I did reconcile our accounts on YNAB yesterday. I did find an error in a payment I recorded for our credit card. I showed us making a payment for $36 more than we actually did. That was because I transposed the numbers. Luckily, I did make the right payment and it's not a big deal in the end. No bounced checks or anything. I was also missing the recording of two transactions. Both were from the last week or so. All up to date now.

On Friday I will make payments on the all the outstanding credit card bills we have. Believe it or not, I have six with balances. The biggest one is Marriott Rewards, since that is the primary card we have been using. Three other cards have regular payments made on them, thus the balances until payday. I used the Southwest Visa to charge the airline tickets purchased for my niece and mother in law. And finally, I used my American Express card for a Amazon purchase that was around $30. I have enough points to redeem for $25 statement credit reducing that purchase to about $5. YNAB make it really easy to see what needs to be paid. And we always have the cash to cover our expenses! Yea.

I checked our retirement balances as of yesterday and we are looking much better than we were at the end of last year. I suppose most of that the contributions we've put in since the market isn't up much since the end of the year. I have a mental goal of where I'd like to see us end up, but it depends on how the markets go really!

I redeemed $6 from Pinecone recently. It was in my PayPal account. I made sure to transfer it to our savings account yesterday so it won't melt.

March 2016 Snowflakes

eBay Proceeds $26.32
Pinecone Research $12.00
Discover Rewards $1.49
Templeton Rye Settlement $23.00
Chase Rewards $20.00
Ibotta (iTunes gc) $25.00
Total $107.81

I may have had more, but I'm not going to go looking for them. I sure can't complain about having an extra $100+ in our pocket. I'm going to make sure this money gets into our second savings account when I earn it. I rarely touch that money, so it will become savings that won't quickly melt.

I checked our American Express rewards the other day. We each have about $45! We had been using those exclusively since the beginning of the year, until sometime last month when we switched to a couple new cards for bonuses. We can only redeem in $25 increments, so only $50 is actually really available.

I believe I have some money in my PayPal and Pinecone accounts to redeem. I'll get that taken care of and count it for April!

My new MacBook Pro purchase really helped move our spending along on our newest credit card rewards bonus. We need to spend $3K on the Marriott Rewards card to earn 80K points. There may also be a 7500 bonus for a second user, so there is that too. We have already spent $2,725 on the card.

There will be no issue making the threshold as we have nearly two more months to complete. I probably could pay the electric and cable bill and have it complete this week.

We still plan to use our points for a Washington DC vacation this summer. If we pick a hotel in Alexandria on the end of the metro line I think we can easily get five nights. We will get that firmed up once we have the points.

Funds are getting a little tight this month since it is a longer month. We've been snacking too much again and eating out more. Money is still there, just not put into the right categories on YNAB. Luckily I can move that around!

I sold two Wii games on eBay this week. After shipping and fees I netted $8.99. For now I'm leaving that money in my Paypal account. I feel like lately my snowflakes just get consumed into our spending. I probably need to be transferring them to our savings account.

Of course, I like all snowflakes...even if they melt once in awhile.

Amazon accidentally sent us a second keyboard! It arrived on our doorstep last night. The original one I bought arrived on Thursday. The good news I wasn't charged for the second one. At this point, Amazon is providing me with a return label and wants me to drop it off at UPS. I don't think that is right. I shouldn't have to go out of my way to return something I didn't request. Especially such a large item! It's around 25 pounds and the box is about four feet long and pretty wide. Awkward to bring in from the porch let alone put in the car and carry into UPS. I want them to authorize UPS to pick it up from my house. If I try to arrange pickup it will cost me over $10.

We received a refund of some auto insurance premium going back to 2014 in the mail. It was for just under $16. Definitely unexpected. But I will take any money anyone wants to return.

I found out our neighborhood is holding a community wide sale on April 9th. I think I'll be scrounging the house to see what I can find to sell. I like that we have just enough notice over our spring breaks to find the things to let go of. I will try to sell a couch and fridge at the sale too. Although, I realize those may not be items easily sold at a sale.

I briefly had a post up here to ask some of you how I could get my YNAB 4 to download on my new computer. I did some Google searching and found a link that took me to the download page. I saved the key code, so it was pretty easy to get it up and running again. I'm sure I will gravitate to the new version at some point, just not sure I want a yearly charge for it!

I ended up selling $2200 worth of shares today from my daughter's mutual fund. The market is higher than it has been for a little while. I wanted to lock in some of those gains. I still need to redeem another $2200 at some point to pay ourselves back for this Spring semester.

