So, after setting aside money for my car insurance, I will have just over 2k in extra income from my income tax refunds. I have tweaked my extra income allocation and plan to do the following:

30% - Emergency Fund
20% - Credit Card Debt
20% - Egypt Fund
20% - Roth
10% - Mortgage

In about 2.5 months, I will have 4 - 5k or so extra income, and will do the same with that.

And I must say, I LOOOOVE the American Opportunity credit! I will get back $2852 from federal and state combined. I can't e-file yet of course, but I am ready to do so the moment they are ready for my Sch A and education credit.

I won't be getting any further education credits for myself, I graduated last June. Double

This evening, my nephew surprised me with another $100. I believe I will throw it at my credit card debt.

In other financial news, my Inbox dollars account is up to $41.64. If I request a check, I get the message about the $3 fee. I am waiting for a $6 payment from Nielsen (that one is paid after 35 days) and $15 for applying for a Sony card (through Capital One). Once I hit $50, if there is still a $3 fee then I will just pay it. At the moment, I prefer to wait just a bit longer and see if I can avoid it.

And finally, it looks as though my income tax situation for 2010 is refunds of $1600 or so. I received my 1098T (for tuition) today and will run a diagnostic tomorrow to determine which credit works best for me, or perhaps take the deduction. Then I will be all ready to e-file, and will be more concrete than "$1600 or so". My car insurance will need to be paid soon, so I will deposit $800 into checking to cover that, and the rest will go towards credit card debt reduction.

Yesterday I transferred $2.43 from my Lending Club account to my checking account. This staggering sum will be mortgage chip money. Have you ever lent money on Lending Club? I opened an account when they were having a promotion, open an account and get a $25 bonus. So, I did. I didn't put in a cent of my own money. Lending Club was ok with that. I lent out the money, and the person I lent to has thus far made all of her payments. Every few months, I transfer the money out and chip away at my mortgage.

Worked another 5 OT hours today, so we are up to 10 now.

Oh! AND, I received my first piece of decoy mail yesterday. So now I have earned a whole $.25!! Lol. Looking forward to building up my volume again.

I intended to put in a whole day's work today, but slept a bit late, lingered over the newspaper with coffee, then took my son to get a haircut. Didn't manage to arrive at work until 1pm, and quit at 6. So, I have kicked off OT season with 5 hours.

I've been watching The Grapes of Wrath on Netflix. I read the book years ago, have never seen the movie. It gets to me. My Mom's family were sharecroppers near Oklahoma City pre-dust bowl, and came out here to California when she was small. She lived what is depicted in the movie. Ma Joad reminds me of my Grandma.

So today is payday, and I see I will be netting an additional $46 per month. Here is where it is going:

BofA credit card - $20
mortgage - $3
main savings - $3
everything else - $20


So, I am pleased about that.

So far this month, I have been doing very well with my spending, even with the car battery replacement and jump start service. I intend to report at the end of each month how I did. I wish I knew how to post an excerpt from Excel.

Do you participate in Inbox Dollars? Have you heard of it? Basically, they inundate you with sales offers, and you can earn a tiny bit of cash by putting up with them.

I have an email address I use just for Inbox Dollars. They send you emails which you are paid $.02 each to read. They are ads, of course. They send you survey offers, special promotional offers, and they have an area called "tasks" for which you are paid to perform some minor tasks. I haven't tried any of the tasks yet, but who knows, one of these days I just may get around to it. Stranger things have happened.

You save up your earnings and can cash out anytime you hit $30. I have been doing this for 6 months or so, and am cents away from my first $30. To be honest, I make an effort for a week or so, then ignore them weeks on end.

Today I filled out an application for a Discover card which has a $50 bonus if you spend $500 the first 3 months. For using their link and being approved, Inbox dollars will pay me an additional $15. I believe I will wait for this to be credited, then request a check for $45.

If anyone is interested, you can get a $5 sign-up bonus by using the following link. I get some sort of bonus too, a percentage based on your activity (does not impact your earnings):

http://www.inboxdollars.com/?r=ref7642239

This will be mortgage chip money, along with my $50 Discover bonus.

So today in the mail at work, I received a Christmas card from a client, with a $100 bill tucked inside. How nice!

This evening, my nephew unexpectedly handed me some cash, $310. (My nephew has been living with me for about 1.5 years. He has been having some health problems, some personal problems, and some financial problems. He hasn't been able to pay anything at all towards household expenses since April. Until today that is.)

Yay!!

I was pleasantly surprised to read about the 2011 Fica Tax rate. It is going down from 6.2% to 4.2%. However, the Making Work Pay credit expires. That credit was worth $400. For some this will be a wash. Those who earn more than 20k will see a bump in their take home pay.

Now, how best to use it?

So we had our annual Christmas dinner, and it was an enjoyable evening as always. I did get a very nice bonus this year for $1750, which I felt was very generous. Also, it is just nice to feel that your efforts are appreciated!

So, I am considering how to best use it. It will almost pay the remaining balance on my Chase Freedom in full. However, I am leaning towards $1500 to Chase and $250 in my Roth. I do fret that I won't hit my Roth goal of 150k.

I realize I haven't really blogged about my income. I have an office type job and made 48k this year, including seasonal overtime and bonus. I also receive child support of 6k per year. It's not a huge income, but I am happy to have it. I have certainly lived on less.

I received a rewards check from my Chase Freedom card in the amount of $25. I intend to use it to take a little chip out of my mortgage.

Also, I received an email from HauserNet that I have been assigned a project and I should expect to begin receiving some decoy mail in the coming weeks. That income will also be used for mortgage chips.

I am going back and forth about using my theoretical Christmas bonus towards my Chase Freedom Visa bill 100%, or splitting it out 40/20/20/10/10 and transferring still more to my Bank of America Visa.

This Friday night, I will know for sure if my bonus is only theoretical or wonderfully real.

I have been thinking I need to have a standard allocation for extra income. I don't mean tiny amounts such as from decoy mail, but the occasional large chunk of extra money. In the past, I have decided on a case by case basis how to best use each cash infusion, but I want to stop doing that.

Here is my extra money allocation:

40% credit card debt
20% Roth IRA
20% regular savings
10% Egypt savings
10% mortgage

Once my credit card debt is gone, I will decide on a new allocation.

There is a reason I have been thinking about this lately. I usually get a Christmas bonus. I hope that will be true this year as well, but of course I can't count on it. Also, it is almost the time of year for seasonal overtime at my place of employment. I will literally be able to work all of the overtime I can stand for several months. The way it is handled is to record the overtime, then pay it all in one sweet check at the end of the high-volume period. In addition, a bonus is traditionally paid.

Years ago, I was a decoy mail agent. Following my divorce, I moved to a new zip code (same city) and so I lost my spot. I have since checked periodically to see if they need a new agent in my zip code.

Well....they finally need me! I received my confirmation today; I am officially an agent again. It will likely take some time to build my volume again, but eventually I will make a few hundred dollars a year for something which takes only a few seconds of my time. Yay!

I intend to use this extra cash to chip away at my mortgage.