Money, Love, and Change

photo credit: Stuart Chalmers

This is one instance where I am so glad that I was wrong.  Yesterday, I was wondering if our truck had finally reached the end of the road.  It turns out that the rear brakes had iced up (it’s a pickup, which explains why warming up the truck for 45 minutes had no effect).

In addition to a free tow (thanks AAA!), our auto shop didn’t charge us anything.  Maybe they felt sorry for us, or are full of the holiday spirit, but I am so thankful that we didn’t have to shell out any money.

This did serve as a huge wakeup call, though.  I don’t like the fact that we don’t have a huge down payment saved up right now, especially considering the economy.  I’ve been thinking about our 2009 goals, and am reassessing our priorities based on yesterday’s experience.  I really don’t want any car/truck loan if we can help it!

photo credit: clspeace

I woke up this morning to find that the car was gone, but the truck was still parked in the street.  My husband always takes the truck to work, so I knew that this wasn’t a good sign.

I called the husband.  He thought that the truck just needed some time to warm up, since it was cold this morning.  He said that he couldn’t get it to move.

I went out and let the truck warm up for 45 minutes.  Basically, it will start and shift into gear, but it won’t move.  At all.  I called AAA, and it’s been towed to the repair shop.  According to the tow truck guy, “The transmission’s locked.  That’s never good.”  Hmmm….

My husband is in denial that anything serious is wrong, but I have a feeling that the truck may be at the end of its road.  After dumping $1500 into it earlier this year, ponying up for transmission work on a vehicle with about 200,000 miles on it falls into my “money in the toilet” category.

We’ll see what the auto shop says.  Luckily, we can easily do with one car until at least the end of January.

Anyone got a nice reliable car for sale?

photo credit: inoc

Wow – it’s environmentally friendly, and it’s free!  Treat yourself to a one year digital magazine subscription from The Read Green Initiative. All you need to do is pick your magazine and enter your e-mail address.

Then, sign up for an account with Zinio, which provides sales and distribution of digital content.  When I signed up for my Zinio account, all I had to do was provide an e-mail address and create a password (no physical address or credit card information was required).

Being a personal finance geek, I picked Kiplinger’s for my free magazine, but there is definitely something for almost anyone (US News and World Report was one of the choices, for example).

I also installed the reader so that I can download the digital issues to read at my convenience (sans internet connection).  If you’re really into supporting the green initiative, you can also purchase subscriptions from Zinio.

If you decide to try this out, please drop a line and let me know what you think!

photo credit: ArtemFinland

As the year comes to a close, it is always nice to take a look at the finances.  Although I love tracking our finances using Microsoft Money, the level of detail doesn’t always provide a clear look at the underlying picture.

For example, our net worth is approximately the same as last year, but this is due to losses in our retirement accounts, which I am not overly concerned about.  Since we are in our early 30’s, we make regular contributions and reallocate our holdings twice a year.  It’s pretty much on auto-pilot.

But what about our debt?  And our savings?  Are we doing better than last year?  Again, it is hard to tell with Microsoft Money.  I have all of my business accounts listed, as well as our credit card that we use to make our monthly purchases (and then pay off in full each month).  These accounts can give a skewed representation of our financial picture depending on the circumstances.

This is where Mint.com enters into the picture.  Basically, it allows you to track your financial accounts online.  This morning, I spent some time entering the login information for all of our accounts.  Then, I used the “hide” function to get rid of all the accounts that were causing “financial static”.  Now, when I log in, I can easily see the totals for the accounts which represent our true emergency savings, our credit card debt, and our student loan/mortgage debt.

As an added bonus, I am also able to quickly look at our credit cards that do not carry a balance to make sure that no mysterious charges have appeared.  Given our recent experience with this, this feature alone makes it worth taking a look at Mint.com.

I wouldn’t use Mint.com for making a budget or tracking our detailed spending – I have already spent too much time with Microsoft Money to tweak it to my liking, and our finances are tracked in the program from 1999.  But now I have another financial tool in my arsenal to help us keep focused on debt reduction, and I’m really excited!

Have you used Mint.com?  If so, what do you use it for?  Are you happy with your experience?

photo credit: Fosforix

There have been a couple of times where I have disputed credit card charges in the past, but they were relatively straightforward.  Once, I was charged twice for the same item, and could not contact the company via customer service.  I contacted the credit card company, and it was taken care of almost immediately.  The second time, I was charged 10 times the correct price, and had the original receipt.  Again, the process was relatively straightforward.

Once a year, I tend to make small charges to all of our cards in order to keep them active.  I did this last month, and starting paying our bills last night.  Imagine my dismay when I found that one card had a balance of $62.10 instead of $2.10!  There was a $60 charge for a subscription to American Quarterhorse.  Not only was I clueless about what an American Quarterhorse subscription entails, but I was surprised because the $2.10 charge is the first time I have ever used the card for anything except a balance transfer.  This particular card sits in a drawer at home.

I immediately called the credit card company, and they are going to look into it.  I hope it gets resolved in a timely manner like the others!

In general, even though some credit cards allow you to file a dispute online, I like to call and talk to a person.  Getting a name and specific information helps put my mind at ease.

Have you ever had a mystery charge on a card?  What did you do?

Everything seems to be in the crapper.  With election politics heating up (and not necessarily in a good way), an economic bailout that I am pretty sure no one has a real clue about, and the American dream becoming less achievable for many, things seem to be “not so great”.

Or is it?  I think that perhaps we’re really at a turning point — a sort of reality check where those that have not been realistic about what they cannot afford need to come to terms with the consequences.  While this is happening at a personal level, I am not really sure that it is happening on Wall Street and in the government.