I also received a check in the mail from a class action settlement with Templeton Rye Whiskey. It was for $23! We did buy that stuff at one time. I can't even remember what it was all about, but I'll take the cash. I put it into the vacation fund.

First of all, super happy to have completed two days this week without spending. This isn't too unusual as most of our spending is usually done on the weekends.

I will probably stop by the store today to pick up an item or two for my daughter's science teacher who needs donations for science labs tomorrow and Friday.

We changed a lot of filters around here last weekend. All of our furnace filters are swapped out every other month. It was time to change the water filter on the fridge. And we replaced engine and cabin filters on both of our vehicles. Those were really overdue. My husband and I sort of had a race...I did my vehicle and he did his. It was close on the engine filter, but then I got hung up on a clip that I needed to loosen to get to the cabin filter. He had to help me there.

The really nice thing was the filters were all free because of rewards we have earned. I'm going to make a point to put a reminder on our calendar to get the vehicle filters replaced once a year...it had been far longer than that unfortunately.

Actually, I'm just watching the market right now. I paid our daughter's spring tuition/housing in early February out of our savings account. Her college fund is still invested in a balanced mutual fund. Thus with the market down and cash on hand I just couldn't bring myself to sell. This is really why we shouldn't have the money in the market at this point. I should have transferred it into a cash account. So for now, my goal is to wait and watch what happens. When it gets even better, I plan to withdraw the amount equal to what came from our savings. At some point, I'm going to start slowly transferring the balance to a cash account.

If we use my husband's GI bill for the next two school years, we won't need any of those funds. It would be nice to have it grow, but I also don't want to lose anything either. So cash it will be it seems.

In other news, I redeemed $12 in Pinecone Rewards yesterday, along with $17.90 from recent eBay sales. I'm using these funds, and Amazon gift cards, to buy a few items on Amazon. Needs. Primarily engine and air filters for our vehicles. I also bought a shower cover for our drain. It was clear it was needed after cleaning the drain recently. I like that I could make these purchases with non income cash!

It was VERY tempting to go out today to run errands. Especially since I can see our paycheck pending in our account. However, I stayed in. We spent $0 today. I did some more spring cleaning. It was even warm enough to take the cats out in the yard for an adventure. I pulled a few weeds I found while they enjoyed themselves in the sun.

I'd like to say that I could go longer with a low spend month, but we have some things we want to spend money on (and have saved for). I'm not planning to buy more than a usual month, of course. I just know that if we need to spend we will. And some of it will be wants. There has to be room in life for wants!

Our Marriott Rewards card arrived in the mail today. This card will provide 80K bonus points(plus 7500 points for adding authorized user) after spending $3K in the next three months. The card does have an annual fee, but you get a free night as one of the perks. We expect to use our points for several nights in Washington DC this summer. If anyone recommends any Marriott branded hotels in the area, let me know!

LivingAlmostLarge asked in the comments of my post yesterday if all the pent up spending will be spent in March. No not really.

We have put $3,577 into savings (doesn't included investments) during the month of February. Some of this is money we usually save for car repairs, Christmas and a deposit into our emergency fund. But MOST of that cash is because we didn't have big January bills to pay and we spent far less this month than we usually do. Going out to restaurants, buying movie rentals, picking up a lot of snacks, alcohol, driving to store to get things, buying items because the coupon makes it a great deal adds up. A lot more than we realize.

The point for us to have a low spend month wasn't to deprive ourselves, but to make conscious choices about what we really need to live each day. Do we NEED to go out to eat to be fulfilled? Do we need to rent that movie, or are there other alternatives?

The other reason was to stash some cash. We need cash for airline tickets, vacation goals, college deposits, and furniture we want to buy.

As you can see the cash that was stashed probably will be spent at some point, but on things we want that are important. More important then other things we may have spent our money on this month.

We do have some pent up spending to do, but those purchases will come from March income. I also don't expect that we will suddenly eat out more than we usually did (twice a month maximum) because we didn't eat out at all this month. We will need to buy the toiletries we are getting low on, but we didn't use less toothpaste this month, we just avoided needing to buy those things because we already had those on hand. I used a small tube from the dentist to get by this month. I probably need a haircut that I might have done this month, but I won't get two next month. So yes, spending will be more next month, but it doesn't negate the savings we accomplished this month.

On some level it is just a shift in when the money is saved. We saved a lot in one month for things we need cash for soon, rather than saving a little each month by 'hoping' to reduce our spending each month. Again this was a very conscious effort to reduce outflow of cash to set aside for savings and future purchases.

