Depending on your job in the military, you may be eligible for a reenlistment bonus (if you are enlisted and there are actually a lot of factors that come into play). My husband has a job that allows him to have such a bonus, which is alloted to us once a year for a few years (depending on how long one reelists for).

This year, rather then throwing all of the money at our credit card debt (which I know some people would do and what we have done in the past) we made a list of things we need around the house and also wrote in savings. The things we need were stuff like a new bed for us, a rug, a non slip rug thing, a coffee table, paint for the inside of the house, a little to pay the guys who are helping us paint, a couple of office chairs, blinds, an end table, a sewing table. I’ve almost spent every dollar on paper (something I’ve been trying to do) and so far I’ve done a superb job finding exactly what I want (and thus being satisfied with my purchase) for either what I budgeted for OR even cheaper in a couple of cases.

Tonight we went out to dinner (a once a month thing lately) and stopped at a store to look at their mattresses. I looked at the Sunday ads to see who was having a sale and comparing them to each other. I love to shop around and figured it would take a week or so to find a bed – not ten minutes like it did. The price was $5 more then what we budgeted for, but the non slip rug thing was $25 cheaper then I thought it would be, so there was a little bit of wiggle room.

We ended up with a Serta Danford Euro Pillow Top from Big Lots for $755 – including box spring, frame and taxes. I am calling back tomorrow or maybe even stopping in because the sticker on the mattress said $629, but it rang up $655. And sure the ad in the paper says $655 but it isn’t my fault the sticker was left on the mattress. Even on my receipt it says $629, but when the numbers were entered into the computer, it rang up $655. The manager wasn’t around so I have to just stop back in.

I’ve managed to cross a few things off the list and it feels great. We are saving money, still paying on the debt and able to finish getting the things we need for the house. I need to finish writing our budget for our regular paycheck, spending every dollar on paper is hard.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 30th, 2007 at 9:44 pm and is filed under Discounts & Deals, Everyday Spending, Spending Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.