June 19, 2008
Walking out the door, I caught myself glancing at my closet and assessing what kind of day it would be, and what outfits I could put together for the rest of the week. It seems my lunch organization is bleeding into other areas of my life.
It also seems like after being on a spending and splurging cycle for the last three weeks where I couldn’t stop the budget bleeding out on little things I’d normally control very carefully, I’m back to being content with what I’ve got, and even in the mood to go through and clear things out. Thank goodness!! I’m not into self-flagellation over this stuff, but it’s such a relief to be back in the right mindset that doesn’t undermine my efforts to keep it together.
While my personal damages weren’t on a large scale, it definitely turned into a hefty bill when combined with the insane gas prices. I think the gas expenditures have gone up to about $300+/month! I’ve been diligently trying to reduce other fixed costs to compensate, but I’ve been spending like I have money: going out, the trench coat ($23), going out to lunch last weekend ($10), new shoes ($11), buying a graduation gift for a work friend ($24), and having to give my cousin a fat $50 check for graduation. In short, enjoying life a liiiiitle more than I can afford.
Ok, that last one was not negotiable, I’m the only cousin who came to the graduation and it’s only fair that I give him what I gave his sister. It’s a family tradition that at least one older cousin will gift the younger cousins a check for their graduations.
It might not seem like much, but when the budget’s stretched tight, it makes a difference. The end of the splurge cycle comes none too soon, because I hate the feeling of treading to keep my head above water.
I had to wonder, why is it so hard for someone who is normally so at peace with being frugal to break out of a spending/splurging mentality? Sure, I figured it was temporary, but heck, I felt like I was in the grips of a six armed bear for a while! I knew I needed to NOT spend money, but there was always a reason that overrode my “Uh, well, you don’t have the budget for that …” hesitation.
And if it’s this hard for me? When I’m accustomed to self denial and maximizing returns and stretching every resource to cover the necessities? Heck, I spent half an hour deciding whether or not to get a haircut this week. Then I realized that after spending over a hundred dollars I shouldn’t have, I should pass on my $14 cut. *sigh* How incredibly hard must it be for people who haven’t had to practice this?
June 5, 2008
Ugh, my neck. I was on the phone with Verizon again. This time, I was having them switch the account to my name so that I could block all incoming collect calls.
After trying to get through their monstrously aggravating voice activated system no less than 5 times trying to make this happen, I was fed up and determined that this was going to be resolved today.
Would you believe after 35 minutes on the phone, and countless previous calls, this CSR sprang the news on me that they were going to charge set-up fees for the name change??
For-ty six dollars.
They didn’t have to do anything except change the name and run the credit check, and they wanted me to pay $46 for the privilege of having access to the bill that I’ve been paying for years. They have my credit card number and bank account numbers on file, I’ve paid that frequently, and they want to charge $46 to give me access to my own danged account! Oooooooh. NO. Not after all the trouble I’ve gone through to reduce costs to stretch my budget. I was furious.
Lest anyone think I’m consumed by a sense of entitlement, that I expected the phone company to care about my budget and expenses, I was primarily angered by the fact that not one of the other CSRs I’d spoken to had ever mentioned any fee to change the name on the account, they’d all assured me it could be done quickly and easily once I had the accountholder’s authorization.
I lost it a little bit. I might as well cancel the service entirely and just start up service with a company of my choosing if I was going to be stiffed with a set-up fee that’s meant to cover their cost for installing new phone service!
He lamely offered to break up the charge into three monthly payments, but I was adamant. I was not going to pay some trumped up charge that had never been discussed in any of the previous conversations I’d had. Period. It honestly makes no sense, they’re keeping me as an on-time paying customer, and they want to spring a charge on me after wasting how much of my time? He put me on hold again and finally came back ten minutes later “Good news!” offering to waive the charges.
I did apologize for being so stern with him, and thanked him for the help.
Then it turned out that there’s a one time fee for initiating a block on collect calls and a monthly fee on top of that. He quickly offered to waive the one time fee, though. Guess I made an impression! *sigh* I’m so not willing to pay even more to avoid possible future charges. I haven’t made up my mind yet, so I guess there’s more phone time to log with Verizon in my future.
May 29, 2008
[Image Credit: lifestyle.hexus.net]
Had a nice chat with my ISP this morning. They’ve been increasing my bill from the promotional $14.95 to $17.99, and now to $21.99. I politely let the cancellation department know that I’m not happy with the sporadic billing that increases every so often without warning, and I’ve not been particularly satisfied with their service, so I’m considering other service providers. Before I change, though, I’d like to give them a chance to keep my business.