I feel very confident that any future purchases (other than the large ones already mentioned) will be made with future income. If I find out different next month, I will be sure to let you know!

In other news, I did make an eBay sale. It looks like the profit is $9.46. I have four other items listed that could each bring in a similar profit.

We received a small unexpected check in the mail for $9.50. It was a class action suit settlement from Wells Fargo. They overcharged us for a flood statement, or something like that. I like unexpected snowflakes!

I did a little stocking up today in preparation of our no/low spend February. A few products for hair and teeth, spent about $8. This will definitely help us get through February. I used this month's budget to accommodate the purchase.

No word from the renters about the water damage. The filter for the fridge water arrived. We won't be returning it though. We expect it either to be repaired or simply will be the final one we replace the one the provide originally.

Only five more days of January left to go. We are down to $200. It would to keep a bit of that. I know we need fuel, and I may buy a pair of sneakers. And there might be a meal at a restaurant since I have a friend in town later this week.

First, we never lost power during the storm. For that, I am extremely grateful. We have been inside our home for two days in order to stay safe. I'm definitely ready to get out today! Roads here are clear. Trees still have a little ice, but the dusting of snow has melted. We managed not to spend any money those two days either!

Today, the plan is to get out to get groceries for the rest of January, so back to spending. I'm adding toilet paper, cat food and litter, and laundry detergent to the list. This is an attempt to be be stocked up during the month of February since we are attempting a low spend (no spend) month.

I did just order a water filter for our fridge on Amazon. I used the balance of my Amazon gift card ($3.98) and Discover cash back ($2.52). I only paid $10.45 out of pocket.

I'm close to redeeming for Bing Rewards and Swagbucks again. I will use those $30 in February to get more filters for our vehicles. We realized we are a bit overdue for cabin and engine filters.

I cashed in 1650 MyPoints this morning for a Subway gift card. I will send it to my oldest daughter when it arrives. Hopefully, a gift in her Valentine's card. This will be the second gift card I have redeemed in the last 2.5 months with MyPoints. I have given both to my daughter. It's an easy way to give her a few extra surprises in the mail.

Oh, I guess I was suppose to write about taxes! Almost forgot. We have my husband's W2 forms, the new 1095 (health care), our mortgage interest statement, and a several other 1099s. I'm still waiting on the form from the university showing money we paid. Once that arrives I think we will be ready to start filing taxes. I will likely use FreeTaxUSA again. It seems to work for me.

Have you started your tax return? Do you have all the documents you need? Are you doing a no spend month this year? Have you redeemed any credit card rewards or points from another program recently?

Another chance to sign up for Ibotta and earn $10 after you redeem your first rebate. I'm about ready to cash out at $20. It seems there are a lot of great rebates right now. Especially for those of us dieting this month.

My referral code is

here. I earn $5 after you redeem your first rebate. I think there is someone out there that used my code last time that hasn't redeemed their first rebate yet. Don't forget to do that! Over time the savings really add up.

We got our first W2 in the mail. It was a bit of a surprise. It is a result of our move. I can't quite remember what it is for. I think it is for the stuff we moved ourselves. Part of it isn't taxable, some is, and some was withheld for taxes. I was actually glad to see that, since I think that means we will owe even less than I originally estimated. I was thinking around $400-500. Now it will be about $250 less since more was withheld then I remembered.

I had $3 in my PayPal account from a Pinecone survey. I forgot to transfer it out. Turns out it went to pay for a second month of an American Greetings eCard subscription. I just wrote myself a note yesterday to cancel. I was a bit to late. The price was $3.99, so not the worst thing since the $3 in the account covered most of it. I will make sure to send a few more eCards before February 12. Might work well as my mother and sister have birthday's between now and then.

I did get another credit for a Pinecone survey I took. And even though I can now cash out for $3, I'm going to wait. I guess I've become more accustomed to accumulating $15 then cashing out.

My husband bought gas for $1.79 a gallon today. That is amazing. I remember paying over $3 a gallon in the not so distant past.

The electric bill arrived in my inbox today. It was $200. About $17 more than last month. It has been a little colder.

I'm really looking forward to our no spend month. It feels like money is flowing out too much this month!

In other news, I got a Fitbit for Christmas. I've been getting between 8K and 10K steps everyday since then. One day I had 12K steps. I was competing with my sister, so I had extra incentive! Getting the extra exercise is helping me feel better. It is interesting how just having it on your wrist is an incentive to get up and move. I make an extra effort to walk around the house, just to get more steps in.

I'm also cutting out added sugar from my diet for the most part. I have had some sugar, primarily from fruit. If I have any added sugar the goal is to keep it to 25 grams or less. I'm on day 3, which has been a little harder than the first two, but still doing just fine!

