I'm starting fresh with a new thread for 2006! My goal is $2000. Any and all proceeds will be put in a separate account to help pay for a return trip to Californial wine country in November!

Here are some initial thoughts on how I'm going to tackle this:

1) Take advantage of at least one (preferably 2) bank account bonuses each month. The bonuses usually average about $50 each, so if I could do 18 over the course of the year, that would net me $900. I have a pretty long list of available offers, and more are always being added, so I should be able to do this. The trick is staying organized, and closing accounts I no longer want after the waiting period is over.

2) Continue scouring the used bookstore, library sales, etc and selling on ebookdrop. I've been having decent luck with the bookstore by work, and haven't even checked out library sales or other bookstores yet. If I can do a run three times per month, and net $10 each time, that will net me $360 for the year.

3) I'm going to count any rebates I send in for products I would have bought anyway. Occasionally, if I can get something free or close to it with a rebate, I'll buy it even though I wouldn't otherwise. I won't count those, because the rebate is the only reason I'm buying it. But for most products (like the board games for Christmas or the anti-virus software) I would have bought them anyway, so the rebate is a bonus. I'm going to estimate $10/month, or $120/year for this one.

4) Recyclables...I saw Robex's note that she's going to begin recycling bottles and cans. I'm going to do this, too. This should be easy, as I can return them right at my grocery store. The challenge is that 1) my husband thinks that returning the bottles is a complete waste of time and will likely commingle it with the rest of the recycling, particularly if I'm not timely about returning them; and 2) The grocery store gives me a voucher that is reduced from my grocery bill. I'll need to be really disciplined about transferring the cash. At $.05 each, it will take a lot to add up, so I'll shoot for $100 for the year.

5) Money saved from other tips that I see, primarily here and on fatwallet. I've come across all sorts of savings on my normal bills, including referral money, bonuses for switching to electronic billing, the whole Bank of America Save Your Change program, etc. Any money saved from stuff like this will be included.

So if I take advantage of all of these things, I'll still be a few hundred short of my goal. I'm going to take another look through everyone else's challenges to see if I'm missing anything else, and keep thinking about what else I can do. Also, I may need to briefly go in the red, because the outlays for some of these bank offers are usually $50 or $100. So I'm going to allow myself to go into negative territory, knowing that I'm guaranteed to get it back.

Good luck everyone!