? Did you plan ahead to make it work? What advice do you have for a No Spend Month?

Happy New Year!

I checked our interest bearing accounts and found we earned $60.58 on our cash in December. Not too exciting but if we earn that every month for a year we would have $726.96 more in our pockets.

We are watching the Rose Bowl parade this morning...well now afternoon here. We are either taking a road trip to visit a nearby art museum (free admission). This was a request by artist daughter! If we don't end up there today, we'll go tomorrow.

And whichever day we don't go to the museum, we plan to take down our holiday decorations. So hopefully not too much spending as we start off the new year.

My husband and I need to sit down and finalize our YNAB budget. I think it is looking pretty good as we start the year.

I go through periods of time feeling anxious. It's usually the mind going through all sorts of crazy scenarios that I have no control over.

Today, I'm primarily anxious for my older daughter to be flying alone (she has flown without us, but with a group) to visit us. I think it is more about the weather as the Midwest is about to get slammed with a snowstorm. She flys out very early tomorrow morning going through Saint Louis. If the flights are all on time it will be no big deal. It's if there are delays that I'm concerned. So prayers and good vibes are appreciated in the next 24 hours.

I'm also feeling anxious about making financial plans for the next year. Some of the decisions are easy. Save for retirement and college. I think I'd really like to make sure I have a firm savings plan for all the things we want to do in the next year. And I know that some of the reason that is hard is because I don't know exactly what we want to do. What are our priorities?

So that's where I stand today. I think if I can do a little brainstorming of ideas first that will help my brain calm down a bit. And then eventually I would need to discuss numbers with my husband. It will work out. I just know that if I throw out some random goals without knowing where the money comes from and if we can save enough in time that I will probably just fail. I don't want to fail!! And no I don't really think I will fail. It's just the feeling of it.

Do you get anxious about making goals, financial or other?

I haven't made any goals or plans yet for 2015. I found out our housing allowance which generally goes up each year, is staying the same. Not the end of the world, but a bit disappointing. The increase in my husband's pay is going up by about $105 a month.

I'm going to need to adjust pay for withholding after the final pay day of the year on December 31. We had changed it so there would be no withholding for the last three months when I realized we had been putting too much in. The college benefits threw me for a bit of a loop in planning! I'll know much more after this tax season.

I know we will save for retirement and college which are set up automatically. We would really like to take a vacation. I think with YNAB we will better be able to track this and make more concentrated progress.

The good news is there is no debt! We don't need to be focused on paying anything off. Thus the major focus to save or at least pay in cash those things we are putting our priorities on.

I'll get back to you in the new year on more specific goals. Are you planning to attack any big financial goals in 2016?

We've been looking for new furniture since we moved in. And we found it and decided what we wanted awhile ago. We finally decided to make the purchase this week. We bought three pieces of leather, a couch, love seat and push back chair (recliner). With taxes, delivery and some leather protection warranty, we paid $2,921. We receive our furniture on Monday!

I think I mentioned that we got around $1400 for damage done to some of our furniture during the move. We are applying all of that to the purchase. I'm going to throw some snowflakes at it in addition to using some savings. Eventually we hope to sell one sofa that is replacing so that should help a little, too.

The latest snowflake is $12 from Pinecone. CrazyLibLady mentioned that the $3 cash out option was back! She was right, so I used my 1200 points for $12. I expect that money in my PayPal account tomorrow. Which reminds me I had another small sale on eBay for which I probably gained $4.50 after fees. The little amounts add up!

I'm nearly done with all Christmas tasks...yes, shopping is done, wrapping is complete, some gifts mailed. Just working on the menu and getting grocery list together. Oh, and I need to send our eCard yet as well. Otherwise, I'm just enjoying the season!

I suppose I stopped doing snowflake updates around the same time that we stopped being able to add pictures to our blogs. Maybe that will be a thing again. Not sure that I feel too confident on that yet.

Last month, in November, I accumulated just under $80. Specifically $79.29. Primarily made of Bing, Swagbucks, Ebates and US Bank (credit card) rewards.

So far December has far exceed November. I will disclose that total at the end of the month with details too.

The year to date total for 2015 is $2612.56...so far. I think there will be some more to add before the year ends. I have had better years of accumulation, but with a major move this year I'm not going to beat myself up about it!

Have you continued to track your found money in 2015? Will you have a total at the end of the year?