If I can see a major difference in the next 10 days to two weeks, I might consider doing a diet bet. Right now though just one or two changes at a time is enough!

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 redeemed the funds in my

Top Cash Back account today for an Amazon gift card. My funds equaled $14.50. For picking Amazon over cash I got a 2.5% bonus, which makes the Amazon snowflake (extra money) $14.86. If you sign up with my link you get $10, but only after you have used their service to redeem $10 of cash back from shopping sites.

We bought shoes at Kohl's for my daughter yesterday and received $10 Kohl's cash, which was available for use today. My husband bought running shoes and we used the Kohl's cash towards that purchase. I'm debating about counting that as a snowflake. It is money we may have spent if we didn't have the Kohl's cash. I did get out of the habit of matching these in the last year.

We also purchased some vitamins online for my husband. Spending $50 plus tax. A bit of a splurge, but not a permanent expense. I used a Visa Signature card and MAY get a $10 credit as a result of the purchase, if it goes through correctly. I'm not sure it worked. I was going to purchase either way, so the $10 will be a nice bonus.

I'm redeeming Swagbucks today for a $25 Amazon gift card. Hoping it will be quick. Noticed there was a new way to claim December bonus Swagbucks. They are not automatically applied!

I'll post of picture of my December 2015 income sources and total. Those amounted to $448.13! Ebay sales helped quite a bit, along with credit card rewards.



As for the entire year of 2015, my snowflake totals equal $2,725.47. I did have many months where I wasn't too focused on bringing in extra funds, primarily because of our move. We also limited our acquisition of new credit cards as well, so there were not many large bonus rewards.

I didn't add the cash we received from our damage claim. That was just over $1400, and could really be considered a snowflake. That would bring the total up to at least $4,135 for 2015. We also had other money come in as a result of our move, but I didn't track that well. Those payments would probably bring add another $7200. Of course, those were really reimbursements for money spent...so it's not like I have a large chunk of cash sitting around as a result.

Overall, it was a good year for finding extra funds. I hope to make 2016 even better! Will you be tracking your extra income/snowflakes in 2016? How did you do in 2015?

I've earned at least $300 in cash and gift cards from Swagbucks this year, which yes is $25 a month. I probably only spend an hour at the most each day accumulating my points. And this is when I'm on my treadmill in the morning, or watching television in the evenings.

Today, I earned 36 SB clicking videos on my phone, another 4 for the daily habits, a few more playing games, and watching other videos online. And finally I took a short survey for 50 SB. I met my 100 SB goal in 45 minutes. Maybe even a little less.

It's an odd way to make a few dollars, but I find it kind of fun. If you want to join in for 2016...my referral code is

here.

There are a lot of people on the Swagbucks Facebook page willing to give tips and answer questions. Will you join? Or have you already been a member of Swagbucks?

Although our Christmas shopping is done, we did some shopping today for needs. At Ulta. Where the checkout line was horrendous! Not that I was really surprised. The man buying his daughter's makeup just about had a heart attack when they gave him the total! The stuff is expensive and adds up fast. I don't think they had any coupons. We were buying one liter of conditioner and a tiny bottle of hair serum of some kind. With 20% off and $6 in rewards our total was $26.49. That conditioner bottle should last me six months. It seems the shampoo lasts about twice as long!

I bought a long sleeve shirt on Land's End today. I've been wanting a gray one to replace one I got rid of last winter. Today, I was able to get it for half off, free shipping and will get a $15 credit because I used our Chase Freedom card through the Visa Checkout system. The total before the credit was $17.90. I had to throw in a child's fleece hat $3.97 to get my total high enough for the credit offer. I will donate that since both items together will only cost me $2.90!

We went out to lunch today. We tried a new pizza place here in town, called MOD Pizza. It was really good! With drinks for three of us we spent $31. We ate late, so hoping dinner here at home can be light. Oh, and the meal was in our budget!

We have plans to watch Polar Express tonight also. It's been a few years since we watched it...and I was contemplating decluttering the disc. Guess it stays for now!

We received lots of goodies (food primarily) in the mail from my parents today. Their Christmas gift to us. They know the kinds of things we like. And there should be nearly zero clutter as a result. There were some candles...which could take awhile to burn though.

I hope you are all enjoying the lead up to the holidays! If you are stressing out...please don't it isn't worth it. I have heard of too many people getting upset this time of year for various reasons. That makes me sad when it should be a joyous time. It seems to come from putting too much pressure on ourselves to please others or expecting too much of the season. We have scaled back considerably and I can tell we are all enjoying ourselves so much more!

