My Little Purple Piggy...

Alright, I'm back from my downer yesterday about my underearning. My little purple piggy bank is getting fat (but not yet ready for the slaughter). I am really quite pleasantly surprised at how those little pockets of cash here and there add up. Plus it's just plain fun. I have no idea what, if anything, I'll do with the innerds of my little piggy, which is probably a good thing. Maybe we'll put it towards the principal of our mortgage, or in our kiddo's college account, or maybe we'll just let it sit there collecting heaps of compound interest (haha). But I've grown to love my little trips to the bank with my three bucks here and my $1.72 there. The tellers puzzled faces be damned. And there's still a little pile of Euros from our trip to Spain several years ago that I need to cash in.

My experiment with the Examiner is not quite going so well. I've posted three articles so far and netted about $.90. I have to make it to $25 to even cash out, which probably means writing, oh, about 750 more articles. But hey, it's given me an excuse to write, and maybe some clips for my "portfolio." And it's been fun, which writing isn't always. And fun is something I can always use more of. Shameless self-promotion alert: if you click here or here , you can read about my fab friend Maggie and her Nia classes. And help me get to that $25 payout before I'm too old to drive myself to the bank.

Master-Rebater

This week I've gotten two small yet supple rebate checks. One from a hummus rebate that I sent in back in December thanks to Money Saving Maine-iac, and one from the SC Johnson rebate that I used on Ziplocs. I might actually do that one a few more times, as it's good through June and they allow you to do three and Ziplocs always seem to get used around here. And they don't disciminate against us Mainers like Broke207 points out that many other rebates do. (that was terribly poor grammar but I'm in a rush and sleep-deprived.)

I'm still waiting on my Rite Aid Grab the Gold rebate Visa to come, but I did receive a $100 contact lens Visa rebate the other day too. I'm feeling pretty good about all this rebatin', I have to say. Plus here's a rebate site that, though lacking in options, cracks me up. I might pick up some cheapish Cottonelle bum wipes at Walgreens when they open this Thursday, and cash in on some rebate action here, too. Oh, and you don't have to be a caregiver to access this-- it even says that on the website lest you think I'm trying to partake in shady rebate shenanigans.

And what shall I do with all this rebate cash? Well, I consulted the husband on that one to see what he thought made the most sense. Should it go back into the grocery budget to allow for some saucy extras? Or go back into the grocery budget but without making space for extras? Or should it go into my purple piggy bank? He thought the purple piggy bank was the most sensical, since my experiment with said piggy was intended to be a repository for money I'd previously ignored. I agreed with his logic (having seemingly lost my own logic at the moment of giving birth), so looks like the little piggy bank will be getting chubbier soon (but not ready for slaughter!).

This Little Piggy...

So inspired by Broke 207's awesome giveaway and musings on found money, my baby having a cold which is keeping me from the parade of mom's groups that usually keeps me busy and reasonably sane during the days, and my love of creating random little pockets of money, I'm starting a little experiment of my own. I'm going to open a little bank account for all the found money-- the $1.40 I got this morning from the bottle redemption center, the $3 here and there I get from doing surveys online, the random Euros we have from our trip to Spain several years ago-- stuff like that. And I'm going to see how it adds up. And in case you are nerdy like me about little collections o' money, I'll keep a tally by the shiny little purple piggy bank icon on the right here.

Where do you find little extra pockets o' cash?