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.

I just transferred $1292.43 to my mortgage ($1290.00 budgeted, +2.43 from Lending Club). The scheculed P + I is $1060.23. Here is a snip from my spreadsheet:



My new balance is $183,574.01. I have chipped payment #359 down to $581.49.

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.

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.

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.

I just transferred $1310.00 (1285.00 + 25.00 credit card rewards) to the mortgage. The extra has reduced payment #359 to $645.71. Payment #360 is already gone. The balance is now $183,845.41.

Here is a snip from my spreadsheet:

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.

I currently owe $184,133.12 on my mortgage. I have a 30 year loan, fixed at 5.25%. The principal and interest portion is $1060.23. Most months, I round my payment up just a little. I have made 32 payments, and by prepaying have eliminated the very last scheduled payment, and have reduced the next to last scheduled payment to $783.02.

Like most people, my house is worth less than I owe on my mortgage.