My federal income tax refund of $763 posted today. I sent $700 to vacation fund (to repay what I previously "borrowed") and $63 to CurveBall. I'm feeling much better about the balance in CurveBall!

Yesterday I charged a deposit for our Hawaii trip to my Visa. That charge won't show up until next month's bill. Until then, the money will sit in Vacation Fund accruing interest (teensy as it may be).

Mortgage rates for 30 year fixed continue to be 3.875%. (I check twice a day.) They haven't even fluctuated in more than a week. I can't lock yet, still waiting.

My state refund is in my checking account this morning. I sent $100 to Piddly (same bank as my checking account) and the rest to CurveBall.

Cashed out another $8 from Beezag, sent that to CurveBall too.

Tonight is my meeting with the mortgage consultant. I can hardly wait! I am an odd bird.

My ex-h and I agreed to $200 every two weeks. He also stated he has arranged to skip a car and credit card payment next month, so no longer wants me to hold onto tomorrow's check for two weeks.

So I have an income reduction of $26 this month and $52 for February and forward.

My ex-h loves debt. He had a huge amount when I married him, and nothing but a mortgage when I divorced him. Now the house is gone (short sale to avoid foreclosure), he has a huge vehicle payment, and 30k or so of credit card debt. He has no savings and no retirement savings (cashed it in last year, spent it). He has experienced income loss due to budget cuts, but still makes a nice salary. (I still do his taxes, and he tells me things from time to time.) Thankfully, his love of debt is no longer my problem.

What he does have going for him is a beautiful pension, so he will always have money coming in.

I submitted my income tax returns this morning. I will be receiving $1100 from the state and $763 federal. This was my last 1k child credit.

I replied to ex-h and suggested we split the insurance increase and change the cs to $200 every two weeks (from $226). I also asked if "defer" meant for two weeks or for some other time period. We will see what he says.

Just got an email from ex-h. He wants to know if I can "defer" his next child support payment as he is being "forced to move", had to come up with a deposit, and is "tight on cash". Also, he would like to reduce his child support payment as the cost for medical ins just went up.

Isn't there always something?

I was looking at my checking account balance, and looking forward to my first paycheck of the new year, when I realized it will be a 10 day paycheck. Bleah! January will be a little tighter than I had thought. Thankfully, the second paycheck of the new year will be a 12 day paycheck.

I received an email from Geico that my next car insurance policy is available for my viewing pleasure. I logged on and was very pleased to note that the price has dropped approximately $100! Yay. I can't complain much about that.

I am getting ready to get J off to his dad's, his first day back to school tomorrow, and myself off to work. Last year, I racked up 78.25 hours of OT. This year, I expect to rack up more as my responsibilities keep snowballing. (At times, I find this frustrating.) Last year, between OT pay and my bonus, I cleared 4k (just barely). I have my income tax refund on the horizon too. It is time to begin considering how best to use this extra 6k - 7k. I will give $300 to J (his annual "allowance"). But other than that, every cent of it will go to some savings account, retirement account, or debt. My task is to slice it up wisely. I must send a minimum of $1800 off to my Roth, as that is the shortfall between my budgeted monthly contribution and my planned minimum annual contribution.

So I suppose I am thinking:

$1900 CurveBall
1800 Roth
1000 Traditional
700 Vacation
300 Mortgage
300 J
-----
$6000 Total

I "borrowed" $700 from Vacation a few months back, and would like to repay it.

BTW, J tucks his allowance into his mutual fund account and his savings account. What a good kid.

I got an email from Chase today, I have been approved for the Chase Southwest card! Whoo-hoo!! Now I hope that I can qualify for my gift cards in time to use them for J's iPad for Christmas. That probably won't work out, but I am hoping anyway.

Today I received 10 more decoy mail pieces! My biggest day yet (this time around). I have racked up $16.25 in earnings now.

I chipped my $8.00 from Dell today and updated my sidebar. Does my mortgage look exponentially smaller now? Yeah, I didn't think so either. Oh well, one chip after another and eventually I should get somewhere.

The best think I can say about my tax update class today is....my lunch was delicious!

Yesterday in the mail I received an $8.00 check from Dell for their class action lawsuit settlement. I happened to buy a laptop from them during the period covered in the lawsuit. I am going to use it for a mortgage chip tomorrow, even though I should just be saving it. I look at it as pleasure spending, because it gives me great pleasure to mortgage chip!

