I continued my purging of books, dvds, etc. I boxed everything up and I'm ready for a trip to the Post Office to send them on their way and get me closer to my snowflakes! Here's the tally:

Replacements .com: $57.68
FYE .com: $9.85
Decluttr .com: $6.50
Sellbackyourbooks .com: $5.90
Chegg: $1.08

Total: $81.01

That's in addition to another $1.08 from Chegg that I just got, and $12.25 I'm waiting on from Powells.

Regarding the books and dvds, it really pays to shop around, as the offer prices for books and dvds vary wildly. You do have to be aware of minimum # / $ amounts, and the terms for their free shipping offers, but it's definitely worth the extra few minutes.

Purging my house of this stuff is also helping me to meet one of my other challenges for 2016, the "Bag a week". I'm trying to rid my house of at least one hefty bag worth of "stuff" every week, in an effort to declutter, simplify and organize. The "stuff" can be sold, donated, or tossed - doesn't matter, as long as it's out of my space. Hubby and I cleaned out a corner of our garage two weeks ago and found receipts for stuff dating back to 2008! I'm not kidding.

I think my next focus will be on CDs and old cell phones. We have one or two old iPhones lying around, as well as other non-smartphone models. Not sure if they're worth much, but I'll at least check it out. Anything is better than nothing.

I go through my books, dvds, etc. a few times each year and see if I can sell any online for a few dollars here and there. Last week, I sold 1 book to Chegg for $1.08 and 3 books to Powells for $12.25. I've sold to both for years always with good results. I received the $1.08 from Chegg today, so that's the official start toward my goal of $1000 in snowflakes this year!

Has anyone ever sold to Replacements.com? I have some old china from Dad's. I listed on Ebay a few times with no results, so I considered them. It'll probably be worth about $50 from them, but I'll have to pay the shipping. Better than nothing I guess.

My company gave us a new benefit beginning in January - paid Identity Theft protection for me and my family. In addition to the monitoring, I used them to get a copy of my credit report, which I haven't done in years. I was happy to find that there was only one negative item in there - a fraudulent charge of $900 to some utility company that had gone into collections. I disputed it right online, and it should be resolved within a week or two. I also ran hubby's report, and it was completely fine. I wasn't able to run the kids' reports online; kept getting an error message, maybe because they're minors? I sent in a message to customer service and I'll see what they say.

I can get reports from 3 different companies (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax), so I'm going to set a reminder every 4 months and I'll alternate the companies so I can keep an eye on it throughout the year.

This weekend I'm going to pull together tax info and see what I'm still missing. In addition to our taxes, I have to pull together dad's paperwork and get that off to his accountant as well. It's an exciting life I lead

My dad passed away last April at the ripe old age of 90. He was in good health and "with it" right up until the end, so while it's never a good thing, I couldn't have asked for it to happen any more peacefully.

I am the Executor of dad's estate. He was super organized, and I was very familiar with his finances, so I thought it would be relatively easy. WRONG. It's not that it's so hard, just really tedious. I am drowning in paperwork, phone calls, etc.

I'm also in the middle of selling his house, which has gone pretty smoothly so far, but the buyers are in the middle of the inspections, so we'll see. Even though it's being sold "as is", the house really fell into disrepair as dad got older, so I'm sure they'll come back looking for me to knock down the price. It's complicated by the fact that I'm actually 1 of 10 kids, and even though they've all been supportive of me, I'm aware of wanting to make sure I do right by all of them.

Fingers crossed, it will all be wrapped up by the end of June. And the first thing I'm going to do when I get my check: Pay off the HELOC that has been dogging me for years! Anything more will likely go toward the kiddies' college funds. Except maybe a well-deserved day at the spa for me .

Has it really been 3 years since I've last posted? The entries don't lie - April 2013 was the last time I logged on. Time has flown by since then, and I have paid precious little attention to my finances and frugality. No damage was done, but I still need to get back on the horse. I need to update my sidebar with new goals (except for the goal to lose weight - that never seems to go away!).


I'm glad to see so many old friends still on here; I can't wait to catch up on all of your blogs.