If you haven't started using the Ibotta app for rebates and cash back on things you probably already buy...now is the time. You can get $5 for signing up

here. That's my referral link. I will also get $5. You will need to accumulate another $15 in redeemed rebates in order to cash out for Paypal or Venmo (cash out minimum is $20). There are also some gift cards you can redeem for including Amazon, Starbucks, Walmart and iTunes (some have higher thresholds).

Just trying to save you a little money! You are welcome.

I think I've mentioned before that my husband qualifies for the Post 911 GI Bill which he can transfer to me or our daughters. It is 36 months of benefits, which we have currently split into 18 months for each of our daughters. We were planning to start using it next year and we still might.

The exciting news is there is no cap each semester. The benefit will also pay non resident tuition! That was news to us. This would be especially important for my oldest daughter if she were to take more than four years to graduate. Currently one of her scholarships covers a large portion of the out of state tuition. It is renewable but only covers four years. It's that possible fifth year that this benefit could help to cover everything that isn't covered under that scholarship. We have time to figure it out. And who knows she may get other scholarships.

In addition to the tuition benefit, there is a housing benefit and money towards books! I knew about those as well. Feeling blessed that this is available for our family. Now we just need to be smart and use it when it is the most beneficial.

I'm terrible at remembering we have savings that earns interest. Maybe because it isn't much. One account earned $25, while two CDs earned almost $29 in the month of November. We also deposit $25 into a savings account as part of the agreement on one of the CDs. So we are accumulating $75+ each month. Not a lot but it counts!!

I sold another item on eBay yesterday. Already paid and mailed! That is another $12 added to the $63 profit. If the buyer of an auction that ended Monday would pay I have ANOTHER $12 to add. Hoping the payment is soon. I also have a bid on another item!

I mentioned photo books a few posts back. I did get one complete for my parents. It was $9.99 plus $7.99 shipping. It has photos of the grandchildren. It will arrive in time to wrap and mail for Christmas. I think I can fit it in a Flat Rate Priority envelope, so shipping should only be an additional $6. I debated about having it sent direct, but it seemed less personal. Nice gift for less than $25.

I paid all the current credit card spending. One card had over $1200 on it! But since we use YNAB, I knew the money was there to pay it. Our available spending is a bit sparse for the next two weeks, since there was a little overspending on our Thanksgiving trip. I don't think it should impact us much, since we just plan to stay home and do minimal outings.

It's been a pretty good day for a birthday. I'm a low key kind of gal who doesn't need much to be happy. But I enjoyed phone calls from my mother and best friend. We ate dinner in tonight, but my husband surprised us with cupcakes! There were also a few gifts: a pair of slippers and a new CD of Christmas music. A couple items I asked for.

I also received a $100 check from my parents. I'm not sure exactly what my plans are for that money. Maybe a new sweatshirt!

I redeemed my Swagbucks last night for a $25 Amazon gift card. It arrived today! I was a little disappointed to learn that my birthday Swagbucks were 55 SwagUps! I should have waited one more day to redeem. I'm sure there will be another redemption before my SwagUp expires.

I spent the Amazon gift card, plus two others worth $30 to purchase some Christmas gifts. I only paid $8 out of pocket on a $63 order. Very pleased with that!

If you want to catch up with my Christmas planning and preparations, check out my other blog,

Your Organized Friend.

I got my flu shot today. I don't always get them even though covered in full by our insurance. We are traveling over the holiday and I feel there's an increased chance of catching it! My daughter will get hers in about 10 days when they have a Saturday clinic.

We purchased just one new strand of holiday lights this year. I recycled three at Home Depot last week that didn't work. I really only needed one more set for our second tree. I also picked up an automatic timer. Cost at Home Depot was about $12.

We stopped by Fresh Market to buy some food items for gifts. One is for a birthday. Another to include with a Christmas gift. And the others for stockings. We spent nearly $20 on those. The nice thing about food items as gifts is they are generally consumed and don't add to the clutter of someones home!

With some planning and creative thinking one doesn't have to spend much on Christmas. We have drastically cut our budget with fewer people to purchase for. I'm also using Swagbucks, Bing Rewards and credit card rewards to off set some spending as well. I would have skipped those new lights I mentioned as well as the pricier food gifts too if I didn't already have a plan to pay for them.

This blogger has a list of ten free and almost free gifts to consider to reduce your holiday spending. I thought some of them were very clever!

Have you saved for Christmas? Will you make a budget? How do save on Christmas expenses?

Did you know if you have an Amazon Prime membership you now get access to some music for free. This morning I was reminded of Harry Connick Jr's new album. I looked it up on Amazon...and it's free because of our Prime membership. I was originally going to tell my husband to get it for my birthday later this month. I guess not since it is free.

