We paid $99.99 for our Ooma Voip Telo system in October. It is normally $149.99 on their site, but we took advantage of a referral sale for $50 off. Ooma has this offer again, which I wrote about several posts back.

I posted my referral code here, on Ebay and on a few coupon sites. Five people have purchased an Ooma using my referral code. I will receive $20 for each of those referrals...which if you did the math that is $100. That makes our Ooma unit FREE. I like free.

Thanks for all of those that used my referral code. It may still be good for you to use, but I don't expect I will be getting any more cash for referring you. Ooma indicated there was a five referral maximum.

I like that I can get cash for referring people for things I use and would refer people to anyway. I have referred people to Capital One 360, iHerb, Ooma, Ebates and Swagbucks. I'm not sure how much I have made this way...probably less than $300.

Have you made money referring friends, family, blog readers or strangers to a company? Who do you refer people to? How much do you think you have made this way?

The low spending is going very well this week. I had two no spend day, Monday and Tuesday. Today I sent a package in the mail for $2.24 and purchased some grocery items at Target for $13.11. I needed more greens for my smoothies!

The fuel gauges on the vehicles are going down, but I will keep using the gas that is there and hope I can make it very close to Sunday before I need to fill up again.

Today was payday, which means the automatic deposit for the 52 Week Savings challenge was sent to my Capital One 360 account. My total is now $181, which covers weeks 1-7, and 50-52. I'm still not really sure what I'm saving this money for! At minimum, more emergency funds.

All bills are up to date, and I expect to pay off the American Express balance in a couple days. This is the card I charged my daughter's Washington DC trip to. She leaves in April and will have a paid for trip! The balance is at $265. I expect $25 in rewards to be available in a couple days, so once I claim that I will pay the remaining $240. I was already planning to pay $115, and since I have the remainder, I'm ready to be done with paying Amex. One less item to think about. And the even better thing...we paid no interest!

I applied for the US Bank offer on Monday. I found out today that I was approved. I like instant decisions better! I was also approved for the Discover It card. I still need to talk to my husband before I have him apply for the Discover, too. All of those cards will probably go pretty fast, since the spending requirements are only $500 and $750.

How many no spend days have you had in a row recently? Have you paid off a debt recently that you have been holding for awhile? Did you apply for credit recently? Was the decision instant or did you have to wait?

I did return that item I mentioned in my last post to the store today. I now have a tidy sum of $1.90 in my pocket. Once I spend that I will send the same amount to pay down mortgage principal.

I ran errands today, making four stops in one trip. One stop was the return, one was the library, one was for my daughter's hair product, and the final one was for a few extra groceries. I needed more greens for my smoothies!

After several no spend days, I did spend today. About $50. I don't feel bad about it or anything, but I happened to remind myself of some frugal things I did do that probably save us money over time. I wrote about that at

Our Money Blog, if you want to take a look.

Did you do something frugal today? What was it?

I need to talk with my husband first, so this idea isn't yet a done deal. I'm considering increasing the deductible on our homeowner's insurance from $1000 to $2000 or more. The savings could be over $150 per year. It's not a lot of savings, but it is money we could keep in our pocket. We do have nearly $20K in our emergency fund so I don't have any concern in meeting the deductible. Why pay more than we need to, right? Any thoughts on whether this is a good idea?

I just wrote a new post on

Our Money Blog about reviewing expenses. It's likely something you all know and do anyway, but I think it is a good reminder to really look at where our money goes.

Today was a no spend day. No purchases were made online. School is on again for tomorrow. I have now completed seven days of green smoothies. Yippee!!

Now I know what is like in the Arctic! I did go out mid afternoon to put the trash and recycling out for tomorrow morning. I also ventured to get the mail one house down and across the street. Luckily it was a quick trip!

I received money in the mail. A $10 Visa gift card as a rebate for something I purchased at Kohl's in November. I wish it was a check, so I could just deposit it. I have to buy something to make it count now. I will match my savings on a purchase with a principal payment on the mortgage.

You would think not leaving the house would make a no spend day, but no. My daughter's are finally reaching the end of the usable life on their Nook Color chargers. One doesn't work at all, and the other is hit and miss, on whether it will charge or not. I found one on Ebay for about $18. The seller has already notified me that it has been mailed at the post office! This purchase will give some more life to their Nooks.

My frugal happening today was eating leftover turkey soup that I made yesterday. The soup was made from Thanksgiving turkey I had put in the freezer. Tasty and toasty warm! I found two dimes in my husband's work pants, as well as a receipt for a $2 item that we need to return.

Since our windchill temperatures are going to drop near 40 below zero, the schools have cancelled school again tomorrow. This is the longest winter break we have ever had. It has been very relaxing to just hang at home, get organized, and get things cleaned, but I'm not looking forward to that electric bill next month. The only plus is that a bigger bill will help meet our spending goal for the credit card bonus.

Did you stay inside today? Did you do anything frugal? Was there any money in your mailbox? Did you buy something online?

This tip is not about health insurance. It's a little tale about a conversation we had with my husband's sister and husband on Christmas about cell phones.