I sold more shares of my daughter's college fund the day interest rates went up and the market went up. I'm selling to cover the cash we used out of pocket to pay tuition and housing last semester. I still need to withdraw another $2K before the end of the year. Although if the market keeps tanking, I may just forget it!

It's officially holiday break! We have no particular plans. I'm hoping we can find some low/no cost things to do at home or in the area before Christmas. I guess my husband has a few more days of work before then too!

I did buy toilet paper and got $1 back from Ibotta for the purchase. Always nice to find some savings. I have nearly $16 accumulated with

Ibotta and will have to wait until I'm at $20 to get cash through Paypal. I would guess it will happen before the month is out, since there are a lot of rebate opportunities this time of year! That's my referral link. You get $5 and so do I after you claim your first rebate.

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!

Amazing that so much has been fixed on this site so fast. Why did it take so long to get such a quick response? I sent Jeffrey a private message yesterday. I thought others had done this in the past. At any rate, it is good.

I redeemed 2500 Swagbucks for $25 in my PayPal account last night. I was tired of Amazon...spent too much there lately! The money was already in my account this afternoon! Super fast!! And now I'm transferring it to my checking account.

Another snowflake to add to the list.

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?

We received our 'refund of premium' from USAA. We get one every year. And each year it seems to go up! Last year it was $69. This year $81.12. This sort of makes up for the fact that our auto insurance rates went up when we moved.

I don't have specific plans for the money other than to save the money. I'll count it as a snowflake for the month. I'm guessing it might help cover the cost of college books in the spring. Or could offset the money spent for our adopted family. However, I think that actually ended up being covered by our Christmas budget!

Today, I'm spending money on postage to mail two gifts. I bought fuel for my van. Later I'm getting a haircut. We are also out of coffee, so need to pick that up! Dinner is planned for here at home tonight. We may have lunch out tomorrow as we will be viewing our daughter in the Christmas parade downtown.

I'd like to think it will be at least a low spend weekend, so we don't have much more to spend until payday! And as I write that I've been thinking about doing a no spend month, likely in February. It's the shortest month, even with it being a leap year! And I think it may be one where we don't have as much going on. Has anyone done a no spend month recently, ever or want to?

Apparently we took out cash last month at enough places to get our ATM fees refunded to the tune of $11.25! I'm thankful our bank refunds these (only up to $15), but I don't like that we paid them in the first place.

I did find (and told my husband) about ATMs around us that do not charge fees for withdrawals. Another thing you have to adjust to when you move!

We just booked an airline ticket for our daughter to come home for about 13 nights. It could have been longer, but she needs to go with the marching band to the bowl game before she returns home. She will be in California on Christmas Day as it turns out. The cost was just over $600! I would have booked much, much earlier, but couldn't until we knew the whole bowl schedule. I should get her spring break trip booked right now, too.

I sold a book and Box Tops for Education on eBay yesterday...and net another $14! The net total is about $187. Not too shabby.

I still have two items listed. I'm not sure if they will sell. One seems like it should, so I'm not quite sure what it hasn't. I may need to change it in some way to guarantee a sale.

I have earned enough to get a $5 Amazon gift card through Bing rewards. I haven't redeemed them yet. I'm getting closer to earning another $25 gift card or cash from Swagbucks, also. These seem to be my monthly averages on these.

I sure do like the small amounts of money that come in! Let it snow. Let it snow!!

It's official. All the items I have sold have resulted in $173.24 after fees and shipping! Some items were from the Wii U lot that I purchased. The others were old military gear.

The money is definitely going to offset the purchase of all the new to us Wii U items, and the gifts we purchased for our adopted family (spent about $250 on them).

I have three items currently listed for this next week. I think I have more I can list tomorrow, but I may be winding down with the sales. It feels good to get some of this military gear out the door. I knew it was worth money, so I lugged it halfway across the country (well, the movers did). It's finally time to get it out of here to free up some space!

So excited that my buyer from last Monday finally paid for their auction. I can get it in the mail on Monday!

I had one item sell yesterday with a Best Offer...but they have not paid. Ugh. I'm not sure if I didn't have that set up right, as I usually require immediate payment for Buy It Now auctions.

I have four auctions ending today and two already have bids. Some of these items are offsetting the cost of the Wii U I purchased for my daughter, so that is also exciting.

I have at least one or two more Christmas themed items I found in our stash that I'm going to put up for sale. If they don't sell before the holiday, they will just be donated?

Are you doing any selling during the month of December?