Because of my birthday this month, I have been given some coupons to use: $10 to Kohl's and $5 from Famous Footwear (there's not even one in my state). I will use the Kohl's coupon because I have several I can combine. In fact, I think I'll buy myself a birthday gift with these coupons. My husband wouldn't mind being off the hook for the purchase. I also have $10 in JCPenney rewards to use this month as well. Time to shop...hopefully for free!

Our spending seems to be right on track this month for what we've budgeted for everyday expenses. Payday is actually next Friday already! Early since the 15th falls on a Sunday.

We're going to what I think is the last football game of the season...maybe more if they go to playoffs which is actually likely. The coach of this team is a former NFL player (isn't that cool?). So we'll spend about $20, $14 just for admission and at least another $3 for dinner as my daughter is starving by third quarter. This is budgeted under entertainment.

No particular plans for the weekend. We might get some new Christmas lights. I have a post scheduled tomorrow on

Your Organized Friend about checking on our holiday lights.

We are trying to keep spending to a minimum because of our upcoming trip and recent car repairs. So far it seems to be working. I do credit YNAB for helping my husband and I be on the same page.

My daughter's both have ideas for Christmas. And so does my husband. Our youngest daughter wants a Wii U. Those are nearly $300 new. That is twice what I normally spend on them. We already told her she may need to chip in, which she was fine with. I may be able to snag used on eBay or locally on Craigslist or Facebook, preferably under $200. The other daughter has a list of graphic t shirts she is interested in. She also wants a wireless adapter for the drawing tablet she got last year. Those things I can snag pretty easily. I guess I need to get back to Bing and Swagbucks and accumulate more Amazon gift cards.

Do you use Amazon Prime Music? How is your spending so far this month? Are you planning Christmas gifts yet?

Geez. It starts with needing an oil change. Then noticing the vehicle states a code indicating tire rotation, and spark plugs need to be done. Then my husband reminds me the back rear window has been getting stuck and the motor is probably out. Yep, confirmed by the dealership. Oh and yes, you need new rear brakes!

It's all done. And the bill was $946 AFTER our 10% military discount.

We only budget $250 for this pay period towards the first three things. Clearly the other two were more expensive! I did find $100 in a buffer emergency account and $30 in home maintenance that can be applied. There is probably more. Luckily next pay period we should have some 'extra' cash to help get it paid off.

And yes, we have a healthy emergency fund...just trying not to see this as an emergency!

I must say this makes me so grateful for our Christmas fund. I've been saving $50 each month to accumulate $600 by the beginning of December. I have no worries with this big repair bill that our Christmas holiday would be impacted. I do only have eight people (including my husband and myself) that we are buying for this year. We have cut way back. In fact, I'm telling others to keep their money and spend it on their own holiday rather than on us. We don't need anything. And if we do we can buy it ourselves.

How much do you spend on vehicle maintenance each year? I actually have no clue. Time to dig out repair receipts for the last few years.

If you have read my other blog,

Your Organized Friend, in the last couple days you know I'm starting my Christmas planning. One thing I'm trying to decide on for simplicity sake is Christmas cards. I sent them last year. I probably spent $30 between photos and stamps for 35 cards. I bought the cards on clearance the year before, so that was the least expensive option.

This year I'm considering eCards. I can get a one month membership to American Greetings for $3.99 or Hallmark for $5. Each membership is unlimited cards for the period of the membership. I could also get longer memberships that would bring the per month cost down. Both sites allow the card to be sent to Facebook(and some other social media sites) and/or email. I would still have to mail one or two cards to a couple people who are not online (my mother in law, who is 80 is one).

I'm considering doing this to save time for me, the clutter for others, money for us and keep my stress level low. You can tell me if you think it's tacky, but I don't care entirely what others might think. I'm still making an effort to connect, just a different form. I could opt out of the Christmas card giving all together, but I don't think I'm ready for that.

What are your thoughts on eCards?

I stopped by Best Buy today and was able to get customer service to apply the 10% off coupon I tried to use at the time of purchase last week. Last week they refused because they had priced matched the item. This week item is on sale for same price as we priced matched for. I did make note that if I were to return item and purchase it today they would take coupon because they were not price matching. Woman seemed to get that and took care of it. $40.67 back in our pocket.

I proceeded to go buy fuel for my van. I did buy the premium since we seem to get better gas mileage. I spent $37.09. This leaves us with just under $16 in our fuel budget through Saturday.