Tomorrow is the day more details about HARP changes are supposed to be released. I will be in a tax update class all day, so I won't get to read about it until tomorrow night. I have been thinking about my situation. While I would love to have a lower interest rate, I don't want to start over again with a new 30. So I was thinking I could calculate a 25 year payment and simply pretend that is my payment. My payment would still drop and I would be shaving a year or so (depending on how long the refi would take) from the end. What is not to love? Then I started wondering if they wrote the note for 25 years, would I get a slightly better rate? Will they even agree to write it for 25 years? I don't know, but I think it is worth asking. And of course, all of this is supposing HARP rates are not at a premium.

Since I became a HauserNet decoy mail agent again last December, my volume has been pretty low. I haven't been paid even once yet, because they won't cut a check for less than $10. Lately my volume has been picking up. Thursday I had 5 pieces, and yesterday I had 9! I now have 55 pieces in my stack, at .25 each that is $13.75. I expect I will get a check after this quarter ends.

Since I am feeling blue about not making the financial progress I would like to be making, I pulled out my last checkstub and guesstimated my 2011 income tax returns. It looks as though I will be refunded a bit over 2k. That made me feel better! What to do with it? Easy! At the moment, I have contributed $2,950 to my Roth for 2011. Another $1,050 will be a nice little boost, and then 1k to traditional.

This will be nice, because it will be 1k more than planned to each, improving my chances of hitting my targets. Yay!

Yesterday I received my "incentive" for particpating in the survey Vanguard emailed to me, a check for $25! Cha-ching!

I would like for it to be mortgage chip money, BUT, as I will spending money on my fence soon, I decided to add it to CurveBall instead.

There is not enough money in CurveBall for the fence (no surprise there since CurveBall is nearly bankrupt), so I think I will "borrow" the money from vacation savings when it is time to pay. Meanwhile, I am going to scrape every dollar into CurveBall that I possibly can. My October budget will reflect this.

My mortgage will still be there when my fence is paid for.

If you have a Chase Freedom or Sapphire, you can get 2500 bonus pts (worth $25) plus $5 of free stamps if you enroll in stamps.com. The first 4 weeks are free, then there is a monthly fee of $15.99.

So basically, you can have $30 at the price of calling an 800 number to cancel.

I read about this on My Money Blog.

If you are interested, log on to Chase and go to Ultimate Rewards, browse the vendors and select stamps.com.

Today I had an e-mail from Vanguard asking me to please take a short survey. I decided to take it. It was short, but based on my answers I was asked to take a longer survey and they dangled $25 in front of me. Yeah OK, that seems a fair trade. At the end I received a message that I will receive my "incentive" in approximately 4 - 6 weeks. So if you receive a similar e-mail from Vanguard, open that baby up.

I just redeemed some credit card rewards points for $30 cash.

Mortgage chips.

On Sunday, I took my mother to visit her sister, it is about a 2 hour drive. We got an early start and made a day of it. We had a great visit, I think everyone enjoyed it. My aunt's lifelong good friend and one of her granddaughters came by, we played cards and giggled all afternoon. On the way home in the car, Mom gave me $50 to help with my OOP nephew costs. It was so nice of her, I surely do appreciate it.

So far this month I have not bought anything unplanned.

My Chase Sapphire statement closed yesterday, and I have an extra 50,000 bonus rewards points. I am not planning on cashing them in right now. Instead, I plan to use mine towards a plane ticket (extra 25% if you use your points this way) when we go on our trip to Hawaii next year.

Have I mentioned that a lot of family members have gotten on board? My Mom says she will go. My cousin to whom I am close (and with whom I went to China) and her husband want to go. Cousin's son and his wife and daughter want to go (their daughter 1 year younger than my son). Cousin's daughter and her husband and their 2 kids are considering.

I am a late life baby, so I am roughly the same age as the generation after me. My cousin's son is 1 year younger than me. Most of my nieces and nephews were born when I was in grade school.

