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Archive for February, 2013

Veggie of the Month

March 1st, 2013 at 02:28 am

One of my goals for 2013 is to try a new veggie or fruit every month. Well today I had butternut squash for the first time. I actually made a quick soup of it in my Vitamix. It tasted pretty good, a little sweeter than I thought it would be.

As some of you know, I often drink green smoothies or juices quite often as well. Today I juiced collard greens for the first time. I eat collards but never juiced them. I added celery,cucumber and an apple as well. It wasn't bad at all and I loved the color was dark green

Jan Disconnect Day--completed
Jan New Veggie/Fruit--completed
Feb Disconnect Day--completed
Feb New Veggie/Fruit--completed

Love Box/Drawer Completed!!!

February 28th, 2013 at 04:00 am

Well I'm happy to report that my legacy/love box is now complete!!!! I finished the last step today by going on base and getting my Will and POAs updated for free. The legal office provided me a pratical tips list concerning Wills that I will share a couple points with everyone.

1. Don't mark,write on,unstable,staple documents to, tear or do anything that can be looked upon as tampering with your new Will. Such actions can act to void your will and be grounds for denial of admission to probate.

2. Keep it in a safe place that can be found and accessed readily in the event of your death. Be aware that a bank safe deposit box may be sealed upon your death and would require a court order to access it.

3. Only a Will with original signatures can be probated.

Lastly, was this alot of work to get the legacy drawer(mine is a binder) completed? Yes it was but it is worth it. I feel sooooooooooooooooooooo much better now that all my important docs are in one location and I can just grab and go during an emergency.

I encourage each of you that haven't got this done, get to work! It's not for u but the ones u leave behind.

Yet Another Snowflake

February 26th, 2013 at 08:36 pm

I thought that the Pinecone payment I received yesterday might be the last snowflake of the month but it wasn't. I received $5 Walmart GC via swagbuck today and I've already added to my Walmart account. As I posted before, I'm using Walmart GCs this year instead of Amazon to purchase groceries.

52 Week Snowflake Challenge: $910.40

Pinecone Snowflake

February 25th, 2013 at 11:53 pm

I did a survey on Friday or Saturday and received payment today via PayPal. This was my first time getting paid via PayPal instead of via a check and it was pretty darn quick. This will probably be the last snowflake of the month but we will see.

52 Week Snowflake Challenge: $905.40

Combining Goals

February 25th, 2013 at 03:23 am

I've decided to combine 2 goals that I set for myself for 2013. 1 goal was to complete the 52 week money challenge with $1378 and the other goal was to complete 2013 snowflake challenge with $1500. Well I've decided to combine those 2 into 1 and call it 52 Week Snowflake Challenge with a goal of $3000. $750 will be used towards Christmas and the remaining amounts will be split between throwing extra at the mortgage and changing one of my spare bedrooms into an office/small gym. I plan on just replacing the bed with a futon or daybed and buying an eliptical. All of this isn't going to take place till the end of the year.

I'm happy to say that between last month and this month snowflakes, I already have $902.40 towards new goal! I also listed 2 items on ebay tonight to hopefully bring in some March snow!! I know that I've said this befor but keep track of those small amounts becuase they add up over time!!

It's Still Snowing--Great Mail Day!!

February 19th, 2013 at 10:30 pm

Today I received quite a few checks in the mail today.
1. Ebates $28.49
2. Pinecone $3
3. Rebate mailed in last month: $4
4. TJ Maxx Giftcard that I bought using debit reward cards points on an account I'm closing: $50...I'm saving this as a Christmas gift. Total snowflakes today $85.49. That brings my montly total to $465.99, surpassing last month!!

2013 Snowflake Total: $892.40

Letter of Instruction

February 16th, 2013 at 03:27 am

As you many of you may know, I'm working on getting my "Love Box" completed this month. Well a fellow SA member (scfr) shared the below website which contains a free Letter of Instruction that u can provide to your loved ones. I think it's very detailed. Thanks again for sharing so I'm also passing it along.

http://www.jonathanpond.com/letter

Love Box/Drawer Update

February 15th, 2013 at 01:43 am

Second meeting with the lawyer today to sign the paperwork for the changes I made to the trust and also to sign the new deeds for both properties in order to place them inside the trust. Now I have to wait for the deeds to be recorded and for the laywers to send me the original. I've put a note on my calender to call in 30 days if I haven't heard back by then.

Another good thing about all of this is that my lawyer is emailing the docs as she scans them in so I now have electronic copies without having to do it myself Smile

Finally, I made an appointment for next week with the legal office on base to update my Will,POAs and Health directives. I went with the base instead of the lawyer becuase it's free since I'm a retiree.

Another Item Sold

February 11th, 2013 at 10:27 pm

I had one item listed on ebay that sold last night for $27. I was going to mail it out today but I went to the dentist this morning and she ended up doing the extraction. I didn't feel any pain but alot of tugging and pulling but I had on my ipod so I tried to phase everything out. Looks like I will be juicing and doing smoothies for a few days. I plan on mailing the package out tomorrow, just chilling out for the rest of the day.

