Money, Love, and Change

“Keep steadily before you the fact that all true success depends at last upon yourself.”

Author: Theodore T. Hunger

We’re going camping, and we are all pretty excited.  I am falling a little behind today, but will be back tomorrow.  Enjoy your Friday!

OK, I am a sucker.  I wanted free access to my credit score, and when I got the offer from WaMu for a card that had free access to FICO scores, I signed up.

There were no balance transfer fees, so I did a small balance transfer from a higher interest (3.99%) credit card.  I planned to pay it off in full before incurring any interest charges.  I would get free access to my credit score, and everyone would be happy.

After a couple of weeks, I had not gotten my card, but the balance transfer had occurred (I knew this from checking the card the transfer had been from).  I called Customer Service, and asked where my card was.  After being treated like a two-year-old (I understood I  had done a balance transfer, but they wanted to keep explaining this to me), I was told that I couldn’t pay the card until I received mine in the mail.

It did come a couple of days later, and I paid off the balance in full, still a week ahead of the due date.  I checked my balance today, and guess what?  A finance charge had been assessed.

I called Customer Service, and was given the run-around yet again.  After explaining my situation to a supervisor, nothing was done, so I paid the finance charge (less than $3) and canceled the card.

Ironically, every time I tried to access my FICO score online, I got a message saying that the service was temporarily unavailable.

Have you experienced anything similar with a WaMu card?  Or was I an isolated incident?

It’s not quite 10am, and my 2-year-old son is down for a nap (he usually sleeps in the early afternoon).  He has a gym class at 10:30am, but won’t be going.  The one part of traveling that I don’t like is trying to get the kid back into a routine.

I follow 3 rules to help get my little one back on track:

1.  Let them sleep:  Most kids need to catch up on sleep after traveling, whether they like to admit it or not.  Between 8 and 9 am this morning, my son had a serious case of the yawns.  Factor in the 5 trips to time-out, and it’s not hard to figure out that he needs some more sleep.

2.  Don’t force them to do their normal activities right away:  Although we’ve already paid for the class, I just don’t see the benefit of making my son go to a class he isn’t going to enjoy.  There is no reason to make small kids attend their normal activities when tired.

3.  Change the eating/snack schedule to the times when your kids are hungry:  Breakfast this morning was 1/2 piece of toast.  Instead of pushing the issue, I just fixed him another slice when he was hungry again.  If I know my son, today will be filled with 5-6 snack times but no real meals.  It just takes him some time to adjust.  I do make sure that there aren’t a lot of special treats – his snacks are just like meals, only the portions are smaller.

Although there is some temptation to immediately return to the normal routine, there is usually 1-2 days where we just “go with the flow”.  Sleeping, eating, and activity schedules are not normal, but allowing for a period of adjustment makes life easier for everyone.

What do you like to do to help ease the transition?

Although we were a little worried about the cost of traveling, it was a wonderful weekend.  My grandma is in her 80’s, but she is still very active.  She had a pillow fight with my son on Saturday (not an all-out pillow fight, but still an official pillow fight) – this alone made the trip worthwhile.  We were also able to spend a lot of Sunday outside, which was really nice.

Now it’s time to return to the daily routine, but I’m so glad we took the short trip.  Even with gas and food (I picked up Subway for the trip down – it was $12), we came in under $175.

What did you do this weekend?  Are you glad you did it?  Would you have rather been doing something else?

We are getting ready to travel to NY to see my mom and great-grandma.  They haven’t seen the kid since January, so we are really looking forward to the visit.  I hope that everyone really has a nice weekend and gets to spend some quality time with their family!

I won’t be dropping Entrecards, but I will be sure to drop on everyone who drops their card this weekend once I get back.  Take care, and if you are traveling, be safe!

I’m just going to say that I have a real problem with these projections.  Articles like this one at MSN try to put a salary tag on a stay-at-home mom.

Here’s my salary projection for the stay-at-home mom: Priceless.

Guess what?  I would also put the priceless tag on the stay-at-home dad, the working dad, and the working mom.  There is no way to place a dollar sign on the sacrifice every parent makes for their child (or children).

Whether we choose to stay-at-home or work, most parents are just trying to do what is best for their kids.   We are trying to balance making the most of today while trying to create a good future as well.

That’s all I have to say about that.  What do you think?

Both my husband and I are science geeks, but we try not to drill too much science into our 2-year-old. I thought we were doing a pretty good job, until I looked in the bathtub tonight.

We have bathtub crayons (a guaranteed fun bath!), and I noticed the molecular structure for water on the shower wall. I politely asked my husband about this, since I was pretty sure it was not the kid’s artwork. He said that our kid wasn’t liking the other drawings of water (water drops, water in a glass, etc.), but was appeased with the molecular structure.

I thought this was so cute! Do we have a future scientist on our hands?

I hope to post later today, but want to continue with my idea of a thoughtful quote:

“The only difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is the way in which we use them.”

Author: Unknown

I have mentioned in some previous posts about how my husband’s old job is being relocated to China.  He recently found a job with the same company in a different building, and things are going ok.  The commute is still long though – about 70 miles round-trip per day.  He used to commute to work with a friend in the same department, but his friend had to find a different job as well.

My husband and his friend have decided to start carpooling again – their new jobs are relatively close in terms of distance, and are settled into their jobs to the point that things have become predictable in terms of hours.  This is really exciting for us for the following reasons:

1. We will be saving money on gas.  It’s a little tough to estimate exactly how much – the gas gauge on the truck doesn’t work, so my husband fills up when the trip odometer is somewhere in 300 mile range.  Some weeks he fills up once, and other times twice.  It costs between $35-$40 each time.  I haven’t been separating our gas costs by vehicle, so to be safe I would estimate that we will be saving about $75 a month.
2. Perhaps more importantly, we will be increasing the life span of the truck.  It’s getting closer to 200,000 miles, and anything we can do to cut down on the mileage is great.  Every time we take it in for an oil change, there have been small repairs.  The less we take it in to the shop, the better!
3. It’s good for the environment.
4. My husband won’t have to physically drive to and from work a couple of days of the week.  The drive is mostly scenic, but the last 10 miles is beltway and traffic jams.  Not having to be the driver a couple of days a week is a nice change of pace.
5. My husband also gets to renew a friendship.  Now that they work in different locations, it is difficult for he and his friend to get together.  This will give them the chance to catch up.

I am hoping that the money saved will counter the increasing gas and food prices.  I would like to think that we could snowflake some of the money, but I think it is more realistic to expect to break even.

Would you consider carpooling?  Why or why not?