February numbers

Surprisingly February's earnings was not much different from January. I didn't expect that, since it was a shorter month. Our personal sales were also slow for the first half of the month, then things started selling like crazy, so we ended up making a decent amount again.

Gift cards earned

Mypoints $50 
Swagbucks : $60 
IGC : $45 ($25 mine, $20 DH account)
Ibotta : $25 (Amazon)
Savingstar : $0 (I only add this once I redeem for a gc)
Total gcs earned in January : $180

So yeah, I earned the exact same gift card amount as I did last month. I usually cash out $25 gcs on Swagbucks. However, I had a 50sb Swagup reward (you receive the credit when you redeem for a gc) that was expiring, so I decided to get a $10 Amazon gc. 

The amazon gcs were added to my account, to order an item that DS wants. 

Here are the balances of gcs I currently have. All numbers are after this month's earnings and expenses. Some gcs were purchased last year. Once I finished Christmas shopping last year, I started saving gcs for this holiday season. Just so you don't wonder how I get to shop and still have decent gc amounts left.

Kohls - $91.57
Target - $30
Walmart - $20 from DHs IGC account. I wanted to order something from Sams. So I asked him to redeem for a gc, since he had enough points. So we got the gc and when I checked out at Sams, the item was no longer available. Bummer. We'll just save it for next time
Gap - $54.54
TJM - $25.00
WHBM - $50.00
BBW - $15.00
Starbucks : $15 (this does not include the teacher's gifts). The $15 is for our personal use. I'm not a Starbucks fan (I'm a Dunkin Donuts girl), but I received this credit when I ordered something online. We'll just save it for when we're in the mood for a frappucino.

That's a total of $301.11 in gcs.

I know that I have much more than $30 in Target gcs. I have quite a few $5 ones, but I need to go through my emails, to check which ones still have balances available. Then there's still small $1.xx gc balances on my online account. I wish they would do what Amazon does and lump it all together. It makes keeping track of balances much easier.

I've read before that you can use a Walmart gc at Sams Club, to purchase discounted gcs in store. I might have to try this sometime, if we don't use that Walmart gc.

I'm not including my CVS gc, because I use that card almost every week. They haven't sent me a $ off coupon for the past 2 weeks, so I guess I'll be skipping shopping again next week. There's no free or MM deals, so it's not worth a trip to the store.

Total earned from online sales (after fees) : $344.91
Plus January balance $256.44
Less expenses (393.98)
New Balance : $207.37

That's it for the month of February. Not the best numbers, because I shopped too much. I'm gonna try to keep OOP expenses low (less than $100) for March. Would be nice if we didn't spend any money this month, but I know that whenever I plan for that, a great deal comes along.

I did shop at Kohls today, to redeem Kohls cash I earned last week. I didn't spend a single penny in cash though, but scored a very nice item for free. More on that later.

Does anyone else try to keep expenses low, by using earned gift cards?