They have a family plan with Verizon that includes themselves, two daughters with smartphones, a son with a dumb phone, my mother in law, and my brother in law's parents. I'm not sure what types of phones all the adults have. They have a contract plan and are paying $5/month...per phone for insurance!!

If you do the math on that, they are paying $40 ($5x8phones) per month just for insurance. They likely will pay that for the 24 month contract, which ends up being $960! Yikes. I did tell them about my sister's husband who needed a new phone while still on contract. He purchased a phone on Ebay that he could use with his cell phone provider. I think he paid about $100. Even if my sister in law need to buy a new phone for everyone on their plan at that price they would be better off then they are with paying the $5 insurance for everyone's phone.

Businesses make big money buy selling insurance for replacement products. The odds are usually low you will need it. I think it is better to simply rely on your savings if something happens to your device.

This is a bit unrelated, but an example of thinking outside the box when something breaks. My husband's laptop screen broke a couple days ago. He left his ear buds in between the keyboard and screen with the screen propped up. One of our daughters bumped into it and the lid closed with a pop. Oops. The computer works great even thought it is a couple years old. We went browsing online to see about screen replacement. Yep, sure enough, it is an option. It is pretty easy to replace a screen. There was a video on the site we purchased from explaining how to do it. We did pay just under $70 with shipping for a replacement screen, but that is far less than buying a new computer!

Do you self insure with electronics, or pay a fee for insurance? Have you replaced a computer screen, or other part to save from buying new?

I sent $12.99 in snowflakes to the mortgage today. Nine dollars was from three recent Pinecone surveys. And $3.99 matches the money we used from an Amazon gift card from Swagbucks to rent a movie a couple nights ago.

I redeemed reward points on USAA for $25 cash. I expect it to be in our checking account in a couple of days, and then I will send it to the mortgage.

We had an interesting experience at Target yesterday. We were purchasing groceries. The cashier took a coupon, and scanned my cartwheel barcode. However, she forgot to give me the extra 10% off the store was offering or my bag discounts. I think when she tried to give those, after the cartwheel, it locked up her entire computer! We ended up at Guest Services with our cashier scanning our groceries again. We did get all of our discounts: Cartwheel, bag discount, coupon, additional 10%, and 5% for using our Red Card. We also received a $10 Target gift card for the inconvenience. We ended up paying about $108, with an original total of over $135. It was a very good experience overall in customer service.

I also went out spending a Kohl's last night. I was in need of a down alternative comforter for our guest bed in our basement. It gets cold done there! The original price was $89. We had a $10 Kohl's coupon, plus 30% off. I convinced my cashier to let me use my American Express card to pay for the purchase, even though I should have only been able to use my Kohl's card. An offer on AE, will provide me $10 since I made a purchase of over $50 at Kohl's. In the end I paid $59.91 with tax, and will get the $10 credit from American Express. I also received $10 Kohl's cash to use after Christmas. Not too bad!

I don't expect to be on the blogs for several days because of holiday gatherings. Happy merry making!

I set my modified 52 Week Savings challenge to fund itself automatically. I wrote about that and the benefits of automatically saving for a goal on

Our Money Blog, if you are interested in reading about that today head on over there.

Today I wish I could automate my grocery shopping! We are hours away from getting a pretty big snow storm of up to 9 inches of snow. And this follows the ice storm we had yesterday. I need to get out to get a few days of groceries, plus the items I promised to bring to our holiday gatherings.

We attempted to call the Honda dealership about the repair of the oxygen sensor earlier this week. Honda Care indicated it should be covered, and that it is best to get the benefit through the dealership rather than be reimbursed. The dealership didn't seem to want to deal with it on a Saturday and simply took the information and said they would get back to us on Monday. This might end up being a bigger hassle then expected, but we are pretty sure it will get worked out in our favor. Our Honda Care warranty was purchased through another dealer in our old town, thus this dealership doesn't have our Honda Care information on file. The warranty is good through October or November of next year, unless we break 100K miles before that. We are only at 73K now, so I don't expect that to happen.

We rented a movie on Amazon.com last night. I have a gift card on my account. I will match the money spent with a payment to the mortgage principal, since that gift card was earned from Swagbucks.

I love that so many of us are planning our 2014 goals. I will be posting ours in more detail soon after Christmas. Maybe some of you lurkers will want to start a blog in the new year to keep track of your goals. I know we would love to cheer you on!

In case anyone is following along when I check our credit reports, it is now time to check TransUnion. I had a reminder at the beginning of the month from my email service. I still haven't done it, but I will. In four months I will remind you to check another report from annualcreditreport.com. That is the free service where you can check your report from each of the credit reporting agencies once per year. I check ours every four months, so that I'm effectively checking each agency once per year.

I noticed my ticker from tracking my Christmas Snowflakes has disappeared again. It seems if you don't update them they delete them. Boo. At least I tracked that information elsewhere, too!

I might have mentioned this in a post awhile back, but we had a van repair this week. The check engine light was on. It was an oxygen sensor. We had our oil changed and tires rotated. The total bill was about $377. We charged it to the Chase Sapphire card we are working towards a bonus on.

