June 27, 2016
Like a scab, I keep picking at it reminding myself how much money we just spent to see if I’m over it yet. (Nope.)
My 3.5 year old phone was slowly spiraling down the drain, losing capabilities as the months ticked by, and I stubbornly refused to replace it thinking that I’d miraculously figure out how to revive it. Part of this was money stubbornness. I didn’t WANT to spend the money, period. Part of it was the fact that my research on replacement phones has yielded nothing but frustration.
My priorities in no particular order: cost, lots of memory, great camera, can consistently make calls and send texts, the right size.
That last one was shockingly hard to manage. This trend of ever-larger phones is tough on my small and rickety hands. I didn’t want a tiny phone, my eyes aren’t 21 anymore, but it also couldn’t be enormous.
I’ve loved my experience with Android phones. It’s been six mostly happy years on Android, and six years post-iPhone, so I really didn’t want to change back to the iPhone.
But all the Androids suffer from giantitis, alas. The shockingly few that don’t were well out of my desirable price range. They also felt like a more risky purchase because I had never used those brands before, and the smaller handsets were brand new designs. I had what felt like premonitory (but probably weren’t) flashes of paying for a lemon that couldn’t be replaced.
Apple, however, had just released an iPhone that was 4 inches with plenty of memory. For $500. Oh lordy, I couldn’t face the thought.
I kept browsing, putting off the replacement, and the inevitable.
Well, I was asking for it. Sure enough, the plan to buy well before my old phone died to give myself some options became the “oh crap, buy a replacement phone tomorrow!” quest.
In one of those Monty Pythonesque moments, JuggerBaby grabbed my hand at the park, dragging me to the exit with all haste. Between saving hir face from abruptly meeting the cement, and catching myself from being swung into the brick wall while saving hir face, my phone popped out of my pocket. It fell screen first, of course, like a piece of buttered toast always seems to land butter side down. A terrible victim of gravity and circumstance, it landed on a most-unfortunately placed rock at the park. At first I thought it was only chipped, but the damage was done. Within days, the screen responsiveness was nil and I was at my computer placing an order for in-store pickup.
Going to the dark (Apple) side
You wouldn’t think that after ponying up nearly $550 for the phone itself that I would balk at another $30 for shipping, or an additional $20 for a SIM card but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t.
I could have ordered from T-Mobile if I wanted to pay in installments rather than taking the hit all at once. It was tempting but why pay an extra $50 for the privilege of paying over time? If I had a place to stash that cash where it would generate some serious returns, sure, but I don’t and I didn’t want to think about this for 36 months.
Instead, we planned a family outing into the city and took JuggerBaby on hir first subway ride into San Francisco and Union Square.
iPhone, with tax: $542.66
Otterbox case: $10
City adventure, BART: $15
We toured the brand new Apple store, (only 2 weeks old!) and enjoyed a snack-lunch on the lovely outdoor porch attached to the store. Inside, they were prepping for some presentation with a floor to ceiling screen and before heading back to the BART, we lounged in the lounging-type room on the clearly kid friendly furniture.
We watched as a small pack of kids, JuggerBaby included, constructed a tunnel of chair blocks to crawl through. One odd and creepy little girl, dirt smeared all over her face, ignored by her dad, took it in her head to try bullying JuggerBaby. She kept bringing chips over and leaning in close to JuggerBaby’s face to say “MMMM!!!” while holding the chips out of JuggerBaby’s reach. I’m not sure what that was meant to accomplish, JuggerBaby was confused about why this kid was being such a jerk because ze is used to kids who share and aren’t jerks.
Perhaps ze is a little spoiled by the people in hir world right now. In daycare, ze loves sharing hir food and snacks with everyone, and generally assumes that others are similarly inclined.
The weekend before, ze smiled to a little girl, maybe 5 or 6 years old, hanging out by the deli with a bag of chips, and waved at hir chips. We chided hir, “those are her chips, come on, let’s go.” But the girl quickly hopped off the wall and came over to give JuggerBaby a chip. It was awfully cute, but also a pleasant surprise.
