Weekly Update on Christmas savings...

One of the ways that I like to save for anything is putting aside any extra money that comes our way that is not in our normal budget. This week we sold our old stroller on craiglist. A single stroller just doesn't work for us anymore. We now have a sit and stand stroller so I put our old stroller up on craiglist and sold it this week. I put that money into our Christmas fund for the year.

Some of you might be wondering why I am doing this for the first time and not before. Let me explain. When Joel was a teacher he would get a bonus in December every year. This bonus was enough to pay for all our Christmas shopping. Then last year, I was subbing and doing childcare at the same time. That was like an extra amount of income that allowed me to cover for Christmas. Well, this year the boy I use to watch started preschool. I am still subbing and working hard to sub as much as I can but I also have some things in December and January that I am planning for as well. Like my finger print clearance card is due and there will be two weeks in January, because of winter break, where I will not be getting a paycheck. I am trying to get that money set aside now. Plus, I like this challenge and its like a game to me. And I want to win!

Ok, so this week I sold our stroller and all the extra change I have from grocery shopping to add into our fund.

 

$30 for the stroller
$4.27 in spare change to add to the fund

Total = $34. 27

Old total = 138.31

New total = 172.58

Saving for Christmas

We are a family of four on a tight budget. I coupon, shop sales and clearance, and set a budget for everything. And I always try to come in below the budget amount. I also take online surveys to help bring in extra cash for stuff. So I started late this year as a test run for next year. I want to earn all of our Christmas spending budget by surveys, saving change, rebates, and gift cards. 

Let  me explain how this happened. I follow a blog called Couponing to Disney.  Its all about this mom of 2 and how she saves for their families annual trip to Disney World. I love her blog. She is always posting the best deals. I got a couple of friends to follow her too. But its so inspiring to see how she does this. I thought I want to do this but I want to start small. So how about Christmas. This blogger can save $3000 in a little over a year, I want to save about $500-$600 in a year. So starting January 1st is when I will kick off this huge Saving for Christmas 2012 campaign. I want to show you where I am at this year since I just started in Sept.

Right now, I have $138.31 in various cash flows that I will break down for you in a little bit. This is just from Sept. and Oct. alone.

So here is the break down.
$40 in Paypal cash that I will transfer to our checking account from various survey sights
$20 in Amazon gift cards from another survey sight
$10 in Target gift cards from another survey sight
$35 for carrying a cell phone around and recording my snack intake for 2 weeks from another survey sight.
$5 cash/check from another survey sight.

So right now we are at $110 for surveys in two months

Now we have $7.48 in spare change (I pay in cash and never use the change but save it)
And another $3.60 for recycling cans (we don't drink a lot of soda and we already traded in a couple times this year)
$17. 23 in various gift cards that I can use towards Christmas gifts.

So that totals $138.31 in two months. I may earn a little more before Christmas but it can take anywhere from 2-8 weeks for some things to come in. I do have some rebates that may come in but I may or may not use them this year.

I hope to share this with you every month next year on my progress.