June 9, 2008
Southwest is running a promotion for a $25 discount when you purchase a $100 southwest gift card.
There are a handful of restrictions, so I would be very careful when deciding whether or not to purchase it.
Purchase dates (for the gift card): June 1st-30th (still have time.)
Requirement: must use Visa. It can be any cobrand as long as it’s US-issued. (Great, I carry one Visa and one Mastercard at all times. It’s not my preferred points rewards card, but it’s still a rewards card.)
Limit: one per Visa cardmember and/or e-mail address. Visa cardmember will earn one $25 fare discount on a $100 or more single card transaction. Shipping and handling fees do not qualify towards the total transaction amount. The $25 fare discount will be sent via e-mail to the Visa cardmember’s account. A valid e-mail address is required to receive the discount. Allow four weeks after the conclusion of the promotion to receive the discount. (Wait, shipping and handling? Just pop the thing into an envelope and throw it in the mail! 42 cents! And BD and I can each buy one, if I have need of two round trip tickets in the near future.)
Discount Valid: Purchase must be made between July 1, 2008 and August 30, 2008 for travel August 18, 2008 through November 19, 2008.
This promotion does not include Business Select, Anytime, or Senior Fares. (Does that mean it’s only good for the Wanna Get Away fares?)
Despite the numerous caveats, I think that I will pick one up because as I look at upcoming travel, I was unexpectedly invited to a wedding in August, and have got a sporting event to attend in October. It’s only good for the event in October, and I’m looking at paying $100 for $125 purchasing power. As long as the flight prices hold until July 1st, or whenever I get that discount, I’ll be able to purchase a $149 ticket for $75 now, and an additional $24 later. Not bad, I say!
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 31, 2008
| Retirement Savings |
Rollover IRA: $1,415
Roth IRA: $3,603
401(a): $4,120
403(b): $16,973
Total: $26,111 |
| Emergency Savings |
Catastrophe: 15,004
Problem Cushion: $1,382 |
| Short Term Goal Savings |
Car Maintenance: $1,316
Car Insurance: $1,375
Travel/Con: $700
Total: $3,391 |
| Long Term Goal Savings |
House Downpayment: $33 |
| Investment Loans |
Prosper-ish: $12,630
Personal Loan: $5,000
Savings Bond: $357 (current accrued value)
Total: $17,987
|
| Total Assets |
Non-Liquid: $26,111
Semi-Liquid: $17,987
Liquid: $16,386
Expense Acct: $256
Goals Savings: $3,424
Total: $64,164 |
| Debt and Liabilities |
Truck: $5,450
Citi: $56
Chase: $371
Insurance: $775
Rent: $1,360
Total: $8,012 |
| Net Worth |
$56,152 |
While I liked Moom’s suggestion of breaking out the short term and long term savings goals for a more accurate feel, I’m still hesitant to include it in my net worth specifically because it’s meant to be spent someday. For now, I’m leaving it in there, and still leaving the automobiles out of the accounting. Given the current economy and the amount of time it’s taking to sell the truck, I don’t have a lot of faith that I could easily sell the cars for a current valuation.
I’ve actually regressed a little since last month’s snapshot: $56,454. In part, a lot of hefty bills came to roost, like the insurance deductibles. Bill creep accounted for some small part of it, which is why I started on the crusade to bring down the cable and internet bills. The new additions to the expense/savings do balance each other out, though, like for the auto insurance item. Redistributing that “windfall” and having it go into spending categories reduced the overall amount. Primarily, though? I think I’m almost certain that gas prices have been eating up my budget. In the last month, I’ve spent $250 on gas, compared to $250 in the two months prior. I’ve literally doubled the amount spent on gas.
I’m still seeing some growth in the long term savings, and I just need to produce more growth in the non-spending areas.
I’d like to see better numbers, but I’m not terribly surprised that this month wasn’t so good. Assuming work doesn’t have any really unpleasant surprises, I hope to see some improvement in a few months. I won’t see it in the investment section, though, as I’ve severely reduced my contributions.
May 28, 2008
A colleague of mine has been jonesing for a home since her parents started pushing her to become a homeowner. I guess she got used to the idea, and decided to get serious about it. Her new declaration is that eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches everyday will save her $250 a month on lunch.
Call me skeptical, or an insufferably curious pf blogger, but I do wonder if that’s the extent of her plan. It’s simple enough to save money by bringing lunch, but I feel like a few more contingencies should be considered to make sure that she’s really saving money. If I were to consult with her on the overall plan, some major points I’d make would be …..
Tracking expenses: I’d suggest that she check her spending habits as a whole. Is there going to be an area in which she increases spending because she feels deprived or restricted by eating PB&J all year? Is there really going to be an increase in savings from changing her lunch diet? She used to buy lunch half the week, and brought dinner leftovers the other half. Perhaps that was equally cost effective.