Anyway, the phone. It was successfully retrieved and even came with equipped with a SIM card that was prepared for T-Mobile for no extra charge.
So, what do I think?
I deeply appreciate a phone that works. Being able to make and receive calls when needed, send and receive texts, check my work email from the road, being able to navigate the phone’s touchscreen relatively reliably? AMAZING.
After a couple weeks of it, I can say that I’m not in love but I am definitely not unhappy that I bought it.
I know. Resounding endorsement, right?
- The camera quality is great. Especially compared to the not-quality of my last phone. Both photographer and subject had to stay perfectly still if there was a hope of the photo to maybe come out clearly. Clearly that was ideal for my fast-moving child and dog.
- I detest the inability to attach photos from anything but iCloud. We primarily use Google photos to share photos but iOS and Gmail are simply not compatible in the way they were on an Android. I hate having to find workarounds to attach a file from my phone.
- Some apps are clunkier for iOS. This was a surprise.
- I miss being able to toggle between apps on screen without exiting them officially by hitting the Home button which I have to do on iOS. (If I’m wrong, please tell me what I should be doing instead!)
- The native Health app is both creepy and helpful: it automatically tracks my steps so now I’m obsessively checking my metrics. Before I couldn’t be sure how low my activity was on high pain days, now I have metrics. It may not be good for a mind that has a tendency to obsess over data, but it is satisfying to set a goal of hitting at least a mile every day and see how activity correlates positively with more manageable days. I wouldn’t say low pain, those are rare, but when the pain is not in my spine or more than two limbs, it’s possible to push myself to hit that minimum activity level. (Yes, I know a mile is nothing for a normal human but I have to start somewhere when most days it feels like I’m wrestling a sack of decrepit bones and overtaxed sinew out the door.)
I may never be an Apple cultist, never have been, but I am a great fan of having functioning electronics. Cross your fingers that I didn’t just jinx myself again.
:: Do you have brand loyalty when it comes to your phones? Have you had a great experience with either Apple or Android? Should I spring for AppleCare or is that a waste of money?
*Part of Financially Savvy Saturdays on brokeGIRLrich, Disease Called Debt and Money Can Buy Me Happiness
June 13, 2016
Hallelujah!
FINALLY.
I can’t express how relieved I am.
Though I’m not always talking the talk, I’m walking the PF blogger walk. We balance our spending and saving, minimize bills, spend consciously, auto-save, invest with only very little reckless abandon, abandon cable, don’t eat out every night. The one thing we’ve not done is cut the “luxury” of having a second car.
For several months, we were a 1-car family and normally I would have reveled in the experiment: lower mileage, less gas “wasted”, no insurance for that car. But it turns out that also imposes levels of restriction that don’t fit our reality. Once, I wondered if it’d be worth the savings to cut our second car. This experimental period highlighted that answer very clearly for us.
The puzzle: We had one vehicle that also held JuggerLB’s car seat. We had a loaner that I couldn’t drive without exacerbating my pain so basically PiC had a loaner.
Inconvenience was also wastefulness
PiC could go to work alone in the loaner and leave us the car, or he could take the car and JuggerBaby, and leave me with a loaner I couldn’t drive. Since daycare is on the way to work for him, and my day goes in the opposite direction, we’d have to double our commute if I wanted the car during the week. It was highly inefficient and I found myself canceling appointments “until we have a car again”. It just wasn’t worth the waste of time and gas.
The grocery store and a few other places are within walking distance for your average healthy person. I’ve tried and deeply regretted making the hike to pick up “just a few things”. Nothing quite like being caught out in the rain, carrying fifteen pounds of groceries because who makes a huge trek for just a couple things? in a rapidly disintegrating tote bag, and with legs and back threatening to give out right now.
Disproportionate burdens
On days JuggerLB was going to daycare, I couldn’t squeeze in errands outside my work routine that would have helped ease the weekend pressure. No grocery shopping, doctor’s appointments, vet appointments, picking up prescriptions, or a gallon of milk. These were all things that PiC had to do on his way home, or we’d have to contort our schedules to accommodate. We couldn’t afford the lost hour or more that carpooling would have added to everyone’s day.