Without skipping a beat, the CSR offered me the cheapest price on the current service I have: $14.95 for a year, with a free month. I can totally live with that. I should be expecting a partial credit on my bill for this month since they bill a month ahead, and a free month next, and $14.95 thereafter.
There were a couple of collect calls on the phone bill, and while I’m not going to get into the details or get upset, I’m putting a stop to that immediately. I’m going to have to get the phone bill transferred to my name first since it’s still in my brother’s name, go figure, the guy who’s not paid a bill ever, and then block all incoming collect calls.
Nice to get all that out of the way.
May 21, 2008
This is a bit more outrageous than the skyrocketing ticket prices, and the charge for an additional checked bag: American Airlines plans to start charging $15 for the first checked bag on June 15th. The free preview blurb on WSJ states that the fee applies to “some fliers” but as I can’t read the whole article, I don’t know which statement is more accurate. Now, I can understand limiting the additional checked bag: reducing that much extra weight, or receiving some compensation for it to offset the costs of gas makes sense. They’ve got to be able to do business, after all.
But, charging for the first checked bag? What’s next, carry-ons? They should understand that their cost-cutting measures will soon reach the point of diminishing returns. In an informal poll, more than half of the poll takers indicate they’d rather stop checking bags than pay the fee. And in a lot of cases, that’d be my reaction. But for long distance flights where not checking a bag isn’t an option? I just won’t even fly American. And if they start losing passengers, if they’re flying more seats than people because it’s not worth it to pay an extra $40 ($15 for the first, $25 for the second) for checking two bags, that rather defeats the purpose of cutting costs and increasing revenue, doesn’t it?
Perhaps my reaction is a little extreme. After all, if the ticket prices are low enough to stay competitive, even taking the checked bag fee into consideration, perhaps this isn’t a bad move on American’s part. It is in line with the trend towards a la carte services that most airlines have taken with food and other amenities.
What do you think? Will you continue to fly this airline, and if so, would you pay to check your bags or will you become a super-carry-on packer?
May 13, 2008
There’s got to be a flaw in my planning somewhere here. There’s money in the bank, so why do I feel broke? Because it’s all spoken for? Because I’m shifting money from one account to another to cover the rent check? Probably. I worry that I’ve been reckless and irresponsible somehow, and that’s why I still have to pull together funds, and why I feel so danged broke. Is this my rainy-day version of Bag Lady Syndrome?
I have a certain amount of money that I’m allowed in my expense account per paycheck, and then everything left over goes to rent. I must be sorely underbudgeted in the rent department, because I’m coming up short part way through the month, and the expense account has to make up the difference.
This is me freaking out a little. Again, money is in the bank, but it’s all for real emergencies or upcoming expenses. I’ve got nothing freed up for the here and now. But my planning couldn’t have been that far off. It’s supposed to be really quite close to my actual expenditures, so why the difficulty in pulling it all together?
Hmmm ….. ok, here’re the problems: The bills for the multiple deductibles are all coming due at the same time. The truck still hasn’t been sold. This is the first time I’ve got a surplus set aside for auto insurance, so I’m still feeling the effects of juryrigging that into the system, as the last payment is on the same credit card. And PaDucky was in a tight spot last month and I had to lend him a substantial amount, only 60% of which he’s paid back in time for me to make up the rent.
So, $2120 of the $2227 credit card bill I’m about to pay is on actual bills. Honest-to-goodness, had to pay ’em, BILLS. Another $50 is for medical stuff; I’ll be reimbursed from my FSA. That means I spent $50 on myself. Ten to eat out, seven to treat a friend to Pinkberry, and $33 on an outfit I’m still feeling guilty about and haven’t admitted to buying until now. *oooops!*
*deep breath* So I was only $33 irresponsible. There’s still a juggle, and I’m still going to be struggling to make the ends meet because I’m NOT allowed to delve into other funds for expenses, but at least it wasn’t because I was careless. Silver lining?