I realized my daughter really wasn't wearing the second pair of khaki pants to school. I asked if they could be returned and she agreed. I have a credit balance of $18.19 on our Citi card now.

And finally it was time to shop for some warm weather gear. It shouldn't get that cold here where we live, but we are going back to the Midwest and will be seeing an outdoor football game in late November...to see my daughter play and march with the marching band. We need to be prepared for the cold. I purchased one pair of long underwear pants and lightweight down coat for my daughter. After $20 of Kohl's cash, a $10 coupon, and a 25% off coupon my total was $35.29 for items that would have been over $132 if they weren't on sale. I'm thinking my daughter could actually layer her coats. Not sure what she will think though

I ended up spending more than I returned or got back, but I'm still happy with the results. I wish I had thought to get gas after having the khaki's returned. I would have used that credit card! Oh, well there will be other spending at some point.

My information was stolen from the government along with my husband's and 21.5 MILLION other people this summer. Ironically just this week the Army posted reminders about how to avoid identity theft. As if we only need to do these things to avoid theft of identity. What about our own government keeping the information provided to them safe?

We have been given three years of credit monitoring including our daughter under 18. Not sure about our oldest daughter seems she should get it too. She may be notified separately. There is identity restoration service and $1 million worth of insurance attached to this as well in case our identities are stolen causing financial harm.

Ick. Sometimes I really do dislike the government!

Oh, and the insurance company for the moving company is offering us $1400 of the $2600 we claimed for the damage they did to our things. One of the items that is damaged the most is being denied! We can appeal. We are going to discuss tonight to determine if we will or not.

Everything that was moved was put on an inventory. The driver logs it along with current damage. He seems to have logged damage on an entertainment center that would match the area we are claiming, but I think his notes were for other damage in that same area...not the big damage we now have and didn't have before. It is really hard to prove this unless we had up close pics before, which we don't. Why would we take a close up of the corner of furniture when it wasn't damaged? It appears someone attempted to repair the area with wax, marker and spray stain. It looks awful. And I feel so mad when I think about it.

I'm working on calculating our net paychecks for next year. I won't really have all information until January, but I have the taxable portion so I should be able to roughly calculate taxes owed for 2016. I need to know this to figure the withholding necessary. I was way off this year since I hadn't figured out the tuition tax credits. The main reason I want to figure net pay is so I can determine if we can actually afford this Europe trip my daughter wants to take. It is a trip that will cost us close to $5K. It is definitely something to plan for and figure out.

After making the meal plan yesterday, I need to start working on the grocery list. I will start with ingredients needed for the meals and add on other items we need closer to my actual shopping trip.

My daughter lost the end cap to her flute head joint at the football game on Friday night. We looked it for it, but she was all over the school grounds that night. I found one on Amazon for this specific brand of flute. It is $8.98 with shipping. I had Citi Thank You Reward points and a gift card from Bing Rewards that I applied to it to make it zero out of pocket.

My husband received $100 from my parents for his birthday. He's applying those funds to his birthday gift(a sound bar) purchase which was over $200 after we used gift cards. My parents didn't send cash last year, so I thought they were done after sending us cash for many, many years. I need to go back to Best Buy and see if I can get them to apply a 10% off coupon. I tried when we bought it, but because they were price matching they wouldn't accept it. Now the item is on sale on their website for that amount we price matched for. So if I bought it this, we should be able to use the coupon. That coupon amounts to $37 and worth the effort I think! I let you know how that goes.

We currently have $20 worth of Kohl's cash because my husband and I bought running shoes earlier this month. A pair of jeans were also purchased. So now I need to decided how to spend our Kohl's cash. I even have a 25% off coupon and another $10 off a $10 purchase coupon I should be able to stack with the Kohl's cash. Right now I'm think of practical items: gloves, long underwear, shirts for my daughter. It seems I could get a couple of those for free or very little out of pocket.

I ordered an item from Amazon last week only to realize a day later we didn't need it. So I wrote refused on the package. Amazon has it and after I emailed said they would credit our credit card. It's only about $6, but I can put that back in the budget!

I was happy to learn from my daughter we don't owe any money to the University for this billing period. I do know she needs to put down $200 for her sophomore housing contract sometime in November.

I've already started talking to my kids about what they want for Christmas. Luckily they both have ideas! This helped me so much last year with shopping to ask early and get it done early! I'll be sharing a lot of my Christmas planning in November and December on

Your Organized Friend. You might want to follow along for ideas if you want to get a head start on your holiday list.