With one and a half cars, don’t check my math, we had to do everything together, or when we were all in the same place. Weekends were a bit easier to manage the “do everything together” strategy, limited to 3 hour stretches, but neither of us felt comfortable leaving the other one home along with JuggerLB and no car in case of emergency. You might remember the Day of the Horrible Raisin? It wouldn’t have been half so exhausting if I had the car.
That usually translates to me staying home and PiC running all the errands in the loaner. Better for my energy, but tough for PiC’s time, and not ultimately sustainable.
The pain of paying is much lower than not paying
This is a strange thought but paying for the use of a second car is far preferable to the disruption of doing without. I’ll admit to being tempted to cave and just buying a new car off the lot, for about ten minutes, but we stayed strong and we didn’t take that shortcut.
Running the numbers
We received a $6000 check from our insurance, $1000 cash from the buyer of the salvaged car, $1200 from the Other Driver’s insurance covering our deductible and replacement car seat. PiC also sold $400 of car gear from the Doggle-chariot.
We paid for the new car seat, 2 car inspections, the cost of the car itself, the sales tax to the DMV, transportation to go get the car, and a substantial overhaul with a trusted mechanic friend. All told, cost ran just over $10,000. The insurance bill just arrived and the new premium is less than the premium for the destroyed Doggle-chariot so it’s good to see that regular expense will be lower too, and by the way writing this up reminded me to go pay it so blogging is still good for my finances!
Useful Tip: Our insurance advised us to keep our Doggle-chariot policy during this hunt for the replacement. The value would be refunded at the end, but doing so would allow us to keep our multi-vehicle discount on the remaining car instead of bumping that premium unnecessarily. If ever you’re in this situation, check to see if that applies to you too.
We did have to buy a few accessories to protect this car from dog and child – they just keep on shedding and growing (well, the child does) which means seat protectors were in order. They were reasonably priced and I used my Amazon GC earnings from Swagbucks to pay for it.
After deducting the cash and checks, we spent almost $2,000 out of pocket for the new-to-us car. That’s real cash, no doubt about it, but under the circumstances, it darn well beats financing a new daily driver at $20,000 plus interest.
Last, there’s no monetary price we can put on the cost of PiC’s time and the goodwill of expert friends who helped us during the search. We burned quite a lot of social capital and I hate doing that, that’s probably the biggest reason I wanted this settled.
We weren’t planning on this expense now – we had hatched plans of upgrading to a bigger car in a few years, but tabled the discussion in favor of saving more money and growing our nest egg. Naturally a month after that agreement is when that idiot driver hit us. Seems my old friend Murphy hasn’t strayed far!
:: How did your last car cost? Will you be on the car hunt any time soon? Do you enjoy the hunt for a new or new to you vehicle? What’s your strategy?
June 8, 2016
I ran across Blue Bloods on Netflix and flipped it on to be background noise. I was surprised to find myself enjoying the show. It’s wish fulfillment. Isn’t most tv?
I’m neither anti-establishment nor pro-police. I’ve multitudes of family and friends in both law enforcement and the military and, as a result, have had the ideals of what police and military are meant to be instilled in me early on. Not all of our police departments conduct themselves with the honor and integrity we should be able to expect from them. They’re in positions of authority, and with that, I’m all about Uncle Ben-isms here: With great power comes great responsibility. I wish more people understood that.
The main characters, the Reagan family, seem to be everything I’m not: white, Irish, Catholic, family with years of service in the police force. I disagree, and sometimes vehemently, with some of the storylines that they run and stereotypes they perpetuate. And it’s not escaped my notice that there aren’t very many Asian faces, if any, in the show. I’ve noticed this more and more. It’s not like there aren’t Asian actors but you wouldn’t know it from watching this drama, or most other shows, on mainstream tv.
