October 23, 2006
October’s almost over and that means most people have two months to use up their FSA allotments unless you have a grace period. Check with your Benefits Administration Department before assuming that you have extra time, or panic buying a year’s supply of contact lens solution to go with last year’s supply of cough syrup, but you may have an extra month or two to incur new expenses that can be paid out of your 2006 allowance.
October 21, 2006
I still can’t get the darned thing to work through a router properly, thoroughly defeating the purpose of having cheaper internet, but if it were to work at this speed for all computers, simultaneously [not likely, I know], I’d have to say Verizon’s $14.9/mo internet is not too shabby.
It’s taken about a week since the service ready date, aka: the date from which they begin billing you, to actually use the service, and like I said, I still can’t get it to work through the router so we’ll probably prevail on – who else? – my younger, teenaged computer whiz cousin to help whip Linksys into shape.
I will just have to keep an eye out for the phone bill to make sure they really do apply the 30-day credit that I was promised.
So far …..
October 20, 2006
A long-time business acquaintance of PaDucky inquired about my willingness to help him out, while he helped me out. How? you ask. Why, simple. I get a credit card with him as an authorized user, and he would use it on a regular basis – both charging and paying off high balances – which would naturally lead to my growing a *very* high credit limit (that obviously a young’un like myself couldn’t possibly achieve on her own.) Because he has no real credit history [translation: no real GOOD history] of his own.
*sputtering* Wha-wha-wha-whaaaaaatttt??? Hu-excuse me?? You want me to what you what? Does this man think I’m crazy? Or stupid? Or possessed?? He wants me to hand over a credit card in MY NAME and juuust hand it on over and say “here y’are, use it as you please” and just TRUST him to run it up and pay it off? Which part of that equation does he think I have my doubts about? Surely he doesn’t think it’s a lack of faith in his ability to run up a credit card that I am responsible for?
Perhaps he hasn’t realized that I’m the only creditworthy person in my family, but if he does, does he think I got there by being blind/deaf/dumb AND crazy? That I just fell into a pit of good-credit-luck? Does he seriously think that he is doing ME a favor by “creating” a credit history that I wouldn’t have without his high chargin’ self or is he just hoping to convince me of his sincerity? Well, duh, I have a great 700+ credit score even with balance transfers and two car loans to my name. The credit history he COULD give me sounds about half as tempting as scoring a case of smallpox. I suppose I’d live through it, but why would I want to?
Ok, so he may not be a financial devil in disguise, but how could anyone think that this isn’t a *terrible, horrible, no good, very bad* risk to take? Out of giving him the benefit of the doubt, I tried to think through how this COULD be made to be a better situation that involved NO risk of being hung out to dry and actually benefitted me in some material way, but I really couldn’t think of anything.
Even though I’ve been pretty lackluster about keeping up my couponing and rebating in the face of all the workhours I’ve been logging, I tuned in just in time to notice that October’s a good rebating month and Walgreens does well by all of us!
1. For the arthritically inclined: Your choice of ActiveOn, a topical analgesic for joint&muscle, backache, or arthritis, 2oz: Free after rebate
2. For the follicularly blessed: Fructis Shampoo or Conditioner 25.4 oz [yep! That’s the giant sized version!], or Deep Conditioner 10.2 oz: Free after rebate
3. For the stressed&heartburned: Mylanta Ultimate Strength, 12 oz: Free after rebate
4. For the great dental exam: Oral-B Manual CrossAction Toothbrush: Free after rebate
5. For the littles: PediaSure NutriPals Liquid 4 pack, 8.4 oz, or Bars 6-pack: Free after Rebate
6. For the gals: Playtex Sport Tampons, 16 pack: Free after rebate
7. For the immunologically challenged: Sucrets Defense to help fight Colds & Flu, 18 drops: Free after rebate
[Ironically, I picked up numbers 2, 4, 6, and 7. And, I didn’t use 7. So I’m home, sick. Yep, still feeling bored and sorry for myself.] ALSO remember to check your newspapers from last Sunday, you’ll find great coupons for items 2 and 7 in either the Smartsource or Valassis pages, as well as for item 3 in the Parade pages. If you don’t know how Walgreens rebates work, you buy all the items you want and even if you use a coupon on their rebate items, [yes, even the Free after Rebates hereafter known as FAR], you get the full purchase price back in your rebate check. If you opt to receive your rebate in the form of a gift card, they will add an extra 10% bonus to your rebate total. They don’t require you to collect UPCs either, you just have to send in your receipt with their submission form properly filled out. Be sure to keep a photocopy for your records! Occasionally a mistake will be made and you’ll need to send them a copy of your proof to get your full rebate.