We also made a purchase of college football tickets for the three of us. We want to see our daughter's marching band performance. And we do like the games, too. Other family members are going also. Tickets cost us $255! I charged them to our Discover card. The most recent statement closed just prior so we have quite awhile before we would actually HAVE to pay the balance. I noticed there is just over $9 in rewards I can use towards the balance, too.

I took two library books my daughter checked out. We kind of think they may be overdue. Library wasn't open when I dropped off. Usually we would get an email reminder. Not sure if it went to spam or what. And we are having issues logging into her library account to check. So I'm planning we owe a few dollars to the library.

I'm excited about the end of the month. We get to budget again...and pay off all these cards we have been making purchases on. The cool thing is the money is already set aside! I love YNAB!

Thanks for reading my random post!

I donated the money in my PayPal account today. The money was from snowflakes: YNAB referral money and Pinecone survey rewards. I donated to Momastery(look for the page on Facebook). I was inspired to give the $21 I earned away. You can read more about it

here. Little amounts of money from many people add up. And this didn't even have to affect our budget! I was saving for something, but it can wait. I will earn more snowflakes.

I sold shares from my oldest daughters mutual fund today. The market was up just enough that I didn't want to miss out. If it goes up more great, I have more money I need to withdraw. I'm paying ourselves back for covering her first semester of tuition out of our savings. I withdrew $1718 worth of shares. I will need to do this at two more times before the end of the year. I figure if I dollar cost averaged purchases, I can dollar cost average sales, too.

Are you ever inspired to donate when you least expect it?

I came up with that title because I wanted to share that my husband finally decided to buy his own coffee to take to work and make in a machine that makes one cup at a time. Work doesn't provide coffee like some places and he can't plug in his own coffee maker like he could at some other sites. He had been buying coffee at the shop in the building for a minimum of $2.32 per day. Some days he spend up to $4.54. So for about 20 work days a month he was spending $46.40 up to $90.80. He was good about putting the transactions into YNAB for the last month, too. I think that is what put him on this new path!

We bought a can of ground coffee that cost us about $7. I think one can could last him an entire month at least. But even if he needs twice the amount, we will be saving some cash.

Another thought I had on my title was regarding Halloween costumes. So many are store bought these days. And I did notice that Walmart has some VERY reasonable prices, but with a little creativity a costume can be made with items you already own, thus making the costume FREE!

I'm sure we could take this Don't Buy It, Make It title further. Do you have some thoughts on when it is cheaper to make something than buy it?

I received my first $6 referral for

YNAB in my PayPal account yesterday. Much faster than the 30 days they indicated. Effectively, YNAB was only $48 rather than the original price of $60. I just need four more people to buy the software under my referral and the software will be free for us.

The Best Buy gift cards we ordered from our Citi rewards arrived on Saturday. The gift cards amount to $200 and I will record them as a snowflake. We almost made our purchase Sunday, but realized we had a 10% off coupon at home that they said might work. It seems the item we want to buy went off sale, raising the price nearly 20%. They will however, price match with Amazon.com, who still has it at the price Best Buy had last week. Sales person wasn't sure if they could combine Price Match with 10% off coupon. I'm going to try though. I also remembered that I chose Electronics Stores for 5% cash back on my US Bank Visa for third quarter. That will amount to around $10 back when I use that credit card for this purchase. Specifically we are buying a sound bar for one of our televisions. It's for my husband's birthday.

Today I ordered the famous L.L. Bean boots for my daughter to tromp around campus with this winter. Those were $99 shipped. But like nearly all of their famous boots they appear to be on back order. Some said January 4th, but this pair said December 4. Hoping they fit and arrive just before the weather turns colder.

Oh, and I'm starting to follow Hip2Save again for the holiday season. I don't usually follow the other months of the year...I find I buy too much stuff I don't need!

Do you follow Hip2Save? Do you have L.L. Bean boots? A sound bar for your television? Let me know if you use my YNAB referral code so I can thank you!

Our water bill arrived yesterday. It's lower!! Last month it was $63. This month $37. That is a $25 savings. We have had the sprinkler system off for nearly three weeks, so I'm sure that helps.

After our first large bill of $76 two months ago we went looking for a leak. Turns out we turned on a sprinkler zone with a missing sprinkler head. Water was gushing out! Apparently owners knew this, but failed to tell us. If we had known we wouldn't have turned that zone on. The reason we did turn it on, was because there are shrubs in the zone. I figured those needed water. Well, until they have it repaired they won't be getting water.