My husband has had some recent travel. He was reimbursed $178.50 for one. Not sure what his actual expenses were, but I'm pretty sure less than that. The other travel reimbursement came in the form of mileage and was nearly $340. That was way more than he spent in gas for three 150 mile round trips. Right now the money is just sitting in our checking account. I would count it as snowflake money if I knew his actual expenses, but he is spend happy when he travels and I don't have the patience to figure out the profit. I guess I should make a better effort to figure all that out.

We are going to be getting an ice storm tonight and a bigger snow storm over the weekend. I think we'll just stay inside as much as possible!

I have enough Swagbucks to cash out for $25 in PayPal cash. I hope I receive it before year end so I can count it for 2013 snowflakes.

I received a Pinecone survey payment of $3 yesterday. I also completed TWO more surveys yesterday, so I should be receiving another $6 soon.

I found out our housing allowance is going up beginning in January by $102 tax free dollars!! I think I'll make sure to save this money to the mortgage each month since it is a housing benefit.

My Christmas shopping is pretty much complete. I may find one more thing for my brother in law's stocking, but it won't amount to more than $3-4. I need to make one final payment to my Target Red Card from the Christmas fund to cover one last gift and stocking stuffers purchased. I have wrapped everything and didn't need to buy one bow, bag, roll of paper, gift tag or tape! I did use about four small gift bags I bought on clearance at Target last year. I might look for a few of those when they start to clearance things. I think I paid $0.10 each!

I am going grocery shopping today for odds and ends and the ingredients for taco dip that my husband will take to work for their Christmas party. They are having a white elephant exchange. I think we have a DVD of something that we can give up for that. I will still have one final trip to make before the holiday for food and drinks we are taking to our gatherings.

I'm also picking up 1/2 yard of fabric to make a little bag for my daughter's friend. She wants to give a gift and suggested the idea, but specifying a zebra print! I don't have that, but the cost is small compared to what I might buy if we went shopping! I WILL get that done today.

I purchased a photo book for my parent's anniversary, which is December 27. It is a compilation of photos we took of all of our family members on their land the last time we were there before they moved. There are some house and land pictures as well. I'm expecting tears. The awesome thing is I got the book free and only had to pay sales tax shipping and, which I did upgrade to 2 day for an $1 more. Total out of pocket was $9.56! It was a deal that came with the school photos I bought of my girls. They will be thrilled with it.

Okay...lots of little updates. I've been wanting to write more about goal setting and tax planning, but I'm just busy! I will get those posts together when things settle down.

Remember my husband opened a Capital One 360 checking account during their Black Friday sale? The requirement was to make at least 5 debit card purchases or deposits or a combination of the two. As of this morning those five debit card transactions have been completed! The average amount of the transactions was $4.61, with the total $23.05 for all five.

The bonus amount for all this hard work, which it wasn't, is $125. The bonus will not be deposited until mid January. Something to look forward to!

Did you meet your Capital One 360 checking account requirements? Did you miss the bonus offer? If you still want to open an account and receive up to $75 bonus cash, check my referral link

here.

If you find yourself with a gift card to a location you will not shop or dine at you might considered selling it for cash. You generally will not receive the full value of the card, but the cash in your pocket might be more useful for paying down debt or saving for that goal you are working on.

I suggest using Gift Card Granny to find gift card sites that will purchase your gift card. This site connects to many others so it saves plenty of time.

Today, I purchased a discounted gift card to Petco to make an online purchase of cat food. I stocked up and purchased two bags. I first went to Ebates to connect to Petco, where I hope to get 6% back on the purchase. Once I determined the amount of my order I browsed giftcardgranny.com for a card similar to that value. My order total was $67.39, with tax and free shipping. I purchased my gift card from giftcards.com at a 14% discount. The value of the card was $65.85, but I only paid $56.63. And if you are following the math, I did have to pay an additional $1.54 to complete the transaction. I did notice that giftcards.com took a lot longer to send me the gift card number than last time when I used cardpool.com. It still arrived on the same day.

I made the gift card purchase and the final $1.54 purchase on Petco.com with our Chase Sapphire card, since we are still working on meeting our $3K spending requirement. I think we still have over $2K left to go, although it seems our van will have a part replaced tomorrow, so that repair will lower the amount we need to spend some more.

Do you make efforts to buy discounted gift cards? Have you ever sold a gift card for cash?

Yesterday, I paid all the bills in full. The only amount on the credit cards is the Washington DC trip, we are slowly paying the balance off at 0% interest. Only $300 left to pay, which means it will be paid off in February. Actually, I might just pay that off next pay period now that the amount is so low.

Anyway....while paying bills I made our first regular deposit to the 52 Week Challenge. I had a beginning balance of $10 and added $57. I will add $57 twice per month and by Nov 15th next year I will have the full $1,378, plus interest. I did send that money to my Capital One savings account for easy book keeping.

I was actually able to put $748 aside into savings, which is the biggest amount I have been able to set aside for savings in awhile. I hope I didn't miss something, but I think we just spent less. I still have over $200 in the Christmas fund. A little more of that will likely get spent, but maybe a good chunk can go to the mortgage before the end of the year.

We have made one purchase on my husband's Capital One debit card. Only four more to go to qualify for the $125 bonus!

