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Archive for May, 2014

Snowing Already

May 31st, 2014 at 07:17 pm

June snowflakes that is Smile I got another plain envelope in the mail and it contained $10 cash as a thank you gesture for possible participating in television/radio research that they will be mailing later. Since I already closed the books for May, this will go towards my June snowflake total!!

Great Month of Snowflakes

May 30th, 2014 at 03:13 pm

May turned out to be a great month for snowflakes mainly because of the refund I got from the IRS for my 2010 amendment. This is the second highest month so far this year! Only $1755 to go before I hit my $10k goal!!

Pinecone: $12
$1 bills: $30
Kohl's return: $111
Ebates: $14
Tax refund/job bonus: $1121
KMART GC: $10
AMEX: $10
Capital One: $108
T-bond interest: $214

Total Snowflakes: $1,629

Friday Finances

May 23rd, 2014 at 11:08 pm

A couple weeks ago I posted that I got a large snowflake for an amended tax return I had filed. Well I took $103 from that and finished off the 52 Weeks Savings Challenge. I will use $750 of challenge money for Christmas and not quite sure what to do with the rest just yet.

I know I also posted that I was done with the CC rewards game but Navy Federal currently has an offer where you spend $1500, you get $100. Well I applied a week or so ago and got my card today. I immediately charged $1400 of my tuition to it and only have $100 left to spend which will be taken care of with no problem.

Finally, I cashed in a Treasury bond that I bought a couple years ago to take advantage of higher rates. I've since earned $214 in interest and will now use that principal to buy a CD at Navy Federal. It's a one year CD earning 3.5% This month is turning out to be the second highest snowflake month of the year so far and I'm well on my way of meeting my $10k snowflake goal!!

Navy Federal Credit Union Offers

May 14th, 2014 at 01:49 pm

First off in order to join the credit union, you have to be a associated with the military someway. Whether its active duty, guard, reserve, retiree, dependent, etc... Well I guess its Military appreciation month and they have a couple great offers. First, yesterday I opened up a 1 year CD that they're offering paying 3.5% with a 5,000 max. Last year I took advantage of another 1 year offering that was paying 3%

Second, if you do want to join they are offering $50 to join for you and the person who referred you. If anyone reading this do decide to join and doesn't mind using me as a referral that was would be greatly appreciated.Please contact me for my personal info.

Lastly, once you're a member you can apply for their cashreward visa card where they are offering $100 reward for spending $1500 in the first 90 days.

If you do decide to join, make sure you read the fine print about the requirements. The below are the requirements about the CD

"Limit one Military Appreciation Certificate per member. The Military Appreciation Certificate has a $25 minimum balance and a $5,000 maximum balance. Additional deposits are allowed at any time. To maintain the special offering rate for the 12-month term, certificate owner(s) age 18 and older must have Direct Deposit of Net Pay, minimum $300 per Direct Deposit (excluding allotments) and a Navy Federal Active Duty Checking Account within 90 days of the certificate issue date. If these requirements have not been satisfied by the 90th day, your Military Appreciation Certificate dividend rate will be reduced to the prevailing dividend rate of a standard EasyStart Certificate for the remainder of the certificate's term."


other info can be found at https:

Text is https://www.navyfederal.org/military/?intcmp=hp|hero|1|militaryappreciation|militaryappreciationmonth|140512|learn_more and Link is
https://www.navyfederal.org/military/?intcmp=hp|hero|1|milit...

Large IRS Snowflake!!

May 12th, 2014 at 09:47 pm

As I posted before, this year I took a class in order to become a part-time tax preparer. Well one of the things that I learned was that I should have been taking depreciation expense on my rental property. I normally do my taxes myself online so I don't know if the tax software didn't prompt me or maybe it did and I didn't understand what it was asking. So while working, I amended my 2010 tax return to claim the expense and today in the mail I got my big fat check in the amount of $718!!! I waited to mail in my amendments for 2011-2012 until last week because I wanted to make sure 2010 process first so that will be more IRS snowflakes in the future Smile

The class has really paid for itself many times over seeing I only had to pay $37 for the books and the knowledge I've gained is priceless! I'm taking $103 of the funds and finish off my 52 Week Savings Challenge(another post coming)and put the rest on the mortgage!!!!

Saturday Snowflakes

May 11th, 2014 at 01:45 am

This tax season I worked for the first time as a part-time tax preparer. Well today they reimbursed me for a test I had to take ($64.25) and they paid us our bonuses which came to $338.62. So that's $402.87 in snowflakes today!! I will put the $64 towards my 52 Week Savings Challenge and the rest to the mortgage!


That's a First

May 9th, 2014 at 04:16 pm

The other day I applied for the Wells Fargo American Express. I thought it was strange when it stated my application was pending because any other time I'm approved right away. Well that is not the case this time. I called today to check the status and they told me my account had been disapproved because I've had too many inquiries over the last 24 months. I guess all of the credit card rewards are starting to take its toll. Oh well this just makes me get off my butt and close some of those accounts and stick with just one card. I guess I better start looking for snowflakes elsewhere Smile

Snowflakes are Falling

May 7th, 2014 at 03:45 pm

The month of May is starting out pretty good. Yesterday I returned a juicer that ordered from Kohl's at the beginning of the year because it stopped working. Since I paid via giftcard, they issued me a store credit of $111. I also purchased a $50 Lowe's giftcard to take advantage of the AMEX offer, so I got $10 back. Finally those morning I awoke to an email saying my Capital One Quick Silver reward had posted since I spent $500 to met requirement. So I applied the $107.50 reward as a statement credit. So that's $229(rounded up) in snowflakes in 2 days!! I'm putting $121 towards 52 week Savings Challenge and $108 towards mortgage. There's a few more flakes in the forecast as well!!!

I'm off to apply for that Wells Fargo AMEX that MonkeyMama posted about Smile

Mortgage Milestone

May 5th, 2014 at 04:08 pm

I now own my 4 walls!!!!

Text is Mortgage Progress 2014 and Link is https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85406469/Mortgage%20Progress%202014.pdf
Mortgage Progress 2014

May Flurries

May 2nd, 2014 at 03:24 pm

Like CCF, I too have a few snowflakes for the month already. I received $14 from Ebates and I finally cashed in $12 worth of Pinecone survey payments. So I will be adding that $26 to my 52 Week Savings Challenge which now sits at $1,014!! Stay tuned for another post regarding another mortgage milestone I will hit this afternoon!!

April Snowflake Total

May 1st, 2014 at 04:54 pm

Well April turned out better than I thought due to some last minute snowflakes. My total for the month was $320. That brings my yearly total to $6616 which is 66% of my goal.I already have some May flakes in the works but that's for another post.

April Snowflakes
Swagbucks: $10
$1 bills: $40
Discover GC: $5
Chase savings: $200
Vicky's taxes: $40
Target GC: $10
Kmart GC: $5
AMEX rewards: $10