I did get notified of a $6 reward from YNAB. Thanks for using my code Debt free by Thirty! I don't think it pays out for another month. But I'll look forward to it when it arrives.

The other good news financially is that I don't think we have a bill due to the university this month! Next month we probably need to put down a deposit for NEXT year's housing. I can't believe they have to work on that so early.

Our weekend is set to be low key. Apparently a perfect fall day today weather wise, so we should get out and enjoy it. There will be spending. Likely on new running shoes for my husband and groceries.

Enjoy your weekend!!

Our electric bill is finally lower. Instead of $259.20 last month, it is $185.82. A difference of $73.38. I still think it may go lower next month. I believe this was a partial month where one of our two air conditioners wasn't working properly, causing one to work over time. At least we didn't have to pay for the repair, but we did have to pay for the energy used. Boo. The weather has cooled so I can imagine that will help for a month or two. Not sure when heat will be needed here in the southeast.

Next I want to see the water bill be lower. We haven't run the sprinkler system for close to three weeks, so I expect that will help a lot too.

Tomorrow is payday! Looking forward to getting our budget set up in YNAB tonight.

We had a $5,000 CD mature about three weeks ago with NFCU. It was earning nearly 5%. I can't seem to find that good of a rate, so I'm taking advantage of the next best thing. There is a 12 month CD special for 3% at NFCU. Our investment in this is $3,000 as that is the maximum allowed.

I'm just glad I didn't procrastinate getting the cash invested any longer. I kind of forgot about it and somehow it came to mind yesterday and I took care of it this morning online.

I did get my Checkout 51 $20 check in the mail yesterday. I wasted no time getting it deposited. And since it was extra money (snowflake) I added it to a Discover reward, and several Amazon gift cards and Swagbucks rewards to order a daybed quilt set I've been wanting to get. It was ordered from Amazon and will arrive tomorrow. We have an extra twin bed in our bonus room/family room that we used to just keep in basement storage. I never cared about the look of the bedding I would put on it as it was just for the occasional guest (usually a child). I now care because I see the bed EVERY time I'm in our family room. I want it to look more part of the decor of the room. With taxes is cost about $64, but non of that was out of income, just snowflakes!

Spending this weekend will be football and marching band competition admissions and a little food or drink at those events. We are going to window shop for speakers too. These are to be a birthday gift for my husband and hopefully paid in full with some credit card rewards. We have to find what we want to buy first. Once we know where and what the cost will be I will order the gift card that we will use to pay for it.

I have a ladder shelf on Amazon that I'm eyeing for either a birthday present (in November) or to use my future rewards for. It would probably be about $65 shipped.

Oh, and in other news. My daughter is likely skipping the band trip to Universal over spring break (which costs about $450). She gets that her Europe/WWII trip is much more costly and this money could help fund part of it (only 10%). We haven't signed up for the big trip yet, but can anytime. We will be talking about ways to get this funded with additional help from her. I think she has some cash she is hoarding that would be helpful.

I've had so many snowflakes(extra money) recently and I'm trying to track them, but I feel I may have lost track of some of them. The amount I recorded for September was $110. It may have been more. Or less, as I'm guessing on my eBay sales. I didn't do all the math, just going from memory.

I have $20 arriving by check from Checkout 51. It took me at least 1.5 years to accumulate that. Ugh. I have $25 from Swagbucks that I'm expecting in my PayPal account soon. I redeemed the available balance from

TopCashBack which was $6.56 for an Amazon gift card, which when I claimed they bumped up the amount to $6.72. I made a GNC purchase with them earlier this week to get 16% cash back. That is pending and should bring my earnings with them to over $10 and then make me eligible for the $10 bonus. That will mean another $13+ to redeem.

We got a check from our previous electric company in the mail for $16.02. The electric company is a co-op so they return 'capital credits' to you since you were a member. As long as we keep them notified of our address they will mail us check for the years we had service with them. This check is going to pay down the balance on the Citi card with is $650 before the payment which I'm going to round to $17.

I have $4.59 rewards on our Discover account. I had made a purchase at Amazon and used them, but then returned the item. As a result the rewards are back in the account.

Oh, and my husband bought a movie at the military Exchange store and received a $5 gift card. I'll probably use that today to buy something we need...toiletries or maybe some tea.

I'm going to keep looking and accumulating snowflakes! How about you? Where do you stand with snowflakes?

Remember I'm posting 31 Days of Decluttering and Organizing this month on my other blog

Text is Your Organized Friend and Link is http://yourorganizedfriend.blogspot.com/

Your Organized Friend.