My dad bought me a Mega Millions ticket today. I offered to pay him the one dollar, but he refused. It would be nice to win, but the odds are not in our favor. I really NEVER play the lottery, but it is fun to think about winning.

Do you play the lottery? How often? How much have you ever won?

I bought a couple more gifts online last night. Two were purchased on Etsy. I feel good about those, since they are such unique gifts and benefit small business owners. One has already been shipped!

Two other items were purchased on Amazon. I purchased one with my American Express Blue Cash Everyday card. I had redeemed the offer for getting $25 back when you spend $75 on Amazon. And this item was over $75. The other item was charged to the Chase card we are currently using to accumulate a reward.

The unfortunate thing is this morning my $25 Amazon gift card I requested through Swagbucks arrived. A good thing really, but bad timing. I guess I should have waited. Although, honestly, I forgot I had ordered it. I'm sure there will be other purchases in the future, so not all is lost.

I'm getting really close to being done with my shopping for Christmas. I know there are still several things to get, but I'm now probably 80% done. I'd really like to finish up this week!

My Christmas fund has been sitting in my Capital One 360 Savings account since July. Earning .75% interest. Today I transferred all but $10 back to my regular checking account. From there I will start using the funds to pay for gifts I have purchased on credit cards in the last couple weeks. I also moved $80 worth of referral bonuses, so I can send those to the mortgage.

I left $10 in the account as I had $10 cash here at home to begin my first four weeks of the 52 week savings challenge. My intention is to save this money separately in my Capital One 360 Savings account. Now the cash I have at home will likely be used to buy a few stocking stuffers.

I'm thinking of making a few adjustments for the 52 week challenge for me. I really just want to save some additional money from our regular income. My husband is paid twice per month, thus a weekly challenge is not quite right. The total for challenge at the end is $1,378. I already have $10. If I save $57 each pay period*24 pay periods I will have the remaining $1,368. I think I will start this right away with this upcoming paycheck on the 15th of December. I'm excited! Once I know my husband's pay increase for the year, I will look into saving that money specifically as well.

We completed our $500 in purchases on my husband's Chase Freedom account. Now just to wait for the $200 in rewards to post! We have begun putting our regular spending on my Chase Sapphire Preferred account. Looking forward to over $550 in rewards on that one, but probably not for a couple more months.

I made two stockings today for my parents, since we are only doing stocking stuffers this year and they didn't have stockings it was needed. I bought the green fabric. The red fabric, the lining, and the flannel layers, ribbon, and thread were all items I already had, so the cost was minimal.



Will anyone else be tweaking the 52 Week Savings Challenge? Did anyone meet a spending requirement for a credit card bonus? Do you have a stocking that you get gifts in each year?

I ended up referring four people to the Capital One 360 Savings and Checking accounts. One of them was my husband. The $20 per referral showed up immediately, but stated it would not be available for withdrawal until January 1. I looked at the account again today, and they are all available now. That is an extra $80 in snowflakes that I will send to the mortgage next week!

I will also earn another $60 by the end of the month, because I made at least two referrals. A total of $100 for the first two referrals. That money is not yet showing up, but it will!

Found out from Hip2Save that Bath and Body Works is having a sale TODAY only at their stores. Buy 3, get 3 free on nearly everything in the store. There is also a coupon that you can combine if your total is over $10, for an additional free item. So almost like buy two and getting four free in my mind. The link to the offer I read is

here. I'm sure those stores will be packed! And, please don't go spending on this deal if it isn't something you need to buy anyway. I will use the items as gifts for Christmas and upcoming birthdays. I might have DH gift me a couple!

Have a super weekend!!

I've been doing more shopping, in the stores and online. It's going well. I've used coupons, and have stayed within budget so far. I think Etsy is my next stop for unique items for my daughter's. They will likely browse first to give me ideas of what they like.

I used the $5 Amazon promotion discount for spending $35. On the same purchased I used my Citi Thank You card points to redeem $9.08 towards the purchase. I will pay that off and retire that card. I was glad to open it for the bonus, but can't say it is one I really want to keep.

I received a $3 Pinecone payment today in my PayPal account. Technically, I already spent it when I made an Ebay purchase. But I will be adding that $3 to my snowflakes.

I used $75 worth of Kohl's cash in the last couple of days to purchase two infant clothing items for my new niece, a 3 pack of pairing knives, two scarves, a belt, pantyhose and two containers of lotion. Not too bad. More than half of those items are gifts. I'm splitting the knives between three people. The scarves and lotions are for two teen nieces. I received the Kohl's cash when I purchased a KitchenAid Stand Mixer on Cyber Monday. It was a great deal with free shipping, 20% off, $15 in Kohl's cash for each $50 spent, a $50 rebate from KitchenAid, and I went through Ebates for another rebate. I think the stand mixer cost me about $180 after all those discounts. The mixer was a splurge, but we have been looking at them on and off for over a year.

The check engine light in my Honda Odyssey has come on twice in the last two days. Boo. It's about time for an oil change. So my van has an appointment on Monday. Hoping it is an easy fix and inexpensive as possible. At least we are working on a credit spending goal, so that will help.