I know that for us, things are a lot more tight financially because we are trying to rebuild our emergency fund quickly after some major truck repairs.  But we’re really coming together as a family, mostly because I am working evenings to generate additional income to rebuild our fund.  This is an added responsibility for my husband, since he has to come home from work and take over childcare duties.

Although initially it took some getting used to, I think that this is also a great opportunity for us to really evaluate what is important in life.  I think it has helped us develop a better appreciation for what the other person is doing, since now we are both working, and both taking care of the kid alone.

We’re also very thankful that we are frugal, and can currently handle our financial situation.  I don’t need to run out and make the big $$$, but can stay at home with the kid during the day.  At the same time, it has strengthened our resolve to get out of debt, and I am working harder to generate additional income streams.

How about you?  Are you keeping your head up in today’s economy?  Why or why not?

TransUnion is offering free credit monitoring as part of the settlement in a class-action lawsuit, since they violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act and sold consumers personal and financial information to marketers.  Good stuff!

According to the site:

“The Settlement Class is defined as: All consumers who had an open credit account or an open line of credit from a credit grantor located in the United States at any time during the period January 1, 1987 to May 28, 2008.”

This pretty much means that any adult is eligible!  Today (9/24/08) is the last day to sign up at listclassaction.com.  Note that the six months of free credit monitoring will not begin until the final approval in the courts.  After approval in the courts, you will receive an e-mail that will allow you to take action.

I haven’t discussed Prosper.com much on this blog, but it is a peer-to-peer lending site that I have been thinking about getting involved with.  I was looking into the tax implications of peer-to-peer lending before getting started, but I guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore.

This morning, I got an e-mail from Prosper – basically, if you’re a resident of PA, you can no longer lend money out or sign up to be a lender.  Seems kind of sudden, despite “ongoing discussions”.  I would be pretty ticked if I were more involved in Prosper.

Are you a PA Prosper lender?  What do you think of the announcement?

We all know about some of the ways to save on our energy costs – having good windows, sealing up leaks, insulation, etc.  But once that is all said and done, how can we save money on our actual bill?

Until now, we haven’t worried too much about our natural gas bill.  We do what we can to save on heating costs, and have enrolled in our provider’s budget plan to make life easier.  The budget plan is really nice – you pay a fixed amount 11/12 months out of the year, and then pay the remaining balance on the 12th month.  We’ve been pretty happy – our monthly bill is about $95, and our remaining balance last month was less than $50.

We got our updated budget plan today, and were a little surprised.  We expected an increase, but were taken aback by a new amount of $150.  This increase is due to the expected rise in energy costs this winter.  Wow!

After looking at our provider’s website, I found that we have the option to choose our natural gas supplier, and that some of them offer fixed rate plans.  One supplier had a fixed rate plan for this year that was already 0.13 cheaper/ccf than our current rate, and it would be locked for one year.

I know that this isn’t going to add up to a lot of money if the rates stay where they are, but it is reasonable to expect that rates are going to steadily rise as winter approaches. I’m thinking that it might be a good idea to lock in a rate now.

Do you have a fixed rate plan for natural gas?  If so, I would love to hear about your experience!

It was an interesting weekend, to say the least…

On Friday evening, our tv and light started turning on and off on their own, as if possessed.  Upon investigation, we found that a switch that is used to turn on that particular outlet was extremely hot and making popping noises.  This didn’t seem good.  After cutting the circuit and letting things cool down,  we took the switch out of the wall.  It looked like it was from 1950 (when the house was built) and smelled awful.  Ironically, we smelled this earlier in the week, but thought it was the computer that had just died.

After avoiding an electrical fire on Friday, we hit the road early Saturday morning to look for a new computer (and stop at Lowe’s for a new switch).  We carried the cell phone with us, since we were hoping to pick up my husband’s truck on the way back – it was in the shop for an oil change and to have the brakes looked at (it started shimmying when going down hills this week, so we wanted to have it checked on right away).

On the way to the store, we got a call about the truck.  I knew the news could not be that good, as my husband used words such as “Really?”, “Wow”, and “Sure, Monday would be fine…” when he was on the phone with the mechanic.

“So, what’s the damage?”  I asked, after he got off the phone.

Basically, the tie rods were about to come off – the mechanic said he was surprised that my husband had not been in an accident – they were that bad.  We were also going to need new rotors, as the old ones had been machined a couple of times already.  Coupled with the annual inspection and emission test, along with a radiator flush, I knew things weren’t looking too sunny. The price tag?  Close to $1000.

My husband cringed as he broke the news – I think he was waiting for the four-letter words to start flowing, which is rare now that we have a kid.  But in old times this situation might have warranted at least a couple of them.

I kept silent for a minute, and then asked him if he thought they would let me use my $30 off $300 coupon.  We both burst out laughing.  Even the kid started laughing from his car seat, as if the idea was hilarious.

The way I see it (and my husband agrees), we are very lucky.  Our house didn’t burn down, and I much rather pay $1000 in car repair bills than have a husband in a car wreck.  We’re thankful that we have the emergency fund – a couple of years ago, this would have been a pretty big financial hurdle.  Now it’s just a bump in the road.

We’ll still put the bill on the credit card (to get the rewards), but will pay it off in the same day.  Needless to say, we’re going to put off purchasing another computer for a couple of weeks (at the very least).  I know that we still have a lot of debt, and are not close to true financial freedom yet, but it’s so nice to be able to laugh at things like this and easily see the bigger picture.

What about you?  Could you laugh this off?  Or would it have been a string of expletives?