I love the end of the month for the blogs since so many people post monthly updates and outlooks for the following month. It really is so very interesting to read how people live the frugal life, and I get some excellent ideas from others.

My exercise and weightloss goal went totally flat the week before Thanksgiving. I lost motivation and just gave up for about two weeks. So, I only lost 1.4 of the 3 lbs I was hoping to lose in November. It's still a loss, so I am happy. But this does mean that my December goal is 5.6 lbs. GRRR!

I called my mortgage servicer today and requested that they drop the PMI. I think (based on zillow) that I now have 78% equity in my home. They said that they would put in a work order for this and let me know within a week if they run into any issues. I was originally anticipating taking this step in March of next year, so am excited that it may happen a few months sooner. If it goes through, then that's $38.85/month more that I can put towards my principal. Even with my accelerated mortgage payoff, this will save me $6201.92 over the course of my loan, and will shave two months off my loan term. Fingers crossed that they drop it.

On another note, here is no cost donation idea for giving this season:

Since so many of us will be doing online shopping for Christmas, and probably a lot of that will come from Amazon for many folks, I wanted to put a plug in for Amazon Smile. It's a no cost way for you to give to a charity of your choice. All you do is go to www.smile.amazon.com and pick a charity that you want to support. And then instead of shopping at amazon.com, you shop at smile.amazon.com. There is no difference in price or availability to you - you're still shopping on Amazon, but when you add the "smile." bit in the URL, Amazon will donate a small portion of your purchase price to the charity you pick. It's only a few cents per purchase, but for the charities, it adds up. It's a extra way to donate without actually spending anything yourself.