Yesterday I received a $20 credit cards reward check which I have already transferred to my mortgage. This month I have chipped $21.85. I am already thinking I will not chip my expected $150 bonus for opening a checking account. I am thinking I will stash it in my Roth instead. I have in the back of my mind that if I hit retirement with more than my Roth goal of 150k, I will be willing to use it towards my mortgage. You know, if I have one at that point. I am still up in the air about what exactly I will do. I may sell my house, take my equity and move elsewhere. At least, I certainly hope I have some equity again at some point. Maybe I am being presumptuous. So anyway, overshooting my Roth goal will not be bad, but missing it will be bad. So if I overfund my Roth, I can always use the extra towards my mortgage later.

I spent some money last night which I shouldn't have. BF and son and I had been invited to dinner at my ex-nieces house. (She was married to my nephew at one time, they have a daughter together.) Something came up in the late afternoon with her son (she is remarried) and they had to cancel. So there we were, all dressed up and no place to go. On a whim, I suggested we go out to dinner. We went to Applebee's. Afterwards, we decided to go see Cowboys & Aliens (we really liked it). When that was over, we decided to see Rise of The Apes (loved it). So it was an expensive night. I paid for everything. BF and I have a policy that s/he who suggests an outing pays for it. We have been together almost 2 years now, so are past the point of "dating". The first few months he paid for almost everything, but then I said that it was silly that one person should always pay. For awhile, we would tussle from time to time over who was paying. At this point, we just go with the person who suggests also pays.

At Applebee's, I had pineapple glazed shrimp served on white rice with a spinach salad on the side. It was delicious and only 310 calories! Applebee's has quite a few low calorie entrees.

Chase just cannot give enough money away!

I have had a Chase Freedom card for years, and often receive an offer of a $100 bonus if I would but open a checking account. I have never accepted, because part of the offer is I must sign up for direct deposit. Problem: I have nothing to direct deposit. My employer will not cooperate and neither will my ex-husband (child support). So I merely sigh and toss the offer aside.

Recently I opened my Chase Sapphire account.

Today, I got an e-mail offering me $150 if I would pretty please open a Chase checking account and there was no requirement about direct deposit! I read through carefully, I must keep the account open for 6 months or they will take the bonus back. How much will the checking account cost me? $10 per month. So still a net gain of $90. I read further and I learn that if my balance does not fall below $1500, they will waive the $10 fee. For $1500 to earn $10 per month equates to an 8% return. That is better than what I am getting at Ally, so I could move some money over and avoid the $10 monthly fee too! Right back to a profit of $150.

Last week, I received a gift card as a thank you gift from a client. It is a gift card to Olive Garden, which I love, but which will not help me at all with my weight loss. I have been contemplating selling it on plastic jungle and using the proceeds to chip at my mortgage. Is that tacky?

I have been reluctant to post this, as I suspect people will say "Yes, tacky, don't do it" and then if I do it anyway, how incredibly tacky will I be?

UPDATE: BF and I had dinner at Olive Garden Sunday evening. We split a shrimp appetizer which has 500 calories, and I ordered the apricot chicken served with steamed veggies which has 400 calories. Then we had salad and breadsticks, of course. (I would love to report that I skipped the breadsticks, but I ate two!) I did stick with water. I love Olive Garden's chicken scampi, yummmmm. But it has approximately 3 million calories so was out of the running. The apricot chicken was good. It was a nice meal out.

I just got paid $9 for a secret shop I did a few months ago, I plan to mortgage chip that. (No more credit card chipping, I will just stick with my Dec 2012 payoff schedule.)

Over the weekend, I received my new Chase Sapphire card. My offer was 50,000 bonus pts if I spend at least 3k in the first 3 months. My boyfriend bought his trailer today, it came to $2600ish. That means I only have to spend $400 in the next 3 months. With gas so high, that will be no problem.

Edit: Just for the record, I am not financing the trailer for BF. He will be paying in full when the bill arrives. This is merely a devious plot to rack up reward points.

I just emailed Chase using the suggested script from My Money Blog, asking that they extend the 100,000 bonus pts offer to me. They don't have to, so we will see if they are willing or not.

At any rate, I will have at least $250 cash for my trouble ($500 split with BF).

Thanks again, Monkey Mama!!

Update: Got a response already. The answer is no, I will not be getting the extra 50,000 pts. Further, the rep said they will be reversing the extra bonus pts already awarded to other customers! Here is the actual response:

Dear xxxxx,

I appreciate the opportunity to respond to your e-mail regarding the sign up bonus offer inquiry on your Chase Sapphire account ending in xxxx.