April 30, 2008
| Retirement Savings |
Rollover IRA: $1,357
Roth IRA: $3,669
401(a): $3,742
403(b): $16,129
Total: $24,897
|
| Emergency Savings |
15,004
|
| Goal Oriented Savings |
Car Maintenance: $21
Savings for taxes: $4,800
Total: $4,821
|
| Investment Loans |
Prosper-ish: $12,630
Personal Loan: $5,000
Total: $17,630
|
| Total Assets |
Non-Liquid: $24,897
Semi-Liquid: $17,630
Liquid: $19,825
Expense Acct: $3,691
Total: $66,043
|
| Debt and Liabilities |
Truck: $5,847
Citi: $2229
American Express: $153
Chase: $358
Rent: $1,360
Total: $9,589
|
| Net Worth |
$56,454
|
Most of my gains were due to retirement contributions during the two months between this and the last snapshot I put together. I’m surprised that I, at least, kept the amounts I contributed, considering the market’s performance. Still need to re-examine my allocations, using Moom‘s Madame X series as a guide.
I’ve paid my tax bill, which was offset by a state refund, so the cash situation is half settled. I haven’t received my rebate yet. At that point, I think I’ll decide what to do with the lump sum of tax savings money. It’s mainly going to be divvying it up between the other smaller savings/expense accounts that have been neglected until now: auto maintenance was drained, insurance is perpetually lonely, the intermediate emergency fund has been languishing, and a little has to be set aside for upcoming Con. If there’s anything left after those are taken care of, I’d love to open a vacation/fun fund. That’ll be a first!!
Oh, and I need a moving out fund. I vaguely envisioned funding that from paychecks and miscellaneous income through the rest of this year, since the other major savings goals may be set. Regardless of the source, I need to set an actual number for that.
March 9, 2008
Thank you all for your encouragement and support these past couple of days. I know I’ve been on an uncharacteristically lengthy binge of unhappy and depressing news. While one weekend of attempted rejuvenation won’t undo all the emotional and physical distress, I’m going to view this as a sign that I need to make some changes to better cope with the sandstorms of life. This is the beginning of a journey towards a healthier, more-together me.
I took care of a lot of business on Friday and then gave myself permission to relax the rest of the weekend. Then actually went out and did it. Check it out ….
First, the bank charges? Will have to eat them. I called, and Wamu’s new policy is that they’ll only waive one set of fees per year. Thanks to the fiasco I might not have blogged about in January, wherein my mom cashed checks against my account, her employer screwed up and stop paymented those checks when they meant to stop payment other checks they’d mistakenly duplicated, which meant Returned Item fees, I’m out of luck. Sadly, had I consulted the crystal ball, I would have paid that $20 charge and gotten the refund on this much more substantial $60 set. *sigh* No more bank errors allowed!
Second, I made the first of a few e-fund to expense fund transfers last week, but on second and third look, my math does not actually work. The plan was to transfer the total amount of money I’d need that week, and continue on a weekly basis. Except, the bill total and transferred total do not match. I have no idea what I was thinking, but I need to recalculate the amounts in my checking account and the past week’s transaction history to unravel my mistake. Hmmm….. otherwise I’m just going to transfer exact amounts from here on out, and not worry if I’ve accidentally left a cushion in the checking account. Losing interest on a couple hundred dollars is nothing compared to overdraft charges that I didn’t see coming.
Third, we buried my dog. He passed away at home, so I didn’t have to take him to the vet after all. My last dog seems to realize she’s an only child now, and is a little more willing to be in the house with people than she ever was before.
Fourth, I fixed the flat and got an oil change for under $75 dollars. In fact, once I submit the $10 rebate for the oil change, taking the $30 charge to $20, the total will be a whopping $52 for both services, and they qualify as valid charges for Driver’s Edge Options Redemptions. I can finally redeem some of those credits! I only have $80 worth, but it’s still great to have something paid for by rebates.
Fifth, I’ve been making rookie mistakes in choosing the right credit card to pay with lately, and that’s unusual. To help my discombobulated brain, I’m sticking a green star on the card I should be using for all regular purchases. Looks silly, but if it works, I don’t care.
Sixth, the sedan’s out of the shop. Now I just need to get my car’s repairs taken care of, and the truck is no longer necessary to substitute for the regular cars.
Seventh, the bills for the week are paid. Nothing but the rent to worry about this week.
Things Left to Do:
Grocery shopping (tomorrow)
Call Verizon and change the credit card they automatically bill
Call the insurance and make arrangements for my car to be fixed
Decide if I want to go see BoyDucky this or next weekend (I’d use an award ticket)
Continue to wonder why I still haven’t seen a bill for my Early Termination Fee from T-Mobile, but do nothing about it (that includes getting stressed about it)
Call the city and find out why they’re billing me for more than one trash bin when we only use one