It drew me in because there’s a kernel of what I know police can be: balancing fair and tough, trying to do the right thing by the citizens, trying to serve and protect, without seeing the citizens as the enemy. This is what my family LEOs try to be and what I wish we could have confidence in. The Reagans are flawed but fundamentally good people trying to do the right thing for the good of the people, wrestling with thorny ethical problems, held to a mostly higher standard because the patriarchs were both officers who served as police commissioners. And they make mistakes. But they learn from them.
It’s wish fulfillment another way, too. Would you believe there are moments I fight off envy of that family? Envy that the family fights for one another, looks out for one another? Envy for made up characters in a tv show. Can you beat that?
Professionalism isn’t just for sometimes
Jamie Reagan: “On the side of the patrol car that I drive, it says ‘courtesy, professionalism and respect, not judge, jury, and executioner!'”
The public should be able to trust that you practice the ideals you say you stand for. Your customers, your clients, and your employers should also be able to trust that you will make the best decisions you can whether or not someone is watch. Whether or not it’s convenient.
Danny Reagan: “Your money doesn’t make me stupid.”
Having money is, and provides, a certain kind of privilege. It shouldn’t buy you more rights, and having less money shouldn’t mean you have fewer rights. And money shouldn’t dictate how you treat a person, or your job. Or here in California, it shouldn’t buy you the right to squander precious and scarce natural resources because you’re a fat cat jerk who thinks that your money buys you the rights to waste water on keeping a lawn green while there isn’t enough for people to drink or bathe in.
Frank Reagan: “If what she said doesn’t count because it was a she who said it, then it doesn’t belong in police work.”
Sexism has no place in your professional conduct.
Parenting: it’s a lifetime of terror
Jamie, whinging about his dad being overprotective: “You’d think it was him they put a hit on.”
Oh kid, you have no idea how much a caring parent would 1000x rather they were harmed in their child’s place if it would save their child pain.
Financial responsibility starts early
Frank Reagan: You should learn to cook. There are a few years between eating out on your parents’ dime and when you can afford it yourself.
Kids should understand early on that what they’re enjoying now, as a result of their parents’ hard work, is something they have to work up to. You don’t typically graduate from high school or college and have the ability to buy a 3 bed, 2 bath, with a yard and garage, and eat out every week.
Have discretion, always
Renzulli rips into Jamie: You were undercover and you didn’t tell me?
Isn’t the point of undercover is that you don’t tell anyone? I get that there’s an extra bond of loyalty between partners but in general, I think it makes sense to maintain your cover.
PC Frank Reagan to DCPI Garrett: Can you keep a secret?
DCPI Garrett: Yeah.
PC Frank Reagan: Good, so can I.
:: Are there tv shows that you were surprised to enjoy? Does the homogeneity of TV-land match your real life experience? Are there any shows on Netflix or Amazon Prime that would make me feel better about the world? Or that are worth trying?
June 6, 2016
Last year, we managed a tidy prepayment on the mortgage and I was hooked on the taste of paying it DOWN.
DRUMROLL PLEASE
After more than five months of painful paperwork and terrible service, we finally refinanced our dang mortgage!
The process
I shopped rates on BankRate, with Quicken Loans, Bank of America, Chase, Citi, SoFi.
The lowest possible rate offered was on a 30-year 7/1 ARM at SoFi. My internal conflict raged: a very low interest rate equals big savings and a huge increase in cash flow. But an ARM? I’m a low-to-moderate risktaker and at first, the idea that the rate increase could spike to nearly 8% in Year 8, while symmetrical, is risk that I wasn’t sure I wanted. Partly because of my love for maximum savings, I was 80% sure that the ARM was the right way to go and 20% an irrational worrywart because of the high ceiling on the allowed rate increase.
Cut to a scene of me doing calculations on ARMs vs fixed rates like a squirrel hopped up on an illicit stash of nuts.
The math showed that I was right. Even if we only paid the new, low, monthly payment for the next 7 years, in the worst case scenario of the interest increasing to 7.5%, the monthly payment would still be a couple hundred dollars less than what we pay now. In the meantime, our new monthly payment would be under $1000 per month and the interest rate? Under 3%.
A review of SoFi Mortgage
Hands down terrible. Absolutely NOT RECOMMENDED.
