This week’s tip comes from Accumulating Pennies, the newest member of the Revolution, who reports on selling books on Amazon.  I haven’t used Amazon directly for this but I have sold unneeded textbooks through a number of different book buyback companies, and they provided me with many early snowflakes.

In the spirit of decluttering - go find some books to sell!

This past week, our 22 year old furnace started to show its age and quickly demonstrated that it is not much longer for this world. We have been diligently using snowflaking to pay off our debts, and this threw a wrench in those plans. At first, I thought to myself that we would have to go deeper into debt to replace the furnace, for we only have a $1000 emergency fund, and a furnace is minimum several thousand dollars. But then I stepped back and started using that snowflaking mentality to figure out what could be done in a short period of time to avoid new debt, and I was surprised to determine that I think this can be done, and done well.

What has worked in my favor is that through becoming a snowflaking aficiando, I have worked hard at establishing multiple streams of income to provide those snowflakes. I have multiple small sources of income that I have developed, through things as varied as referral bonuses, surveys, tutoring, teaching taekwondo, blog advertising, and more, and each of them, while small in themselves, add up to a significant amount together. And that is what the snowflake mentality is all about. I didn’t get to this point all at once. I started with one, and added another and another over time, so that now, almost a year later, I can count on 8 or 9 different sources of income in any given month. And this gives a lot more flexibility not only for paying down debt, but in addressing unexpected expenses. And in the future, I hope to use this same mentality to kickstart out savings goals and really make a difference in our financial security.

Little things add up to big changes. Don’t overlook a potential point of growth - let your income slowly build up to great things.

Welcome to the very first Carnival of Snowflakes! I am paidtwice, and I founded the Snowflake Revolution to help promote the concept of snowflaking and provide a way for people to encourage each other to make positive financial choices and reinforce each other. I am delighted to continue fostering that attitude with the very first Carnival of Snowflaking - a place for people to share their snowflaking successes, challenges, and attitudes.

First up, my Editors Picks. It was a tough call, but I’ve chosen 3 of the entries as great examples of the spirit of snowflaking:

• My Small Cents talks about her journey to becoming a snowflaker with Learning To Snowflake.
• My Daily Dollars shows us that its all in how you look at things with Snowflake State of Mind.
• Antishay Ventenne outlines how you too can build side income and use it to snowflake with An Honest Guide to Building Up Snowflakes [side income].  She also has this post available as a podcast.
  

Now, here are some excellent snowflake successes!

• Nine Circles finds snowflakes in her jewelry box with Snowflakes of Gold.
• All Things Frugal takes the first step to become a snowflaker with Snowflake Revolution.
• How I Save Money outlines her snowflake status and how far she’s come with State of the Credit Cards.
• Sometimes just getting things together enough to list things on an auction site to sell is a success in itself. Sick of Being Poor gets ready for the snowflakes to roll in with Craigslist Experience-Earning Extra Snowflakes.

Snowflaking can also come with its share of Challenges:

• Sometimes it is hard to see the forest for the trees. Tales From The Road Less Traveled works on the snowflaking mentality with Snowflaking, sort of.

Snowflaking is more than a concept, it is an Attitude:

• Remodeling This Life shows that snowflaking is about more than just money with Snowflake Your Way to a Better Self.
• Finance Gets Personal reminds us that often, we snowflaked ourselves into debt with My Credit Card Debt: An Example of Reverse Snowflaking.

Finally, there are many Methods to applying snowflaking:

• Debt Non Sequitur gives ways and places to find those snowflakes with How To Find Snowflakes.
• Dreaming of Ferraris shows that you can concentrate on multiple goals simultaneously with Snowflaking to Multiple Goals.
• My Retirement Blog wants you to remember that retirement is important too with Snowflake Your Way To Retirement
• Greener Pastures Personal Finance explains where their money goes and what to do about it with Cha-Ching Spending.
• Rocket Finance shows how he finds snowflakes with bank bonuses with $250 worth of snowflake money with Chase Freedom.

And I couldn’t resist an entry from my finance site, since I love snowflaking so much:

• I’ve Paid For This Twice Already provides 10 Can’t Miss Ways To Kickstart Snowflaking - try one!

