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!
Oh I don’t know, my Spanish is now limited to some sorts of food and some chatty gossip with our cleaning lady.
I’m back from Chicago!!
It was a long, drawn-out ending to the past four months of scrabbling to meet deadlines. It tasted of late night jazz and smoky bars by night, and feet-shredding high-heel wearing eons in our schmooze booth by day. It’s over!! It’s over it’s over it’s over!! [I’m dancing a jig, can’t you tell?] The city was wonderful .. though I experienced nothing but what I saw through glass zipping by as I shuttled from hotel to convention center to hotel to convention center.
I brought BoyDucky a souvenir magnet of the Navy Pier, which I was right next to but didn’t get to visit, and have a few lovely pictures of the city from my hotel room which would have been very nice had there not been what sounded like a turbine engine next door that kept me up from 10 pm to 6am the next morning. The Sheraton will be getting a letter regarding their untruthful front desk clerk who stated emphatically that there was no next door neighbor and that as I was in a corner room, there was in fact, no next door either. That kept me up the rest of my few morning hours wondering if I was losing my mind or if there were neighbors of the less than lively sort, if you know what I mean.
Even though it was actually pretty nice living in a hotel for a week, alone, it’s nice to be home tapping away at my own computer. I DID miss out on my Chicago dogs, though. I’m feeling deprived about that.
October 4, 2006
There’s been too much talk of spending and saving money here lately, and not enough of cutting fixed costs and generating income other than that earned from my employer.
So, things I have to do before I leave for Chicago:
~~ Switch our internet plan to Verizon’s broadband. I’m debating which I should sign up for: the up to 1.5 Mbps at 29.99/month for 12 months with a free wireless networking start up kit, or the up to 768 kbps at 14.99/month for 12 months with a free modem. They both come with a free 30-day trial period, and $20 FatCash bonus. I know that this is a far cry from the AT&T Yahoo deal I was investigating earlier but that would have entailed changing our phone service as well and I just didn’t have the time to research the best phone plan through AT&T. Maybe towards the middle of this 12 month term I’ll work on that, in case I can’t get a better deal once the promotional period for Verizon is over.
After Chicago:
~~ Sharebuilder has an automatic investment plan promoted on their website. Since I’ve never invested in individual stocks before, I have no idea what a good deal would be, but I can take a look at this to diversify my investments. If I go with Sharebuilder, I believe Kira has a nice little signup bonus over at CashDuck, or MyPoints has a sign-up bonus as well.
~~ Otherwise I can do some more mutual funds research and pick a couple funds as income funds, not retirement fund. I can continue with Vanguard or consider Fidelity or Dodge&Cox, depending on which ones are more fee-friendly. The reason I hadn’t done this before is because I didn’t want to pay more in fees than I was investing and I need at least $3000 to open an IRA. That hasn’t changed but I should have the decisions made now so that I can move on that with my Christmas bonus money, instead of letting it sit around passively in the E-funds.
My greatest weakness when preparing for a business trip is watching my “special circumstances” spending. It becomes a tug-of-war between my usual budgeting mentality of: “Do you NEED this? Noo .. no you don’t” versus “Do you NEED this? Uh, yes, I do have to be dressed well/look good/professional/better than the new kids on the block! DUH!”
It’s critical to closely evaluate the existing items in the closet and decide what pieces can double as businessy clothes, what absolutely must be purchased, and as far in advance as possible. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m cursed with the twin disabilities of lacking fashion sense and being too d@rned small to fit into most off-the-rack clothing. [Hey, at least I admit to needing a second, third or fourth opinion!] Oh, and does being a total budgetary miser count as a disability? It does when it comes to actually getting stuff, doesn’t it?
Either of these would be sad enough, but together I’m a double whammy of potential-disaster-walking. Soooo … I combat this by recruiting more savvy friends, or getting ideas for what to look out for and shopping as far in advance as possible.
Now that the clothes shopping for Chicago has been completed, I just have to chart out the itinerary so that I can pack exactly what I need.