It’s actually been a pretty great week for coupons because the Walgreens Catalina machine gave me two coupons for Free Tampax Pearl after buying the Playtex brand. You’ve gotta love brand competition! And the Parade magazine also had a free Pupperoni’s coupon so the doggies can have a free treat as well. What a nice welcome-back to couponing!
October 18, 2006
Vanguard sent me a quarterly report yesterday and even though the records shows that I’ve held my account for less than a year so I don’t actually have a personal performance record, a quick calculation reveals that my fledgling 403(b) has accrued about 3.6% in gains not including contributions.
[I specify “not including contributions” because the stupid plan summary always includes my last contribution as part of the “change” in balance. And it always fools me for a second. And then I realize, no. No, it sure didn’t just earn massive returns.]
Actually I know that I have a pretty skewed portfolio right now: 92.5% stocks, 7.5% bonds and that makes me a little nervous but it’s working for me right now and I have such a piddly amount in there that I foolishly don’t want to bother changing anything yet. I suppose the wise thing to do would be to reevaluate the asset mix in a few months.
October 15, 2006
Number, the first:
You know that feeling you get when you’re allllmost there? If you stretch juuuuust a little more you could touch the goal? When the tip of your tongue is sticking out of the corner of your mouth because you’re trying so hard? That’s about where I am right now.
I’m at 14,612 miles. I’m sooooo sooo close to being able to fly BoyDucky down for his birthday! *jig* Coming off this last work trip gave me a nice chunk of bonus miles and I discovered that for the short 50-ish mile segment between the local and not-so-local airports, I actually received 500 miles! So my outbound flight through an out of state airport only earned 1800 miles, while my inbound flight came through a local airport and earned me a whopping 2245! I wonder if that’s normal because I may very well start booking flights with an eye to maximizing my miles as well! 😉
Luckily, United still owes me some miles which I have charted very nicely here, as they seem to *forget* to credit my bonus miles for online bookings, etc. rather frequently, so I may very well hit the over-15k mark soon enough to book an award flight.
This is important, btw, if you travel frequently enough to care about your frequent flier miles: You should definitely make a note of which promotions are running at the time of your flight or purchase and when you should expect to see the miles credited. The airline has no vested interest (nor, to be fair, the manpower) in tracking every single customer’s flights and promotions so don’t expect any handholding from them.
I use a chart listing the travel dates, promotion details, due by dates, number of miles expected, number of miles awarded and the total number of miles I expect from the entire itinerary. This has probably *saved* about 4000 miles or so from various, multiple promotions that tripled my flight miles and earned a much-needed free ticket in about two-thirds of the time it would normally have taken.
Number, the second:
And I have 2600 points over at My Points so I’m doing a little research to see what would best fit my needs … or really, my wants when I finally accumulate enough points to redeem. Keep on sending those click for points emails my way, My Points!
Target seems like a good general sort of gift card but rather pricey:
1,500 Points = $10 Target GiftCard
3,750 Points = $25 Target GiftCard
7,250 Points = $50 Target GiftCard
Macy’s is a little better, but I haven’t done much productive shopping there lately:
3,250 Points = $25 Macy’s Gift Certificate
6,250 Points = $50 Macy’s Gift Certificate
It seems odd that Bloomingdale’s has the most value for my points. I have this notion that Bloomie’s is an unaffordable store so I’ve never shopped there:
3,000 Points = $25 Bloomingdale’s Gift Card
5,750 Points = $50 Bloomingdale’s Gift Card
Of course my first thought was the bookstore, but Barnes is the only one they have and it’s really quite the low point-to-money exchange value:
750 Points = $5 Barnes & Noble Gift Card
1,300 Points = $10 Barnes & Noble Gift Card
3,250 Points = $25 Barnes & Noble Gift Card
Number, the third:
And lastly, I’ve gone through my financials after a looong week of being away from them. I thought it might be ok, but I’m rather nervous that the increased burdens this and next month will overwhelm me.
