Plans for our stimulus rebate

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

The stimulus rebate intended for the Rocket household arrived in our checking account late last week and we have began discussing plans for that money. Ultimately, the money will simply reduce our budget deficit for the year, however we want to make sure that the free money makes the greatest ...

How do you deal with a budget deficit?

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

Earlier this week I shared that I use Excel for our family budget. In the spreadsheet I have set the formula in one particular cell to show our average monthly surplus or deficit as we move through the year. Since we are currently making a fairly large rent payment in ...

$250 worth of snowflake money with Chase Freedom

Monday, April 14th, 2008

We just earned a $250 cash reward check from the Chase Freedom credit card. It took us about 11 months to earn $200 in the rewards account. Once card owners have saved that much, Chase kicks in another $50. The cash back represents one to three percent of everything that ...

Time the market? I use timing to pay my bills

Monday, February 11th, 2008

At our house, we try to make extra money wherever we can. Bank bonuses and credit card bonuses made us almost $3,000 last year. A much riskier strategy, credit card arbitrage, made us another thousand dollars. I admit that making money this way is not for everyone. I don't plan ...

Ebates Bonus is $10 again!

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

Ebates is offering a $10 sign-up bonus again! The bonus was only $5 for the last two weeks, but if you sign up through this link, and make a purchase before February 14th, you will get a $10 bonus. I just found a new store at Ebates that I plan to ...

Control the behavior, don’t just limit your options

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

A debate over credit cards has been swirling between Ana of Debt-FREE Revolution and Madison of My Dollar Plan. I really hate to get on the bad side of Ana - she has a serious antipathy toward plastic - but I must come down on the side of Madison. You see, ...