I would first like to take this opportunity to personally thank you for choosing Chase to handle your account. As per the offer on your account, you will receive 50,000 Chase Sapphire bonus points after spending $3,000.00 in purchases within 93 days of account open date. These points will post to your account within one to two billing cycles.

The 100,000 bonus point?s offer was made through a small direct mail test and is non-transferable. The Offer Code and Invitation Number included in the mailing can only be applied to the recipient?s account. If you are not listed as the addressee of the mailing, we will be unable to apply the offer to your account. I understand you may be disappointed and I am sincerely sorry for any confusion.
Please know that we will consider reviewing the terms of other offers you receive in the future. We are aware of unintended card member manage to earn extra points and we are going to reverse those points in the near future.

Your satisfaction is important to us and I sincerely value your business. If you have any further questions, please reply using the Secure Message Center.

Thank you,

xxxxx

I ended up adding my impound account refund to my EF, as well as $200 from my bonus. My EF is now a full 3 months of take home pay! I feel good about reaching this milestone.

Also, from my bonus, I sent $600 to B of A Visa, $300 to my Roth, $300 to my son's accounts, and the balance ($700) is sitting in my checking account. My bonus was $2700 gross, which is $300 more than last year, so I was very pleased with that.

I have not yet been paid for my seasonal OT. I expect to clear $1900. I think I will send $400 to my Roth and $1500 to B of A Visa. This will mean I need only another extra $400 (on top of my regular monthly contributions) to hit my goal of 3k for 2011. Also, it will get B of A under $1100. It was $4500 and change in November, so I am pleased with my progress.

I'm wishy-washy I know, but I just don't want to miss hitting my annual Roth targets, because that will lower my odds of hitting my ultimate target, and THAT would be BAD.

The life insurance money is now safely tucked into my Roth.

On Monday I will be receiving my seasonal OT check (about 80 hours) and my bonus. I expect to clear about 4k.

I am going back and forth on what to do. Please help me decide!

Plan 1
Pay off B of A Visa. Balance approximately 3.2k.
.3k to son.
Remainder to checking towards yard maintenance.


Plan 2
1k to B of A Visa
1k to Roth
.3k to EF
.3k to Egypt savings
.3k to son
.3k to Trad IRA
Remainder to hold until yard maintenance complete, then pay down B of A some more with what is left.

It would feel GREAT to pay off B of A. But without that extra boost to Roth, I may not hit my 3k goal.

Opinions?

On Monday I received a check from InBox Dollars for $47.01. I have already sent it off to B of A (the Evil Empire )towards my Visa.

Yesterday I received a check for $863.68 from my ex-husband for my half of our life insurance policy proceeds. I have deposited it, but that is as far as I have gotten.

Yesterday was BFs birthday. I forgot! My daughter texted me in the afternoon to wish BF a happy birthday from her (she had seen it on Facebook). When I got home, I learned that BF didnt realize the date, so he didnt know I had forgotten. LOL! It was a milestone for him too, the big five oh.

I am feeling tired today. I work until 7 most days and have been working most Sundays since late January. For some reason, my OT isn't adding up too well. OK, OK, I know the reason. I am not the worlds most punctual employee, I often arrive a bit late in the mornings. For that reason, I only count 1 hr OT per day, even though it is closer to 2, and even though I seldom get even a 45 min lunch hour. Also, I do take the occasional Savings Advice break. Its guilt. :P On Sundays, I usually only work 5 hours. Since we are officially closed, I can get a lot of work done in 5 uninterrupted hours.

So last night was bill paying evening, after paying everything, I have $1200 left in checking, and I have another $226 coming in next week. Not bad at all, considering the small 2/28 paycheck. I have decided I will not keep surplus greater than $1500 sitting there, but will instead transfer it to savings.

This month I paid $420 to B of A Visa. That's $85 budgeted, plus $149 from EF (sent it $1), plus $78 from selling a credit card reward gift card, plus $8 from Beezag, plus $100 received from someone who owed me $100. My new balance is $3,330.53. I think I will be able to pay it in full next month.

My 3/31 paycheck will be for 12 days, so that will make up for half of 2/28's shortage. My budget is based on 11 workdays per pay period, but the occasional 10 and 12 days do happen. That 9 though was really ugly.