Thanks for participating in and reading the first Carnival of Snowflaking! Next week it travels to My Daily Dollars, see you there!

Every Wednesday features a snowflaking tip from one of the Snowflake Revolution member blogs. This may be a place to find snowflakes, a method to use snowflaking, or anything else I find! If you’d like a chance to be included, send links to your best snowflaking posts to me through the join page contact form.

This week’s tip comes from Money Sucks, who uses timing to create more snowflakes. On the day before payday, they snowflake the remainder of their bank account into their savings account, as to not have that money just swept into their next paycheck. I do a similar thing, but I wait until the day after payday, because I am a nervous person. Use the timing of your money coming in to enhance your snowflaking strategies!

This Thursday will be the very first Carnival of Snowflakes.  If you have a recent post about snowflaking methods, successes, challenges, or anything else specifically snowflaking related, make sure to submit it by Wednesday at noon!  I’m really excited and we already have several hosts lined up for the next several weeks!  I will be updating the schedule today. 

Don’t delay, submit today!

There was some interest when I posted the query about having a Carnival of Snowflakes, so I went ahead and created one.  The first Carnival of Snowflakes will be hosted here at Snowflake Revolution next Thursday, April 24th!  After that, it will travel to volunteer blogs every Thursday - you can volunteer to be a future host by sending an email to join at snowflakerevolution dot com.

The host page is linked in the header of this blog or you can find it by clicking here, and posts can be entered through this blogcarnival link.  Post questions or comments and I will see you next Thursday with your snowflaking posts!

Every Wednesday features a snowflaking tip from one of the Snowflake Revolution member blogs. This may be a place to find snowflakes, a method to use snowflaking, or anything else I find! If you’d like a chance to be included, send links to your best snowflaking posts to me through the join page contact form.

This week’s tip comes from Lulugal at How I Save Money. Her tip is to lower the interest rates on your credit cards. When I had credit card debt, this was a strategy I employed to my advantage, both getting my interest rate on my credit card lowered by calling and asking, and then also transferring my debt to a 0% offer. Lulugal also got her interest rates lowered - sometimes even more than once! She kept calling until it worked.

Remember, the worst they can say is no. What do you have to lose?

Debt is the most common snowflake target discussed, but in reality there are many many things we can be snowflaking our extra pennies to. What is your snowflake target? Debt? Savings? Investments? Fun?

And what specifically is your target? If debt, what debt, and why? If savings, what are you saving for?

Let’s see how many different types of snowflakes exist out there!

Our current snowflake target is my spouse’s student loan debt. Leave a comment with yours!

When I started this network I mentioned that one of my possible future plans was to have a Carnival of Snowflakes, and Shanti reminded me of that fact by asking about the possibility of a carnival in her latest comment.

I hadn’t gone forward with the idea yet because I wasn’t sure that there was interest in a carnival, but I want to ask now - would people be interested in a Carnival of Snowflakes that traveled to different members blogs (volunteers of course)?  The carnival would be to share recent successes, setbacks, snowflake ideas, and any other snowflaking-related information published recently on your blog.  I would host the first one here to kick it off, and then when it travels to other blogs I would write a little roundup/highlight of the carnival here every Thursday.

If there is enough interest, I will set it up through blog carnival and kick it off in the next few weeks.  Leave a comment and let me know what you think!  Yays and nays are both welcome!

PS:  I also have a once weekly round-up idea for this blog in the works of members’ recent successes in quick link form, but I haven’t had the time to set everything up in my RSS reader to track it completely yet.  That plan might take me a little while longer.  :) 

Every Wednesday will feature a snowflaking tip of the week found on one of the Snowflake Revolution member blogs. This may be a place to find snowflakes, a method to use snowflaking, or anything else I find in our vast and knowledgeable membership. If you’d like a chance to be included, send links to your best snowflaking posts to me through the join page contact form.

This week’s tip comes from A Garden of Blessings, who talks about starting a garden to save money on her grocery bill, and then apply that savings as snowflakes to debt reduction. She’s been gardening as a hobby for a while, but this is the first year she is taking it on with a purpose to save money elsewhere. Great tip! Hopefully next summer I will be gardening for snowflakes as well!