When I wrote last, I was waiting to see if I would get a call from the market research team conducting the in-home study or if I was not going to get called and get paid either way. Well, they did end up calling me around 1pm, and said they would arrive around 2:30. That worked out ok with the list of errands I had set up for the afternoon. They were on time, I let them in, we went over everything, and I skedaddled. They kept me updated on their progress throughout the day, and let me know they were done & gone around 10:15pm. I received an email with the link to my $595 virtual rewards card on Monday. Setting up access was easy, and I was able to use it in full. I used it for a mix of wants and needs. It's now got a zero balance. I was able to pay this month's electric bill and the majority of this month's cell phone bill (freeing up paycheck money to increase payment to the credit card I'm working on now), plus I ordered a few things from eBay, Amazon and a clothing store to round out the rest.
In other snowflake news, I joined a site called Drop last month. They've been a bit annoying to work with, but I am waiting on some pending points to post. Once they do, I'll have enough redeem $100 worth of Amazon gift cards from completing a few offers. I'll combine that with the $10 in gift cards I'll get for this month's receipts in Amazon Shopper Panel. No immediate plans for those gift cards, but Amazon never goes bad lol.
I also got another Chime referral bonus! That brings me to a total of $300 earned via Chime for very little work. One was the bonus I got for signing up, and I've gotten 3 bonuses from people using my referral link.
Since my last post, I did some test drives that are gonna end up costing me money haha. The day I had to be out of the house for the in-home stufy, I went over to a friend's place to hang out. She has a Peloton, and I wanted to try it out to see how it compared to my off brand bike. Holy crap. They're not even in the same universe. Now I want a Peloton and have to figure out how to save for it amidst all of my other goals. Sigh. I'll probably buy a used one and save up for it in cash, rather than buying new and financing. That could change depending on if I get promoted in July/what the pay increase would be. I don't think I would pull the trigger until next year at the earliest, which gives me plenty of time to figure it out. Paying off debt, getting my savings up to at least baby EF level and funding surgery are still higher priorities. The second expensive test drive was our rental car in Vegas. Our original flight had gotten changed, and I forgot to adjust the car rental reservation. The only cars available when we arrived were luxury cars, so we ended up choosing a BMW X3, which just so happens to be what I want as my next car (when current loan is paid off in Aug 2023). I was glad to have a week to drive it. Unfortunately, it's just as nice as I expected it to be, lol.
Vegas was pretty low spend as expected. I think I spent less than $100 out of pocket for the entire week. Not gambling helped haha. I'll be interested to see how it impacted my spending for the month when I do my April summary on Saturday.
Other than that, everything is just moving along as planned. Debt going down. Savings going up. Lifestyle staying fairly status quo. I have a few updates on other topics, but will do separate posts for them.