StackingPennies had described her experience refinancing her student loans with Earnest: “It was very much a Silicon Valley company designed for millennial who can’t stand bad web design, inefficient processes, or too many phone calls.” SoFi and Earnest are competitors in the same market so I assumed they’d be competitive. I also gave them a shot because several friends had praised them for their student loan refinances.
My experience with them? Awful. No good. Very Bad. I had a better time of it when I bought our investment property with a long distance broker and a traditional lender. They were the total opposite of what I expected.
I asked them to conduct everything by email because I needed everything in writing and my work doesn’t allow for me to stop for phone calls. It took three phone calls and three weeks to get them to comply with this one request. Meanwhile, they kept badgering PiC by phone. Why? I don’t even know.
Their email communication was like risque summer wear: barely there, and totally unprofessional when it did show up.
One of the weeks when we were in contact, we exchanged more than 20 emails because the assistant couldn’t possibly manage to ask me for a complete list of required documents. She had to ask for nearly 20 documents across 7 emails. You’d think she was being paid by email volume. The rest of the time, she was so unclear in her terminology I had no idea what she was asking for. Then she couldn’t possibly make sure that all the files she requested had a home for upload on the submission site. Then the submission site was a total jerk and would eat some of the files that I uploaded.
They kept getting important details wrong, and giving me important information too late. They’d send random clutches of documents for signatures without any explanation. Without fail, they’d ask me for documentation at absolutely the latest possible time to ask and then rush me to supply it. As if I don’t have a full time job, by virtue of which I qualify for the dang loan, and just sit here chewing on my nails, nervously awaiting the next email to fulfill their desires.
Can I remind you that it took nearly half a year to complete this? My last mortgage took less than 20 days to finalize from the point of agreement with the buyer to closing.
It’s like the alien wearing Edgar in Men in Black II. They superficially look like a modern, tech-savvy, version of a mortgage company but the skin barely covers up the fact they are really not human.
Go figure – when I shared my frustrations with some friends, half a dozen told me that they hated SoFi’s mortgage side too. Every complaint I had was echoed, and in some cases, they definitely had it worse. A few of them abandoned ship when they were in their 4th month. I can’t blame them.
The end result
It’s OVER. If I’m lucky, if I work these cards right, the next time I have to talk to them is when we pay off the loan. Wait, I’d better not have to talk to them then. Just send me that dang title.
Our mortgage is now a sane amount.
I’m happy the refinance is concluded but that took so long, I’m ready for the next phase already. Which is what?
Now I take advantage of our extra cash flow to pay down the mortgage even more! My goal is to throw at least $70K in extra payments at the loan over the next 7 years, assuming stable income over that time.
If we manage that, we’ll be within $100,000 of payoff.
There remains the question of whether we might attempt to buy a larger home during that time. We’d both really like a bit more room but it doesn’t feel realistic. I stalk the market monthly. The prices just keep going up, and quality isn’t in line with the cost. We can’t find anything that gives us enough space to warrant a move but also isn’t a dump for under $1.5M. I don’t yet see where I make room in our current budget to save 40-60% of a greater than $1M amount in less than 7 years. (I refuse to take out a jumbo loan.)
I’m also unsure I want to start over with a new mortgage – we’ll be so close to paying this one off! I’d love to be mortgage free and stay that way. Contrast that against my love of more dogs and hope for more space (but not too much) … I’m not sure yet which will win out.
:: Do you have an ARM or a fixed-rate mortgage, or no mortgage at all? What’s your dream home goal? Are you a someday owner or a forever renter?
May 30, 2016
Hawaii is awesome.
But Hawaii is also very expensive. It’s a high COLA and it’s only somewhat cheaper to have fun there if you’re resident because you can take advantage of the kama’aina rates. Otherwise, it’s expensive to buy groceries, eat out, and get around.
Part of this was possible because – well, I was going to say “we lucked into basically free accommodations” but that’s not accurate – our accommodations didn’t cost anything out of pocket but it wasn’t precisely free. We offer home-cooked meals, the guest bedroom, and rides to and from the airport to a variety of friends and family. This costs money, time and effort on our part but we don’t begrudge the hospitality because we have learned to set boundaries and offer only what we can truly give.