I’ve returned the high priced items I’d previously purchased thinking that I would be reimbursed [I won’t be, so they’re homeless again] bringing the bills back down to a more manageable level. We’re testing out the new Verizon broadband tomorrow so we’ll see how well that works out and I hope to cancel the three-times-more-expensive DSL by Monday. *fingers crossed*
Unfortunately, the savings got gypped by a good bit. Normally I split my paycheck 25/75 and the actual amount fluctuates so I’d just transfer the extra from the 25% checking account, but it needs all the help it can get this month. So, the saver’s savings goes beggin again this time.
The plan is to pay my personal bills, gas, grocery and phone bills this week, and use the next check to pay the rest of the month’s expenses. If I’ve calculated correctly, I’m going to need a LOT to break even … I guess it’s a good thing I did over a hundred hours this past week! But that’s just because of this trip, so I’d better see what I can do to stretch those dollars a little more to cover next month too.
*sigh* We’ll see. I’m tired now and probably not thinking straight anymore so I’ll reevaluate tomorrow and see where I am.
October 14, 2006
Citibank has annoyed me for the last time. Remember that locking myself out of the ATM card and therefore also the website fiasco? Well, I got a new PIN number in the mail, etc. after that and after some halfhearted grumbling, continued to use Citibank’s online banking pretty regularly. I got up at 7 am last Friday to run some errands before leaving for Chicago which included a rushed stop at the branch nearest me to cash a check because the website indicated that they would be open at 8 am. [Our car was to pick me up by 8:30? 9? I desperately needed another nap because it’d been another late night at the office the night before.] Lo and behold, the branch was NOT open until NINE!! Ok, I’m flexible, I can deal so I went to the ATM to just deposit the check and withdraw some cash from another account. The stupid ATM machine led me through entering the PIN, picking the actions I wanted, picking the account I wanted to deposit to and then stops dead saying: We cannot do this at this time. Please call XXXXX.
I finally called using the handy dandy phone they have hooked up to the ATM and found that the PIN that was sent had somehow NOT solved the problem: the ATM card that I had been using for who knows how long was now considered UNactivated!! THIS was not part of any of the explanations I’d been given when dealing with the previous problems.
Frustrated, I gave up and retreated to my usual rent-money-only bank, WAMU, where I deposited and withdrew to my heart’s content.
As if that wasn’t enough, I signed onto Citibank’s site a few days later to transfer a payment to my credit card and got error messages for hours … when I finally called, the CSR had the gall to tell me that not one of my five credit cards were linked to any of my checking or savings accounts!! It took over 20 minutes to get the guy to just LOOK at the right account and figure out that he was completely wrong.
So, Citibank, I’m exasperated and fed up. No Thank YOU. The paltry 400 Thank You points I get each month are not worth this hassle and bother every time I try to do normal banking… I’m going to open a Free Checking with Free Checks for Life account with WAMU and I’m pretty sure I heard that they had quietly begun a high interest savings account program as well. If that’s true, I’m leaving Citibank and hanging out with my WAMU folks again.
Hm, perhaps I spoke too soon: I can only open one high-interest savings account per Free Checking account online. If I go to the branch, I might be able to open more than one high-interest account … *sigh* It seems that I’m asking too much wanting both good service and convenience in a single package.
I could open the three or four new Free Checking accounts to get all my high interest accounts but I really don’t need them and don’t want to have that much more stuff. Alright then … I’ll call the branch on Monday morning .. or evening .. and see what they can do for me.
Alternatively, I could move all the money in my E-fund to Emigrant Direct and go down to just a few savings accounts but … I’d rather have everything at my fingertips if possible. The extra .05% isn’t worth the loss of a few days at deposit and withdrawal.
Fine, at the very least I’m going to start applying for a new set of regular-use credit cards to use instead of my Citi cards. So there!
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