Mid month check up

See here... left to my own devices, I'll be quiet as a mouse and disappear here and there. Not that I don't enjoy blogging and following people, but I've had things to keep me busy. 4 weeks before my exam, exactly, but who's counting? Oh, yeah. I am.

That said, absolutely no new reports. I'm a horribly boring financial person, not that it is necessarily a bad thing. I have not incurred any new debts, spending is on track, and all continues to be paid as agreed, including snowballs. Christmas spending is also on track, and even at that I am finding savings (like getting a $50 Lowes card for my brother for $40 and a $50 certificate to buy toys for the kids for $25).

I have been aggressively saving my PT job's checks and reached the $500 I mentioned here in no time. Well, ok. It's actually $495.01, but it might as well be done. Although it is extremely late, I've started to seriously consider reaching my goal #3: Increase car savings by $2,000, not counting bonuses, and not counting the $2k I had to rebuild after paying off one of my consolidated loans. As of today, I had already saved $700. Adding the aforementioned $500 brings me to $1200. I could totally cheat and use snowballs for this with little consequence, but wont. The other $800 may come from a variety of places; I might be able to snag about $150 more on Friday from my part time job, another $275 and counting on credit card cash-back and offers, and give or take $40 from rebates and what not. Closing in on $1700. How to get the other $300 within 2 more pay periods before the year is over will be the real challenge, if I may say so myself!

I did come across an interesting situation: I had entered a charity-type raffle a while ago for $20 and forgot all about it, but it seems I won one of the prizes, retail at $120. My first two options: Sell it for cash and add that to my older brother's Christmas gift, since they're having a bit of a hard time, or give it as a Christmas gift. Let's just say I don't think anyone would really want this as a gift itself, and I can say this with a high degree of certainty. I don't need it myself, so I am not even considering (though I wouldn't mind it a lot to keep it, it's kind of neat). That leaves me with either sell it for money and get at least 80% of its value or keep it. It's a technology item, so donating it may be a bit iffy. What do you do when you get prizes that are nice to have, but you don't really need, and could have value in marketplaces?