On occasion, and without any hints or nudges from us because we don’t expect it, some friends will offer us the same, either in their home or wherever they’re traveling.
In this case, friends happened to be traveling to Hawaii, had a free room in their rental home, and offered it to us. We were responsible for all our other costs, but we were welcome to stay for free and that was most excellent.
When free isn’t exactly free
Now you know me – when someone says “I have a free room for you in Hawaii”, I’m gonna say, hold on, lemme see if I can afford that “free” room. It costs something to get there, to get around, and to survive there, ya know! But it’s Hawaii and it’s been years since our last real vacation where I wasn’t pretty much working the whole time so of course I was going to find a way to make it work.
And indeed I did.
Our travel cost breakdown
Lodgings, $0 (est cost for 1 week, non-fancy: $2100)
Airfare for 3*, $35 (cost if we paid cash: $1500)
Groceries and eating out, $230
Gas, $20
Rental car for 1 week, $130
Taxi, $50
Boarding, $450
Gifts and things, $150
total: $1065
How did that happen?
After a few hours of research, I settled on flying United, hoping to snag a pair of fancy First Class / Coach class combination flights. The extra stop and short leg in Coach class meant that it was a Mixed Class booking and therefore would cost fewer miles.
If that worked out, I theorized that we could manage not buying a seat for JuggerLB who, even several months ago, was already unbearably wiggly. I succeeded in piling up enough miles with a couple of credit card bonuses, but failed to finalize the booking because we weren’t allowed to combine all our miles into one account to book the two seats at the same time. Drat.
Never mind, thought, we still had enough miles then to book three coach class seats which gave us the wiggle room that was sorely needed with JuggerLB.
The car rental nearly torpedoed my hopes when I saw the rates trending around $300-400 for the week. Put together with the fee to board Seamus, I just couldn’t see spending $1000 before we even left the airport.
ENTER: credit card membership benefits! It turns out if you hold a specific kind of CitiCard, you get complimentary Hertz Gold membership status and also extra discounts. I hadn’t seriously considered Hertz because they tend to be the most expensive but after combining that with our AAA membership, I saved us 60% on our week-long rental. And we were back in business!
Actually, those were the four biggest expenses, in order: accommodations, airfare, dog boarding, and car rental.
We simultaneously economized and didn’t.
On food. We treated our friends to a few meals out, at varying levels of expensive, and they bought enough groceries to provide us breakfasts and light lunches. We supplemented with deli lunches and other small desired delicacies.
We loaded up on mainland treats for our friends’s kids and some of our own foods for the week so that we wouldn’t have to pay $9 for a box of cereal or $7 for a jar of peanut butter.
On boarding. We could have gone with a cheaper sitter but we know and trust this one, and I’m still traumatized from losing Doggle in the hands of an irresponsible sitter. Seamus was in good and caring hands with this person and that’s the only way you’re going to get me to leave him behind.
On tourist stuff and having fun. Having a kid that still has to nap twice a day seriously limits your options when most attractions take half a day or more because of traffic or distance. We used to skip one of the two naps on occasion for special occasions but JuggerLB has hit a phase where skipping a nap means being too tired means ze will bite, usually me, and it HURTS.
I would have loved to swim with dolphins but, in the end, couldn’t bring myself to pay nearly $300 for less than an hour of fun.
Making a virtue of my cheapness and JuggerLB’s required rest periods, we enjoyed the sun and the water that was practically at our doorstep, free movies, and the free ice cream social. Also the free parking. I hate paying for parking so much that I celebrate a little extra when we travel and don’t have to pay an astronomical amount to leave my car in a safe space for a while. Oh, and each other. We had a lot of fun just hanging out together, chasing JuggerLB, and relaxing. I haven’t gone 24 hours without thinking about working, working, or thinking about work problems in I don’t even know how long.
