March Madness

March Monthly Totals

• Merchandise Total (before coupons): $2,188.14
• Value of Coupons & Store Sales: $1,162.39
• Rewards/Gift Cards/ECB's Used: $762.82
• Rewards/Gift Cards/ECB's Earned: $523.70
• Rebates: $236.79
• Total Cost to me (after rewards earned and rebates): $336.86
• Total Profit: $70.07
• # of Items: 652, # of Free Items: 423

I really am not quite sure how I spent $300 this month! Some months are more stock-up months where you buy things that are on a great sale, rather than free. I guess that's what happened here...I'm not quite sure! lol

Savings Updates

I tell ya, this month was crazy! I sold oodles of stuff online and was so busy packing stuff up and shipping it, I really didn't pay that much attention to my finances this month.

• I redeemed $40 worth of rewards earned by using my Discover card for a $45 CVS gift card. This will last a long time and ensures I don't have to spend cash at CVS. I get 5% back on gas and automotive purchases (can we say $600 car repairs??) and 2% on everything else.
• Used two $15 gift cards from an Olay rebate to purchase a $30 Walgreens gift card.
• Received a $50 gift card for buying my new Verizon phone. I thought the rebate was going to be cash, but this is ok too. I used $25 on a CVS gift card and the other $25 on a Walgreens gift card.

Deposits to Emergency Fund - goal $10,000

• $10 bonus for referring friend to ING - thanks again! :)
• State tax refund of $183
• $13.52 - difference between budgeted and actual electric bill
• Rebates - $6 Nasogel DBF's name, $6.99 Ensure, $6.99 Ensure DBF's address, $29.95 reimbursement for RX, $4.50 Windex, $2.50 Windex DBF's address, $2.50 Windex parent's address, $7.99 escencia, $7.99 escencia parents' address, $7.99 escencia DBF's address, $3.99 Hillshire Farms turkey, $3.99 Hillshire Farms DBF's address, $6.99 Ensure parent's address, $3.29 Pert Plus for Men
• eBay Earnings - $517.05 - holy smokes! A good deal of this money went towards shipping costs - $239.70 (and I charged all of that to my Discover card to get more rewards!). $13.45 went towards a stamps.com scale I purchased and $13 went towards an order of checks. $197.71 of it went to a whole bunch of clothes I bought - at least I didn't have to dip into my savings to pay for these! I got a bunch of great deals - a couple of clearanced t-shirts for $4.99 each, two pairs of jeans for around $20 each, some great new work pants and a bunch of t-shirts. I've never been good at buying clothes slowly. I tend to not buy clothes for ages and then get urges to shop like crazy. So this was my spring splurge. :) That leaves around $100 leftover money from my profits, and to be honest, I don't know where it went! lol I probably spent a little going out to dinner, a little on odds and ends, etc. I'm going to do better in April, I promise!

Debt Progress

• I paid off my car! My March payment was $265.69, and I made an extra payment of $527.88 to pay it off entirely. I had been listed under my parents' insurance but due to the whole AIG mess, they are going to be changing companies. The financing on the car was in my name and my dad's, so I wasn't sure if getting insurance in my own name would be difficult because of that. I figured it would be easiest all around if the car was just in my name. I have the title and I have to look into different insurance companies.

I'm going to put April and May's car payments into my emergency fund to replace the money I took out for this payment. And then after that, the entire payment will be going into a savings fund designed to purchase my next car...when my Honda dies years from now.

Balances as of Today

• Short Term Savings $1,000.68
• Emergency Fund $1,201.38
• Credit Cards - ZERO!
• Car Loan - PAID OFF!
• Student Loans - ugh, and I was on such a roll! $79,255