I did a secret shop today at an auto service chain. I needed an oil change anyway, and the shop reimburses up to $33. I actually spent more than that because I went ahead and had my tires rotated and bought new air filters. Still, it took me only 30 min or so to complete and submit the report. Well worth it!

I also went by my gym to turn in a 30 day notice. They offered to make me inactive for 6 months at no charge. So, I went for that.

I enjoyed my day off today so much, I was ready for one! BF and son and I went to my Mom's house. The four of us played cards all afternoon, then had a nice dinner. It was a nice relaxing time. BF has been here more than a week and has bought groceries, so my grocery tab for the month should look pretty good!

Today I received a check for $78 from Plastic Jungle. I logged on to Discover because I thought I should have my $50 check from them, only to "discover" that I hadn't completed my transaction. I still had the same rewards balance. So I tried again and opted for the instant statement credit instead.

And I reached 8,000 pts on Beezag, so have ordered my first $8 pay out from them.

I have decided something else too. I am not going to chip the $128 in credit card rewards I expect any moment now. I am not going to add any new money to my main savings account. I am not going to use my bonus money next month towards savings, Roth, mortgage, etc. Instead, I am going to kill my B of A credit card debt.

I should be able to kill it next month. Following its demise, I will have a bit more free cash flow to use towards savings goals.

I received e-mails today about my two Offermatic rebates. You have to follow the link in the e-mail which takes you to Offermatic, log-in, and then enter your credit card information. The rebates are pending.

I don't think I am going to chip my rebates. I think I will just use them to help me keep my total credit card charges down to my budgeted $400 per month, something I have not managed yet!

I hope I get some new offers soon. I especially like those gas ones!

So in January, I applied for two credit cards in order to earn money from InBox Dollars. I was credited $15 for one but am still waiting to be credited $15 for the other.

Meanwhile, one of the two cards is a Discover card. Today I noticed that I have available rewards, and just ordered a $50 direct deposit into my checking account. Yay!

The other card is a Sony Visa from Capital One. I was awarded 10,000 pts which I redeemed for a $100 Sony Style gift card. Today I sold it on Plastic Jungle and will receive $78 cash. Double Yay!!

So hopefully, I will have $128 to chip on my mortgage next month.

On InBox dollars, I did ask about my $15 credit and was told I should look at my confirmation e-mail from Capital One which I should have received when I applied. I didn't receive any such e-mail. I do however have an e-mail dated 2/2/11 telling me that my card has shipped. So in a few days I will try their on-line help again. (They want you to wait 30 days before asking about your credit.)

Additionally, for Valentine's day they had a promotion where if you spent $10 of real money for World Winner games, they will pay you $20. The offer details state the $20 will be credited around 2/28/11. I haven't been credited for that yet, either.

A few months back, I was seeing a specialist medical doctor and had several offce visits. My co-pay for a specialist is $30. Somehow, I overpaid. I received a detailed account transaction list and check for $30 in the mail today. I had NO IDEA it was coming.

So, when I make March's mortgage payment, I will be adding $200 from my income tax refund, $23.10 from Plastic Jungle, $20 from Chase Freedom rewards, and $30 from the co-pay refund, as well as the few dollars I budget to pay extra.

March will be my "chippiest" month yet!

I have decided that I am going to start being better about recycling water bottles, and using that money towards my mortgage.

Looking forward to my next Statement of Net Worth!

Tonight I got up to $50.01, so I cashed in. There is still a $3.00 processing fee, so now I know. However, I did immediately receive a $3.00 bonus, so it's not so bad.

It should ship around April 1, hope it makes it here in time to add to April's payment. If not, it will make a fine mortgage chip in May.

I e-filed my returns on Monday, and today I see that my state refund has already hit my bank account. Thank you, state of California!

This is something new to me. Inbox dollars paid me $3 to sign up with Offermatic. You register your credit/debit card with Offermatic and based on your activity, you are offered rebates. For example, spend $20 at Target, get a $10 rebate right on your credit/debit card. Spend $20 at Shell, get a $10 rebate. So, I went right ahead and registered.

Here is a referral link, if you are interested. If you do Inbox dollars, be sure to link from them to get your $3.

http://www.offermatic.com/refer/19145

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Plastic Jungle. I sold a gift card I had never used for $23.10, and my check is in the mail! There is a nice little mortgage chip.

Also yesterday I received a rewards check from Chase for $20. This too will make a nice little mortgage chip.