I’d also forgotten how much the aloha spirit and relaxed island attitude toward time melts away my stress. There’s something magical about island time: it seems to pass three times more slowly. It was totally worth all the work and trouble to make it happen. Though technically I guess you’d say we paid $1000 for three of us to go and one of us NOT to go to Hawaii.
:: Have you visited Hawaii? Is it your kind of vacation? If not, what is?
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May 23, 2016
Sarah Jeong’s experience with someone getting hold of her account and routing numbers confirms that I’m not paranoid about bank accounts. I’m exactly worried enough.
We have to give out our routing and account numbers to receive payments but, as her experience shows us, money can be withdrawn that way, too, without any authentication or verification required.
Fifteen years ago, before there was actual proof or anecdotes that giving out my account information for deposits was a problem, Dad asked me for them both so he could deposit some cash for me. That in and of itself wasn’t an issue, but it did raise a question mark in my mind.
The bank assured me that my account and routing numbers could only be used by non-accountholders for deposits but they didn’t back up any of those assurances with facts. It was a very “trust me” moment. (Needless to say, I don’t.)
How I protect my money
That left me with an uneasiness that never went away. When I started simplifying all my bank accounts, after the wonderful days of 5% interest yore were a distant memory, I still opened 2 extra accounts.
We have a joint checking account where all our money gets funneled. I keep one month of expenses there. The cash that I need easy access to goes into a nearby savings account, the cash that doesn’t need to stay liquid, is immediately transferred to be invested or into the Super Secret Locked Up Bank Account.
We have a second checking account for the real estate investment property: income is auto deposited by the property manager and the expenses are automatically paid every month. There’s not much left at the end of each month, but there’s some. That overage is swept into a savings account too.
This way, if anyone gets the account and routing numbers of either checking account and manages to finagle a withdrawal, I’d be out a month of cash and Really Annoyed but at least the damage should end there.
:: Do you worry about bank security? How’s your banking set up?
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May 16, 2016
I found a dime in the couch cushions, which never happens by the way, and not ten minutes later, PiC stole my thunder with his goof.
The man is practically perfect in every way but he does have the occasional humanizing flaw, and this particular one happens to be the kind that drives me right up, over, down the wall again.
He misplaces things.
It’s always something important: wallet, credit card, sunglasses. (And he likes his sunglasses so of course they’re nice ones.)
This time it was his iPhone – he had it when he went to run a last minute errand in the evening. He didn’t have it when we were clearing up for the night.
!!!
After we both tore the place apart looking for it, he realized the last time he remembered having it in his hand was at the store. And remembered setting it down and thinking DO NOT FORGET THIS. For my part, I knew he took the phone and could not for the life of me recall seeing it in his hand when he returned. I knew that didn’t mean he didn’t bring it back but, well, the chances are ever not in our favor in these things.
Don’t Panic! (oh, we panicked)
For us, the three most important things about our phones are the pictures we take on them (thousands!), access to personal data, and the cost of replacing the handset (hundreds!)
The first problem was covered, mostly. Both our phones are set up to back-up to a server. I hate that his phone only runs the back-up when it’s plugged in to charge. It makes a certain kind of battery life saving sense but it’s a crappy feature because if it went missing during the day before being plugged in to charge for the night, we’d lose a day of photos. Really cute family photos, as it happens.
The second problem had me in a silent tizzy. See, after a bit of research, the Internet confirmed my fears. If your phone is picked up or stolen by a scumbag, the best case scenario there is they wipe the phone and sell it. The NOT best scenario is that the scumbag is an enterprising individual and uses the power of existing hacks to hack the phone with the data intact. That means PiC’s emails and various apps would be as unto a Giant Buffet of personal information for the entrepreneurial jerkbutt.
I sent PiC on a mission to change all his passwords for his emails, at least, and then we’d figure out the rest of the apps and access thereof.
The third problem was bubbling away in the back of my mind, not least because I still haven’t replaced my handset yet: $$$$. Unprepared as I am to pay $400-600 for a new smartphone (even though, yes, I do a lot of work on it), I am less prepared to spend double that for two new phones. There was an almost unfair amount of grumpiness in my belly as I tried to digest this grotesque bill.