My Christmas cards are mailed. I found a deal online before Thanksgiving for 25 photo cards. Then I bought envelopes because the type I bought didn't come with envelopes. After Thanksgiving I pulled out the Christmas decorations and found a full box of cards (with envelopes) that I bought on clearance at Target. I'm guessing I paid less than $1 for those. I guess they wait until next year. If I remember to use them.

I have joined the 2014 52 Week Money Challenge. I have ten dollars in my wallet, that I will put in an envelope to cover weeks 1-4. It's a beginning. I will likely put larger amounts in my Capital One 360 account. No exact plans for the money other than to find another way to save and accumulate money. This money will come from income, rather than snowflakes.

Enjoy the season! Stay warm. Eat light. Rest deep.

I've begun buying gifts. I'm not too far along, but at least I've started. Our budget is $750. We are buying stocking stuffers for four adults (approx $20 each) on my side of the family. On my husband's side we are buying for his mother ($30), two nieces and a nephew ($20 each). My husband and I will exchange gifts (maybe $50 each). We also bought a small gift for the flute teacher, a locally made soap for $3.50.

Oh, and of course, our two daughters!! We usually spend about $150 each. My oldest wants Photoshop CS6, which is over $600. She doesn't NEED it right now because she has it on her school issued computer. She will have it again next school year, too. She knows we aren't likely to buy it right now. She doesn't want much else, so I only have one gift bought so far. She may just get cash and stocking stuffers if she doesn't come up with any other ideas. It is nice that she doesn't want for lots of things.

My youngest daughter has a great list. I've bought quite a few things for her and have only spent $75. I will buy a few more things and likely give her some cash as well. We could actually come in under budget.

Those gifts, if I stay in budget, equal $570, leaving us about $180 left. I think I will hold this money for travel expenses back home and extra expenses that come with that, like wine and food. Anything left goes to the mortgage at the end of the month!!

Our list is actually a bit smaller this year. We aren't buying for as many nieces and nephews or adults on my husband's side, for multiple reasons. I told a friend that we were slimming down and not buying gifts for them. We never see them! I really don't know her kids anymore. We talk on the phone and that is the gift I appreciate the most. Don't worry I told her nicely and she was fine with it. It does take some stress out of gift buying to have fewer people on the list.

I guess that is still 13 people, including me that gifts are being purchased for. Not bad. How many people do you buy gifts for?

I sent in a $32.51 snowflake to the mortgage last night. This snowflake is made up of $6 from Pinecone surveys, a $1.51 Ebay profit, and the $25 credit from American Express for the Staples offer. That Staples offer credit was applied FAST! I wasn't expecting that. So cool.

I did pay off the purchase of our new dining table and chairs in full yesterday. I took the money from savings to make the $1121.36 payment. Not fun to see the balance go down, but we like the table and I'd rather have the savings go down than see a large credit card bill!

I did sell four things on Ebay this past week. My profit was $1.51 for one auctions. Two auctions were my daughters things and she earned $18.86. She is saving her money to purchase a Photoshop program, so small amounts help. I sold an item for my mom, and she earned $5.50. The one item I had that didn't sell has been relisted and will end on Cyber Monday. If it doesn't sell then, it will be time to donate.

We bought quite a bit of wine and beer last night. We found a deal on a case (12 bottles) of wine. Each bottle was $3.98. The store offered 10% off with the purchase of 12. The manufacturer of the wine is offering an $18 rebate for the purchase of 12. This works out to $2.08 a bottle. And we drink and like this wine, so that is a bonus! I will get that rebate in the mail as soon as possible.

I will do a more complete November snowflake update in a couple days, but it looks like so far I have accumulated $146.78 this month. Not terrible, but not my best month by far. There are a lot of snowflakes forming in several areas, but those may not come to fruition until December or even January.

Time to start all that baking, I mentioned yesterday. What dish is your favorite to prepare and eat for Thanksgiving?

I used my American Express card this weekend. Twice. I feel good about both purchases.

One purchase was $75 at Staples. I bought three $25 gift cards. Two for Subway and one for Kohl's. Amex is offering $25 credit for a $75 purchase at Staples, which you have to claim before making the purchase. When I arrived home, I had an email thanking me for using my card at Staples. I used the Kohl's gift card to purchase a roasting pan for our turkey. Total was $25.67. I will get a $10 rebate on it that purchase as well. We stopped at Subway for dinner right after the gift card purchase. We only used $17 of our gift card there. We will use the other gift card for Subway on our travels for Christmas.

The other American Express card purchase was bigger. And not exactly planned. If it were planned, I would have waited for one of our new credit cards to arrive. We are having four guests for Thanksgiving, so with the four of us, we need 8 seats. We bought a dining set, which is actually our main kitchen table as we do not have a traditional dining room. Our other table would seat 8, but two people would have to sit on each ends. Very tight. I had thought we could add one of our craft tables, but after trying that in our kitchen we realized that people can't actually sit on the ends of our craft tables because the legs are in the way! Ugh.

The truth is we have been looking at kitchen tables for over a year. Just not motivated to spend the money until now. We wanted it before Thanksgiving, so our choices were limited, but one of the options was a table that caught our eye another time we were out looking. The set is solid oak, has two leaves, and eight chairs. It is counter height. It looks great in our home.

