Post Your Wins

[disneysteve]

July is the balance billing month for the equal payment plan with our gas and electric bill. That's when you either pay the overage or get a credit for any overpayment. We got a credit of $394. As a result, they've lowered our monthly payment by $33 from $302 to $269.

[disneysteve]

Last August, we signed up for a paid Zoom account in order to host a virtual 90th birthday party for my mom. It worked great and about 50 people were able to join us. We all said we needed to use Zoom more to stay in touch, so we kept the paid account - and almost never used it. We have used it some but mainly for one on one conversations (which you don't need to pay for). We finally decided to ditch the paid account so I just cancelled it. That will save us $12.78/month.

Of course, it's not a great win because my wife has been doing a free trial of the Cricut premium access program and has decided she wants to keep it. I think that's $10/month plus tax so it will end up being nearly a wash, but at least we won't be paying for both. And she can deduct the cost of that against her sewing business to offset it a bit.

[Fishindude77]

Living off the land this evening. Fresh caught sockeye salmon I brought back from Alaska, bacon wrapped venison tenderloin harvested on the back forty, and some cucumbers, tomatoes and onions in balsamic from the garden.

[Fishindude77]

Picked several quarts of wild blackberries this afternoon. Will be making pies tomorrow.

[disneysteve]

Sold a large item from my cousin’s: a 4-foot long model boat. I had tried to sell it when I was there with no luck. We packed it up and moved it home. I listed it the other day on eBay and Marketplace and found a buyer who picked it up this evening. One more big thing gone and $300 in my pocket.

[disneysteve]

Redeemed $63.34 cash back from my Discover card

[rennigade]

Someone hit me a little while back. It was their fault. Received check from their insurance for $2400. Pulled the dent out myself and used an orbital polisher to fix the scrapes on the bumper. Pocketed the money, which went to school taxes anyway, but softened the blow of that.

[james.hendrickson]

So here is a small win - I was able to take my seven year old son to the bank and show him how to deposit money into a savings account. We took my change jar down to our local savings bank, went inside and did it the old fashioned way - we handed the coins to the teller, and she counted the money up, deposited it and gave us a receipt. Its important to model good financial behavior for kids when they're young.

[disneysteve]

Small win. The bill for DW's life insurance (which I still haven't cancelled) and my disability insurance (which I also still haven't cancelled) dropped by $5.17 per month due to increased dividends on the policies.

[Fishindude77]

Harvest time in Indiana and the seasonal eating is about as good as it gets. We've got cucumbers, tomatoes and green beans coming out our ears from the garden and have been eating a bunch of them plus freezing a bunch for winter consumption. Got eight dozen ears of good bi-color sweet corn off the neighbor the other day; blanched, cut corn off the cob and put up a bunch of bags in the freezer. Even after being in the freezer for months, this stuff still tastes better than winter vegetables at the market.

[kork13]

My dear, lovely wife is incredibly picky about shoes (design, fit, etc.), and finding a good pair that's just right is basically a Goldilocks adventure. But her current pair is well past long overdue for replacement (the inside of one of the uppers is literally a hole the size of her fist).... So we've been in the market for her Goldilocks shoes, but we've failed at almost every brick & mortar shoe store she tries. She's pretty confident about a couple particular options from Merrell (who she's also had good luck with in the past), so I've been on the lookout for how to buy them affordably. Today, I finally succeeded.

Through a discount site I use periodically (ProMotive), Merrell was offering 40% off retail -- none too shabby, and generally better than most of their normal promotional sales. On Merrell's site, I was shocked to find that they let me stack a 20% military discount right on top! With taxes & shipping, total came to $98.60 for two new pairs. But wait there's more! Discover's current cash-back cycle is 5% back on restaurants & PayPal payments... So by paying through PayPal, I'll get another ~$5 in cash back credit. In all (and ignoring the pun), we will have walked away with 2 sets of new Goldilocks shoes for a net total of $93.60 that would otherwise cost us $197.80 -- 53% off!!
Now I just hope & pray that the shoes arrive and actually fit exactly as expected.

[james.hendrickson]

Found 35 cents on the street outside a restaurant. It blows my mind how often people don't pick up money when they see it on the ground.

[scfr]

It's been a while since I worked my last new credit card bonus. Just got signed up for another.

[james.hendrickson]

It's been a while since I worked my last new credit card bonus. Just got signed up for another.

what sign up are you working? How'd you get the bonus?

[jenn_jenn]

We decided to take a break from traveling back and forth between coasts which means I’ll be living at our NY house for a few months and our condo was going to be sitting empty.

I decided to test the waters and see if we could rent out our SD condo for a couple of months. To my surprise, we had several interested renters immediately. We have someone moving in for a couple months at the end of this month. The rent more than covers our mortgage, taxes, condo fees, etc. So we not only don’t have that large expense but we also will pocket a small profit for those couple of months.

Depending on how this goes, we’re considering renting out our condo more often.