What we should have done before losing the iPhone
Now, if you’re smart or self aware, you can take steps to protect yourself before losing your iPhone that will help you out if the unhappy event occurs. I do most of our technology set-up but was chagrined to realize that this was something I’d neglected and he couldn’t remember if he had done it.
Know your security features and, as my Filipino mama would say, turn them things on! Go to your Settings, iCloud, and Find my iPhone. Also, turn on “Send last location” – if your phone is on the last drops of battery life, it’ll send its location at that time before it dies.
I’m being very specific to iPhone as we go forward because I have an Android and most of this doesn’t apply to users of my ilk.
After we lost the iPhone
We’d turned the place upside and shaken it. No phone. Searched the premises of where it was last seen, no phone. Checked with security to see if anyone had turned it in, no phone.
It was late, and only getting later, so as he considered whether it was worth leaving a note at the presumed location of the loss, I texted his phone with a contact number. I had a feeling that it wasn’t worth doing because as late as it was, no one was going to hunt down security to give them a found object, phone or not. They’d likely not see it til morning, and so we wouldn’t know til the next day whether a Good Samaritan would have handed it over or if it was really missing. But there were a few things that we COULD do.
Use the Find My iPhone feature! You don’t need the app to check on your phone’s whereabouts, you can check it on a desktop. When you use this Find my iPhone feature, it turns on Activation Lock so that your Apple ID and password would be required to open up the phone. If you can’t quickly track it down safely, turn on Lost Mode. This will remotely lock your phone with a four-digit code, displays a custom message with your phone number on your Lock screen, and keep track of the phone’s location. It also suspends the ability to make payments using Apple Pay, if you use it, until the phone is home safe. Unfortunately PiC hadn’t turned this on, or we might have saved ourselves a lot of trouble.
Make sure you have the ability to brick your phone: Remote Erase. If you’re sure it’s never coming back, my personal recommendation is to brick that sucker. Mind, you should only do this when you’ve given up hope of getting it back because this wipes your phone clean and you won’t be able to track it anymore if you were doing so before. You can, however, restore the device if you do find it again so that’s good news.
Make sure that you know how to remove access to your accounts. Gmail has a handy option to revoke access to your email account to specific devices. One click security protocol, I dig that. If you have other apps, like I have Twitter on my phone, you should be able to log onto those programs / accounts from a desktop and revoke access to the missing device.
Google also reports the last time there was activity on the phone so we knew, for what it was worth, that it had synced to Gmail two hours earlier.
Make sure that your cell phone isn’t the only backup identity verification. While changing his email, PiC’s only option for one of his email addresses, if he didn’t get a security code texted to his potentially compromised phone! was to wait 30 days for a new secondary email address. This is intended to prevent hackers from slicing through your security in a neat 30 minute period, I’m sure, but it was highly frustrating because we hadn’t considered it from the lost the phone angle.
Many programs let you have two options: a backup email address or a phone number. We will be setting up backups to each other’s phones instead of our own so that we’re not up a Crap Creek without a paddle again.
Duh.
The Almost Anticlimactic Conclusion
After the two hours of high drama, trying to find the phone and revoking access to it, our friend wandered into the living room.
“Rev? Did I take your phone?”
…
We’d had a family night and friends were staying over. Forgetting that her phone was still in her purse and mistaking PiC’s phone for her own, she’d pocketed it and gone to bed. We two were talking, distracted, and never saw it happen. It didn’t occur to us for a second that that might have happened. The phone was and had been safe the whole time!
We’re calling this a cheap lesson in the importance of Stop Leaving Your Stuff in Random Places!!! and in securing mobile devices. It’s kinda like the kid who runs away to teach his parents a lesson in appreciating him, only better/worse.
Also I confiscated all phones in the morning to check everyone’s settings to make sure they were properly set up. Now we all have a handy list of what to do if you ever lose your iPhone (for real).
:: Have you ever lost your phone? Do you routinely back up your phone? What’s the most valuable thing about or on your phone?
*Part of Financially Savvy Saturdays on brokeGIRLrich, Disease Called Debt and Frame to Freedom*