Well I got lazy/busy and stopped blogging and stopped really thinking about the $5000 challenge that I had going. I ended 2005 with about $700 from the intitial challenge and now want to continue on. I need to think more frugally and figure out some new ways to save money and get money into the savings account.

I did lose one way of making money this year though. After years of doing Pinecone surveys, when they expected us to download flash softwear (or something like that) I had to quit. Hubby really doesn't like downloading softwear via the net--computers that get sick with viruses are worth the $5 checks from Pinecone.

Any how I'm going to start using my ING account to save the yearly tax money and monthly mortgage money, to increase my interest rate on that money about 3%. I just really hate opening the property and school tax bills every year and decided about a month ago to start doing the save 1/52 of the tax bill every week if I could. Granted it may be tight some weeks, but not nearly as tight as coming up with several thousand dollars all in one swoop.

Last week I also got approved for a 0% APR for one year reward credit card from Sharebuilders that earns you dollars into your Sharebuilder account towards buying stocks. That account was started with nothing and has been funded by rebates, credit card rewards, etc. and is at around $1000 now. Not a huge lot, but moeny that we wouldn't have had otherwise.