We did get a deal on it because it was the floor model. There are zero flaws, so no one would ever know. It was $1,121 with the sales tax. We basically got three of the chairs free and saved on delivery by hauling it ourselves. I plan to pay this purchase off in full after it posts to the account.

I will be spending more money today, purchasing food for the meals I am serving our guests. Luckily, my guests are helping out by bringing some of the food.

Did you get your holiday shopping done yet? Did you have an unplanned purchase this weekend, big or small?

I sold one of my listings on Ebay today. I don't like to disclose specific items since someone could go looking. But considering I probably could have thrown these out, but yet they clearly are useful to someone, I feel pretty good netting $1.71 for them. It does look like people are shopping on Ebay more than a couple weeks ago. My items are being looked at AND watched. Fingers crossed for bids.

Youngest daughter came home sick this morning. Nearly 100 degree fever and a sore throat. Pretty sure it isn't strep since the sore throat was starting the night before last. After some pain meds and a movie she is feeling better. And she is always good with the fluids when she is home sick! I think straws help.

I made the second Swagbucks goal today. Usually I just do the first one. I received a Pinecone Survey in the mail today, so next week I should have more money in my PayPal account to add to November's snowflakes.

I'm going to make a store run. There are some good groceries sales right now. I also want to use the $10 grocery coupon at Target before it expires tomorrow.

Have a super weekend and stay warm and dry!

Yesterday, I went down to our basement storage room and found enough stuff to get rid of to fill three large storage bags. The good news is, I got it to Goodwill this morning.

I listed five items on Ebay this evening. I made them three day auctions to end on Sunday. If they sell, I hope I can get them mailed out before the holiday. If they don't, I will relist on Monday as seven day auctions. This means they will end on Cyber Monday. Not sure if all of this is great planning or not. It's worth a try. If they don't sell by that time, I will give the items to Goodwill. Actually, I have a book series listed that would probably go to the used book store for a little cash.

I'm hosting Thanksgiving for my side of the family. We are unable to travel due to my husband's work commitments, so my family is traveling here. Such good family. So now, I'm planning dinner and other meals for their visit. It feels like a lot of work!

After MonkeyMama's post about the new Chase Sapphire Preferred Bonus offer, I'm considering applying. My husband and I have both done this offer in the past. I'm pretty sure it has been more than a year since I applied. We can meet the minimum. I just wasn't planning to apply for two cards in such a short time. My husband applied for the Chase Freedom offer just yesterday. I know I sure would like an extra $550!

Do you serve and plan your Thanksgiving dinner? Or do you take a dish or dessert?

The budget billing amount for our natural gas has been lowered from $43 to $28. A nice surprise! We do have quite a bit of money on credit going into the high gas use season, so I'm sure it will work great.

I have a Pinecone $3 payment in my PayPal account this morning. Another snowflake for November!

The glasses we ordered online for my youngest daughter arrived this weekend. She is thrilled with her pick. Last night we went to Target to have them adjusted and soft nose pads added. So far so good. I believe she wore them to school today. I told her to let me know if she gets any headaches, as that could indicate a problem. I don't anticipate any however. We did pay $135 for the glasses, so not ultra cheap, but I know there is a savings there over other places we have purchased from in the past.

We thought a new timing belt was in our future for our Honda Odyssey. We remembered the dealership mentioning it last year, saying it should be replaced every five years. They also mentioned a mileage amount for replacement. We were at the year mark, but under the mileage. We decided to wait a year. Last night we pulled out the owner's manual, which states every 60,000 miles under extreme weather conditions (very hot and very cold). This does not apply to us. We are nearing 80,000 miles and don't drive in these extreme conditions mentioned. Turns out our Honda has a maintenance minder code that will tell us when to replace the timing belt. We will wait for our van to tell us when it is ready for a new belt. Glad to not have to spend that money now.

Do you participate in budget billing for utilities? Have you ordered glasses online? Does your vehicle tell you when to do maintenance?

My snowflakes since January 1st are getting VERY close to the $3,000 mark. We have accumulated $2,943.23. Only $56.77 to go to make that milestone.

I sent in a recent accumulation of snowflakes to the mortgage. The amount was $42.85. That included Swagbucks, a couple Ebay sales, and a Pinecone survey.

That last Ebay sale had a non paying buyer. I received the fee credit back this morning. I have not decided whether to relist or not. I think I may need to be done until after the holidays.

I'm pretty sure I have some snowflakes in the pipeline. Just not sure what they are or when they will arrive, but I KNOW I can meet the goal by year end if not by the end of the month.

Over the weekend I bought two locally handmade soaps. They smell wonderful made with herbs. I may keep for myself or give in someone's stocking for Christmas. Our town has a rather new venue that is basically an indoor farmer's market. About half the space is supporting upstart businesses who are permanent. The other half is more traditional craft/farmer's market fare, which changes week to week. The facility also has a large culinary kitchen where you can take classes. It does feel good to support handmade and local items. Have you bought anything locally made recently? What did you buy and what type of event/venue was it?

Oops! One of my Ebay customers ended up with postage due. It was $0.54. The buyer chose to inform me so it wouldn't happen to another customer of mine, and didn't expect or want a refund. I did refund the money because I sure didn't want that to happen. And it is just the right thing to do!

