An extra $40.96 in one day for our Emergency Fund

If you look on the side bar to the right of my blog, you will see I've listed "Creatively Building Our $1,000 Emergency Fund". Here I am listing all of the creative ways in which we're making money for this fund. I update this as money is deposited into our emergency fund.

In one day we made an additional $40.96 to deposit into this account. It is possible to start building your emergency fund quickly - you just have to be willing to be creative and put in some time and effort!

Here is a breakdown of this week's deposits:

1. On Wednesday I sold $7 in items through our local Swap & Sell site. I do not arrange a meet up unless I'm already on my way to run errands. This saves on fuel.

2. While at the grocery store on Tuesday I used the Coin Star machine and received $13.37 in cash from our change jar. Make sure you have a change jar and keep putting your coins in it - even pennies you find on the ground. I'm telling you, these add up! Our change jar was empty last month and it wasn't even full when I cashed in this week. I got over $13 out of it!

3. Our bank has a rewards program through our checking account. We get cashback when we shop with certain companies that we'd normally shop at anyway. I received $6 this week.

4. I made $14.59 in Ebay sales on Thursday. I still have items with active bids, so this is just my initial profit!

All of this equals $40.96 in ONE day! I'm pretty excited, especially with the decluttering that is also taking place during this process.

Some tips:

1. Take time to list your items you'd like to sell, and make it look professional. Be honest, and thorough in your listings. Your customers will greatly appreciate it. Be courteous as well. I have many repeat customers both through Ebay and Swap & Sell.

2. Don't underestimate value of your "junk". There are items you own that someone else will love. Some items I really didn't think would sell were the first ones I'd hear an offer on!

3. Start rummaging your house and vehicles for change! You never know how much money is just laying around. Put them in a jar and cash in the next time you're out.

Our Ebay site: Mountaintop Bookseller

Building our $1000 Emergency Fund #1

As I have shared in my previous debt-free living posts, we are following Dave Ramsey's steps to getting out of debt. Since we are nearly caught up on our current bills, I'm finding ways to start building our $1000 Emergency Fund. I opened this account at a bank that is not attached to our checking. We are $895 away from our goal.

This week the steps I've taken to continue building our Emergency Fund:

1. I listed many items on Ebay. Most of these items are popular homeschool materials, so I'm confident they will sell.

2. I listed items in my Etsy Shop. I am also offering a 10% Off code to boost sales. My e-book Mama Don't Sew is my most popular and lowest priced item.

3. I plan to deposit the difference between October's electricity bill and this November's into the account. October's bill was $117.57. November's bill is $107.20. Therefore I'm going to deposit $10.37 into our Emergency Fund. I came up with this idea at the top of my head to continue with the momentum of saving money. Plus, creativity keeps me going!

4. Any profit from items I sell through our local Swap & Sell site I plan to deposit into our Emergency Fund.

5. Money from our change jar will be cashed and deposited on a monthly basis.

So those are the steps I'm currently taking to build our Emergency Fund! After this, we'll begin taking more chunks out of our debt.