**If you’re travelling on your own, this could be a huge time and money saver. You save time not having to dig through your suitcase during the trip, packing time before you leave and return, you’re not lugging six pieces of luggage from car to airport to hotel to airport to car. You save money not buying a load of crap you might not need, you’re not paying for extra weight if you go over AND you save your back!**
At the same time, I don’t want to run short, even though I think All-Expenses-Paid includes emergency clothing … HMM!! Just kidding, I’m not sure that would be a valid reason: “Oh, I underpacked cause y’know, I figured I could shop Michigan Ave. Cool? Cool!”
Soooo … the next battle? Is the digital camera battle. I’ve been fighting with myself for the past two years because I bought a perfectly good point-and-shoot 35 mm camera four years ago. Unfortunately, it developed this awkward tendency to “pull” the lower left or right hand corner of the photo giving everyone a maimed, fat-cheek sort of look. The repair shop wants over a hundred dollars to try to fix it, and I’m torn between just paying almost half the price of the camera again or just buying a new digital camera. Over a hundred dollars could buy about a half a low-end or decent dig cam, right?
80% of the year, I don’t have a camera and I don’t miss it. 20% of the year, I still don’t have a camera but I really want one. See? Want. Do I need it? Well, probably not, but when these trips roll around we’re told to take pictures like the paparazzi and I find myself twiddling my thumbs and wishing that I’d just picked something up. Cause you know, I have a few hundred bucks lying around with which to “pick up” that camera. In the meantime, I drool over things like the Canon Powershot SD800 IS. Or the SD630 would be fine.
I still can’t justify the cost when it’s still considered a *luxury* given my other bills to pay, even if I did get a raise. Man, I’m no fun at ALL. I rationalize that I’m saving myself the set-up costs of the camera, the accessories of cabling and casing etc., the photo printing and all that, but am I really gypping myself of photographic evidence of all I’ve gone and done? Am I going to regret this when I’m older and have, at best, a hazy recollection that I was once in Chicago for some thing with those folks whose faces I can’t quit visualize anymore? Or more importantly, what about when I travel for FUN?
Two days before I fly out, I’m not going to go camera shopping. But I’m going to have this same conversation with myself come April if I have to go to D.C.! Or maybe sometime in December. Like that iPod conversation I had for months when I promised myself an iPod for the train ride when I started that new job: “when things get better, you can have *****” I’m such a liar.
October 2, 2006
Someone is learning a very painfully expensive, and painful lesson: TURN IN YOUR BENEFITS PAPERWORK ON TIME!!
It’s not impossible. It’s not that hard. SO DO IT. The alternatives are exceedingly painful.
He has wisdom teeth that are impacted, need to come out, and have needed to come out for some time now. He is now in a lot of pain and a bad financial situation. Wisdoms run close to $500 EACH to remove, and he’s in a bad income month [notice a trend here? Why is it that I …. ach, never mind] so of course he hasn’t the cash flow to cover it.
I don’t know what to do for him that I haven’t already. I have dramatically increased bills at home and I’m not trying to borrow trouble. I can point him in the direction of CashDuck and suggest he get his fingers a-typing. I can suggest that he ask for a cash discount or a payment plan from the dentist, and I can suggest up a storm but only the Good Lord knows if he’s going to actually listen to anything MsMiniducky has to say.
I’m not unsympathetic. I remember horrid dental pain and my heartstrings have been tugged aplenty. But I honestly couldn’t extend myself any further to help even if I had been asked to. And brutally honestly? People have to learn painful lessons when they refuse to learn painless lessons.
I still feel heartless. But my personal journey bodes to be rough enough, I can’t keep bailing people out, and as Claire pointed out, you should only lend money you can afford to give away.
So remember that prevention is worth 80% of cure! Even after paying monthly premiums [10-12 dollars?] and your share of 20%, that other 80% of the cost of treatment in a situation like this can really make a huge difference. Four hundred dollars versus $2000? It’s like buying one, getting THREE free!