Health: Is she compensating for the rather limited nutrition in her lunches by adding fruits and veggies to her other meals? Is she doing this in a cost effective way so as not to negate her savings from lunch?
Appearances: Is she doing the PB&J lunch because it looks and feels like she’s doing something proactive about saving for a house? Are there alternatives that might save more for less effort or for the same amount of effort but be more worthwhile? I love my food, so I’d have to be sure that changing my diet solely to save money was really the best way to go.
Actionable: How is she ensuring that the money she “saves” really goes toward the house and doesn’t melt away into her general spending? Does she have a plan to pay an allowance to her house fund out of her grocery allowance?
Are there other issues you might bring up? Of course, I’m not going to have this talk with her because I don’t want to pry into her finances, we’re not that close, and I don’t want to reveal my preoccupation with PF, and accidentally out myself. 🙂
May 21, 2008
My first payouts were received this weekend, and I’ve transferred $33.50 to my house fund. How exciting! I think I’m going to alternate payments between the travel and house fund, in increments of $100. It was only appropriate that the first payout go towards the house since the travel fund has been established and funded.
I just have to keep creating little bits of income to ‘flake into those accounts. I love the feeling of progress!
May 5, 2008
Half a month’s charges victorious, anyway. AT&T and Apple Support and I powwowed for nearly two hours about the various problems that I’ve been having with the iPhone:
1. Calls aren’t coming through, when I’m using other features such as the iPod, internet browsing or checking email, even though they’re supposed to. There are times I get kicked out, as though a call’s coming in, but it doesn’t actually go so far as to give me my call. Calls that are missed and allow voicemails don’t show up as missed calls, either.
2. Voicemail’s not always an option: callers may just get the perpetual ring, or hung up on. So the invisible callers don’t even get an opportunity to leave me a message, and then they think I’m ignoring their calls. I’m not!
3. Text messages don’t always go through. Some of my outgoing messages aren’t reaching the recipients, and then their replies to the messages that do go through aren’t reaching me. *sigh*
4. Emails work when they want to. I’ve got a work email and personal email addressed synced, and at any given time, one or the other might not work. *exasperated*
This weekend’s loss of calls, voicemails, and text messages pushed me over the edge, so I finally got on the phone with AT&T and spoke with their CSR, got shunted to an Apple CSR, got sent back to an AT&T CSR and then AT&T tech support. All of them were variably helpful trying to troubleshoot the phone and service, and I came away with a promise of a follow-up call on Thursday to see if it seems to be working better and a $20 courtesy credit to appear on my next billing statement.
I’m glad I stuck it out and hope that this solves the problems, and the courtesy credit helps, but I can’t stop wishing for simpler times. Life was so much easier when my phone could do as a phone should do: make and receive calls and messages, and never mind all the other gadgetry.
iPhone’s not really worth the hassle, glitz and shininess if it can’t handle a phone’s functions. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!
May 1, 2008
It’s Thursday. Just one more day, and I’ll have made it through the week without buying lunch! Well, there was that roll I bought yesterday to create a sandwich, but that was because I didn’t know PaDucky neglected the carb portion of my meal.
Monday: The larger half of my burrito from Friday. It only made it to Monday because I forgot it here. But it was still delicious! Probably because our mini-fridge is much like a freezer.
Tuesday: PaDucky’d wanted to make my lunch, but assumed that my grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s on Monday meant I didn’t want it. Unfortunately, he didn’t ask or tell me, so I got an unpleasant surprise leaving for train this morning that I had no lunch. Grabbed a Jeno’s pizza and had a very junior high-esque lunch.
Wednesday: Got the promised beef’n’onions stir fry with a tupperware of broccoli, but no carbs! Had to pick up a roll, and sliced tomatoes, from the local grill to make a fake tri-tip steak sandwich: $1. Packed up the remaining for next day’s lunch.
Thursday: Brought an enormous container of rice to go with my leftovers from yesterday …. am seriously craving the cafeteria’s macaroni and cheese. Have been craving mac’n’cheese all week, but resisted. I can practically taste it. Resisted limply, resisted on principle, almost broke down based on having spent only a dollar all week, but ultimately resisted.
How to deal? I think I’m going to make some Kraft mac when I get home tonight, and pack it up for tomorrow. It’s nothing like the cafeteria’s hot, fresh, gooey, crusty cheese completely smothering penne pasta, but it’s in the pantry, and it’ll keep me from spending $2.17 on a side order.
I have no idea why I’ve decided to make a stand on this particular issue, right now, but hey. Gas prices being what they are, I might as well save whatever I can, whenever I can.