Monthly snowflake total: $380.50
2013 Snowfake challenge: $806.91!!!

Important Documents

February 10th, 2013 at 10:17 pm

So today I've been scanning in important documents so that I have a backup for the originals in case of emergencies. Below is what I've done so far, do u guys see anything I've missed? Now that I have things scanned in, I plan on printing them out and putting copies in my "love box"; the originals go back into my fire proof safe. I already have electronic copies of insurance police(auto and home) so that's why they're not on the list.

Birth certificates
Marriage/Divorce certificates
Driver's License/Passport/ID cards
SS cards
DD Form 214
Immunization records
Car title
Bill of Sale for car since it was a private sale
Front and back of debit/credit cards(yes I still have a credit card but any charges are paid in full every month)
VA Disability award paperwork

Legacy Drawer Update

February 10th, 2013 at 04:18 am

So in an effort to get my financial house in order this month, I started closing accounts that I haven't used in years. Well one of those accounts was with Scottrade, I used them in the past to buy individual stocks. Since I haven't bought stocks in a few years I decided to close that account. I sold the small remaining stocks I had and with the amount of extra money that was just sitting there for trading, I received my check today for $237.50

That check puts me over my monthly snowflake goal of $350 and now I'm sitting at $353.50!! I also have an auction ending tomorrow on ebay that has 6 bids on it already. I can't believe that it's only February and I'm up to $779.91 in snowflakes for 2013....it just goes to show u that small amounts add up when you're paying attention to them and telling your money where to go!

So for now I'm telling my first $750 in snowflakes to fund my Christmas fund! Christmas fund 2013 is now complete and it's only February!!!

Disconnect Day Update

February 9th, 2013 at 05:32 pm

Well I successfully completed another disconnect day but I didn't have the root canal. After further eval, it was determined that the affected back tooth was cracked and it's better if it's extracted. So I was referred back to my original dentist. I made an appointmeent to see her on Monday so we will see.

Since I already had my mind set on the disconnect day, I went ahead and completed it. It was somewhat easier than last month but it def seems to get hard when I get bored and just want to grab the laptop to waste time but I didn't!!! YAY me

Craiglist Sale

February 8th, 2013 at 01:53 am

I finally sold an item that I've had listed for about a week for my full asking price of $50. I also received another check from Pinecone today for $3. That brings my new total to $116/350! Tomorrow is my 2nd disconnect day so I will check back in on Saturday!!

2013 Snowflake total:$542.41

Disconnect Day-February

February 7th, 2013 at 03:17 am

As I posted before, it is my goal to have at least one day a month where I disconnect from the internet. Well my next one will be Friday, 8 Feb. I'm getting a root canal done that morning so I figured that day will be a good one to just chill out. I've never had a root canal and I'm very uptight but praying all goes well.

Feb Financial Focus Update

February 6th, 2013 at 08:33 pm

For the month of February I'm going to challenge myself to complete his 30 Day Legacy Drawer Challenge.

Well I'm happy to say that my consultation with the lawyer went very well. She was amazed at how in depth my trust documents were so I'm glad about that seeing how I had them prepared over 10 years ago in another state. The main thing that I need to get done immediately is to get the deeds to both my primary property and rental transferred into the trust. This will be done via a Quit Claim Deed transferring it out of my name into the name of my trust. My rental property is located in a different state so we have to make sure that there's no transfer tax either.

Another thing that intrigued me was the thought of placing my rental property into an irrevocable living trust. The only thing is that I would not be abe to change it after it's created. The reason I'm giving this any thought is becuase I have a special needs child whom will be incapable of self care and this is a guranteed way of "asset protection", it can't be touch even if I'm sued. The lawyer also stated that an umbrella insurance policy may also serve the same purpose so I wiil definitely be looking into that since I do in fact have rental property.

Next step: I need to scan in all my important documents so that I have back up copies.

StateFarm Snowflake

February 6th, 2013 at 04:41 am

A couple weeks ago I took a survey for Statefarm that took me maybe 5 minutes to complete. Today I got awarded a $10 Amazon giftcard for my time.....I'll definitely take it!!

Yesterday I received $3 for Pinecone and $15 worth of Walmart giftcards via Swagbucks. I chose to go with Walmart this year versus Amazon becuase I found myself spending unnecessarily with Amazon. I only purchase groceries with the Walmart cards and I take it out of my grocery budget.

Finally on Sunday I listed an item on ebay and as of yesterday it already had 1 bidder and 9 watchers!!

Snowflakes so far $63/350 and it's only the 5th of Feb!!!

2013 Snowflakes: $489.41

Super Bowl Snowflake

February 4th, 2013 at 03:31 pm

I'm not much of a gambler but whenever there's a big game or boxing match, I take $20 of my blow money and put it on the underdog. Well thanks to the Ravens, I now have $35 snowflake and of course I got my $20 back on top of that. Good way to start a week!! My snowflake goal for the month is $350, so only $315 to go..