Feb. Monthly Totals and Savings Updates

February Monthly Totals

• Merchandise Total (before coupons): $1,442.37
• Value of Coupons & Store Sales: $841.60
• Rewards/Gift Cards/ECB's Used: $526.96
• Rewards/Gift Cards/ECB's Earned: $306.83
• Rebates: $289.62
• Total Cost to me (after rewards earned and rebates): $27.11
• Total Profit: $138.12
• # of Items: 408, # of Free Items: 299

Savings Updates

This month was awesome in terms of savings. I came in under budget on my gas and grocery budgets and got a nice tax refund, most of which went right into savings.

I feel a little guilty mentioning this because so many folks have lost their jobs or are working less hours, but I did get a raise at work this month. Hoorah! I will increase my retirement contributions 1% when the raise kicks in (8% of my annual salary) and I will be saving every extra penny towards my Emergency Fund. I've been at my current job for a year now, so I will also now receive matching employer contributions on my 401(k) plan up to a certain percent.

Withdrawals taken from Short Term Savings

• $53.50 new cell phone - will be getting back $50 as a rebate
• $39.64 prescription cat food
• $668.02 car repair and oil change
• $53.66 new lights and wipers for car

Deposits

• $115.12 - money earned from selling stuff online after deducting shipping costs and ebay fees
• $6.43 - interest earned on security deposit, deducted from rent
• $11.08 - difference between budgeted and actual amount of electric bill
• $26.98 - rebates ($3 Narnia, $3 Narnia DBF's name, $6.99 Vitamin shampoo, $6.99 Vitamin shampoo at parents' address, $4.99 Vitamin shampoo at DBF's address, $2.01 refund for prescription)
• $10 - money owed from friend
• $36.81 - leftovers from gas and grocery budgets
• $47.95 - RiteAid rebates
• $80 - regular budgeted amount that I save each month
• $2,250 federal tax refund - $409.90 to Short Term Savings (now at my goal of $1,000!) and $1,078.78 to Emergency Fund (goal $10,000)

Balances as of Today

• Short Term Savings $1,000 - met my goal!!
• Emergency Fund $1,319.02
• Credit Cards - ZERO! I celebrate this everyday :)
• Car Loan - 3 more payments to go...
• Student Loans - ugh, and I was on such a roll! $79,255

I got a $10 RA gift card in the mail for a January rebate, and I still have a $10 gift of savings certificate (basically a gift card) to use up. With RA's uncertain future, I've decided its best (for me) to not buy any rebate items from them for now. So I'm going to use up these gift cards on newspapers, milk and stuff like that. I have two more $10 gift cards coming in the mail, so I'll do the same with those when they come in. I just hate the thought of buying a rebate item, having the company go bankrupt and not receiving my rebate check. Fingers crossed this will not happen and they'll just restructure or whatever. But with money being tight, I'm not taking any chances right now.

I also decided to scale my cable back to basic cable and that should save me around $40 a month. I should see this difference in March's budget since February's cable was already paid for.