My $25 from Swagbucks arrived in my PayPal account. I have requested the money to be transferred to our bank account. I will make another mortgage payment with my recent snowflakes soon!

I did go to Snapfish yesterday and made a 4x6 collage photo as our Christmas card. With shipping I paid $3.75, since they were having a 50% off sale. I purchased 25 cards. I will now need to find a good price on 4x6 envelopes!

The sewing project was slow today. Unfortunately, I had to take it apart. It was too small to fit the case of the piccolo. I will have to make the fabric a little bigger. It was a good experience and I expect as a result I will be able to go a little quicker tomorrow.

I talked to a friend on the phone today. She organized her daughter's closet and dresser and I found things in my basement to donate while we talked. A great use of time!! And the phone call was free because I called with the Ooma.

That is the news from here. Do mail Christmas or Holiday cards? Anyone send New Year's cards?

I skipped blogging yesterday! I was here, reading other posts. I post on Sunday, and I am trying to reduce my posts to weekdays only, just to cut down on the time I am on the computer.

I went to Kohl's yesterday and used my $15 in coupons with 15% off on a purse. I paid $4.53 out of pocket. Only there is a problem. I wanted a smaller purse, and that is what I bought. It's too small for even the basics I need with me!! Ack. Now, I have to do a return and hope I can get my coupon values back. Not a big deal if I don't, but it would be nice.

I'm browsing online today for photo holiday cards. I don't always send out cards, or even cards with photos. However, several weeks ago we took lots of family pictures on my parents land prior to their recent move. There is a really nice one of our family that I think many people would be pleased to receive. I only need about 20. I did see a deal on

Hip2Save for Snapfish collage prints, 5x7 size, 20 prints plus shipping. In the example they showed the shipping was less than $2! That link is for all the photo deals that site has listed, so some might be of benefit to you.

Tomorrow I have set aside the day to sew. My main goal is to make a fabric case for my daughter's piccolo case. The hard cases for piccolos don't have handles. They are small enough to put in a backpack or bag, but she wants a specific case. She is picked out fabric from my stash and I picked up a zipper today at the store. If I can get that project done, my other daughter wants me to turn her recent latch hook rug into a pillow. Also a new project, but I think one I can work with!

My side of the family, which is just my parents, sister and brother in law have decided to just give each other stocking stuffers for Christmas. We didn't define the amount to be spent, but my sister did say it will keep us from getting stuff we don't need. In my opinion, it means that we buy something that will be used up. I have been brain storming ideas. Here is what I have, but doesn't mean I will be giving them all:

Lotion, gum, mints, homemade vegan chocolate, homemade biscotti, an orange, beef jerky, tea, socks, perfume/cologne, nail polish, lip balm, candles, coffee, duct tape, honey, homemade vanilla, handmade napkins, coasters, nuts and seeds, popcorn, jellies, sausage, cheese, gift cards, cash, dish soap, scented hand soap, a nice pen, hot cocoa, flower bulbs or seeds, a calendar, note paper.

I can think of some that I don't know if even I would want to get: toothpaste, floss, shaving cream, razors, shampoo, batteries, saran wrap or foil.

If I was going to put a treat in your stocking that costs less than $20 and isn't going to be junk or take up space later, what would you want? Do you give stocking stuffers to anyone on your list?

Again, sorry about the Christmas topic prior to Thanksgiving. I seem to be starting to focus on making my lists and getting some tasks done!

Here's a list of money tidbits from recent days:

I completed a Pinecone Survey today. I expect I will get my $3 payment for that later in the week. I'm also secretly hoping to get a sample!

I'm trying to convince my daughter to try purchasing glasses online. We looked at Target optical, but noticed many of the glasses are plastic frames, and she prefers the wire ones with nose pads. We will look at other local stores as well, but I think online might save us quite a bit of money!

The return I made to Lands End at the end of October ended up arriving as a check in the mail, rather than a credit to my card I originally purchased with. I read on their website that this was because the purchase was over 9 months old. Either way I got the money!

We rented a movie on Amazon last night for $2.99. Since this was gift card money used I will match the purchase and send the funds to our mortgage debt.

Our bank reimbursed us for $3 in ATM fees and paid us a whopping $0.03 in interest. I always include these in our snowflake accumulations.

I have Ebay auctions ending today. One will sell, the other four are definitely up in the air as to whether they will or not. The proceeds also go to the snowflakes for equity goal.

We turned on our gas fireplace last night. As a result we will definitely see higher bills. I'm okay with it as it seems to make everyone happy and cozy in the evenings. My goal is always to wait until November 1, so we did make it a little longer this year.

We will be making another trip to the library today. We went Friday when the girls were off from school, but they have now read all the books! They want more to have with them during the week. Libraries rock for free entertainment!

I plan to log into our banks, and investments and various accounts to update our new phone number today. This means I can call tomorrow to cancel our land line. I just paid the bill that includes the phone service for the month of November. I expect they will credit days not used to our next bill, which will only include internet service.

My birthday is next Sunday. I tend to get $100 from my parents each year. I'm looking forward to getting some new socks, a purse, a shirt or two and a fleece to spruce up my wardrobe. I will be looking for good prices, so I can get the most for the money.

Well, that is my list of money tidbits. I had more than I realized. Do you make use of your library? Do you receive money for your birthday? Do you spend or save it?

I've talked from time to time about canceling our home number and going to cell only service or trying out VoiP. Since the youngest daughter seemed pretty concerned about keeping a home phone we have set up a new VoiP phone number. It is a Ooma Telo. And we were able to actually get a local phone number. Yippee!!

I purchased the Ooma directly from the company at the end of October for $99.99, which included free shipping. This was a special referral offer, that has since expired.

Our current phone bill is $30.80 each month. We get like 5 calls from people we know. The rest are telemarketers! The Ooma Telo will charge us $3.72 each month for federal taxes. After we recoup the initial cost, we will be saving $27.08 every month! I will call to cancel on Monday if things seem to go well over the weekend.

We have made a test call on the Ooma and it sounds perfect. No complaints in quality at all! Let me know if you have questions. I will try to do a review in a month or so to let you know how it continues to work.

I sold a book on Ebay today for a profit of just over $4. I already sent it off in the mail. I will pull the profits from PayPal later this month when I am done selling!

I think we have decided to sell our old couch and loveseat. They really do take up too much room in our basement storage area. The plan is to list them on Friday afternoon and hope someone is willing to purchase this weekend. I think we will ask $100 for the set.

Our Ooma Telo arrived today. I hope to get it set up tonight or tomorrow. It should only take 15 minutes according to the directions. We will be getting a new phone number as our current one is not available for porting. After I determine it working as planned I will cancel the regular phone service and contact everyone with the new number.

After I voted for mayor, city council and a proposed tax, I spent money on new bathroom rugs. Our old set was coming apart in the dryer since they had those rubber backings. I bought two new cotton ones without a backing and spent just $16 out of pocket after using my Kohls cash.

About a week ago, I redeemed some airline miles for a three month daily newspaper subscription. The first issue arrived this morning. My oldest daughter dove right in to read the news! We took advantage of this last year and it said one per household, so I wasn't sure if we would actually get the paper this time.

It is rainy and dark here today again. This is not helping my transition to less light in the evening! Any great ideas for handling the dark days of winter? Is there anyone else with a VoiP phone system? Did you vote today in your local elections?

My only intentional snowflake goal was to save $750 toward Christmas. We met this goal back in June. In the meantime, we have take advantage of some credit card rewards. Those snowflakes and snowballs have been applied to our new goal of reducing the debt on our mortgage. I think I initially defined that goal as $1000. And as you can see from the side bar, I more than doubled that goal. As of the end of October, we have $2077.73 that has been sent in to pay down debt. Those two goals combined and accumulated in just 10 months equals $2,828.99.

I might as well shoot for an even $3,000 in snowflakes by the end of the year. That leaves me with $171.01 to go. I'm pretty sure I can do it! In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll exceed it. Thanks Be A Wealthy Warrior for the idea!!

My first snowflake for November are: $48.22 for the Lands' End return I made yesterday and $0.44 from Capital One 360 for interest. That money is already pending payment on the mortgage. Ya know, so the snowflake doesn't melt!

I did a return at Kohl's the other night and got a merchandise credit since the purchase was on one of those gift cards I had. I then asked for a price adjustment to my Kohl's card for the amount of the credit. They couldn't apply it directly, but since I had the receipt of a recent purchase I charged to the card, we did a return and applied and reapplied the merchandise credit and another gift card. Now my balance owed is less!! In the process of repurchasing the item, I earned $10 Kohl's cash. Bonus!!

I did purchase the Ooma Telo. That's a VoiP (voice over internet protocol)phone system. There was an offer to purchase it for $99.99 with free shipping. Once we have it up and running and test it for a few days, we will notify our phone company that we want to cancel. This will save us about $27 per month.

Although, the savings won't really be saved as I expect to upgrade to a smartphone soon, and a new data plan will likely be another $30. We are going cell phone shopping this weekend. We want to check out the 97 cent smartphones at Walmart. We will check directly with Verizon, too, so we know which plan we will have and see who really has the best deal. I do know that I likely will be able to save more by having a smartphone. I can pull up coupons, use Target's cartwheel for discounts, and compare prices when I'm out shopping. That alone might lower the true cost of the data plan. I'll let you know what I get.

I was reminded on the forums about buying gift cards at discounts. I think I even mentioned a deal I did on cat food awhile back using a discounted gift card. I purchased mine from

Cardpool. However, there are many more sites. One is Gift Card Granny which combines the gift cards at many sites into one, which is great to find the best discount. Be sure to read ALL of the fine print. Generally, electronic gift cards received by email can only be used online. These discounted cards save you money before you even make a purchase. And if you combine it with a store coupon you save even more!

Our Halloween night ended with just 8 pieces of candy left. I began the night handing out two per kid because last year I only had 10 kids show up. This year was closer to 25! Big difference. I even gave away some plastic rings/toys that we found in our decluttering. Big hit!

I think I packed enough content into one post for today. Do you buy discounted gift cards for regular purchases? Did you end up with more or less candy that you started with last night? Will you make a snowflake goal for next year?