July 13, 2006

Project: Auto Loan Payoff, Part II

If I want to keep the length of the term the same, then I have to calculate the paydown for 26 months. Obviously my top choices would be the 0% BT with no transfer fees, but I prefer not to apply for new credit if I don’t have to, and I don’t want to max out my opportunities for good 0% BTs if I can fully utilize these credit lines that are just sitting here without any benefits like the Citi Credit Protector Retention Offers. At most, I’ll shuffle my credit lines to acccommodate and maybe ask for an increased limit if absolutely necessary.
It also seems most prudent (and simpler!) to select a single card/credit line to carry the entire balance on for life, rather than breaking it up amongst two or more cards with lower APRs because that may necessitate more BT fees and frankly, it would complicate matters more than I’m willing to juggle. I’m not ruling it out entirely, but it’s not on the list of preferred strategies.

So far, the best offers from Chase are:

With BT fee ($75 max), 4.99% until the balance is paid in full

$557.01 monthly payment
Time to payoff: 26 months
(I’m using AOL Finance & Money’s Calculator to see how much interest we’d be paying total): $782
With the fee: $782 + $75 = $837

With the usual $400 monthly payment
Time to payoff: 38 months
Total cost: $1110
With the fee: $1110 + $75 = $1185

With no BT fee, 6.99% until balance is paid in full

$569 monthly payment
Time to payoff: 26 months
Total cost: $1103

$400 monthly payment
Time to payoff: 39 months
Total cost: $1626

Thoughts: Wow, this doesn’t look as great as I imagined. I mean it’s still better than the 2684 no matter which range I go with, I just don’t like that it stretches out the time to payoff to another year. The highest total savings would be $1499, which is a rather large chunk of change!
There is always the option to transfer it again to a 0% when/if that comes available.
Or there’s always the option to transfer a large amount to a 0% and refi the remaining amount, but the only 0% option I have is with the Schwab card for about 8 months.

Anyway, I’ll have to sleep on this because I’m not entirely sure that I want to take on another $13700 of unsecured debt when, as I’ve said before, I’m the emergency cushion for the family. When I took on their credit card debt, I was UBERstressed until I had saved enough to payoff the entire amount if I needed to. Not only do I not have enough in my emergency funds to cover it, I would essentially be asking myself to put away … about $20k in a very short period of time! I don’t deal very well with uncertainties, especially financial uncertainty.

Is this worth it?

July 12, 2006

Project: Auto Loan Payoff

Since I can’t pay off my parents’ auto loan for them (a regular refi won’t work because they are upside down on the loan), I’d like to see if creative juggling can reduce the amount of interest they will ultimately have to pay. I’ve only ever done straight 0% Balance Transfers before, so I have no idea how this will work out, but it’s worth a try… Well, it’s late so just a few details to start.

My concerns are: 1) the difference between way auto loans work vs. credit cards
2) Taking on a huge chunk of unsecured debt

I’ve looked at several of my cards that I don’t use for anything to gauge the transfer offers, and here are the options (will definitely consolidate credit lines as necessary):

Chase 1
Available Credit: $5000

Chase 2
Available Credit: $7000

Charles Schwab 2
Available Credit: $380

Major Learning Curve or …. ??

Oh lordy, that was exhausting! I thought I was capable of playing with technology as well as your average Duck but … if so, your average Duck is downright SLOW. Many many thanks to Kira for dumbing down the HTML enough for me to get started, I hope to start actually personalizing some of this blog soon! (and that it won’t take too many more eye-crossing, trembly-fingered “is…is that it?” fumblings.)

Status Quo

So, it’s July 12th. 11 days after July 1st. And I don’t have my new title, nor the raise that SHOULD come with it. Why? Because my supervisor/boss and his boss are super-busy and haven’t had a chance to talk to me yet. Yeah yeah, they have a wedding to plan, deadlines to miss, and travel to arrange, all the usual excuses around this time of year.

So even though I “know” that I’m supposed to get them, I don’t KNOW that I’m going to get them, ya know? I have no details. Other than it’ll happen. Eventually.

Naturally, I feel like – even though it is likely nothing more unusual than the delay is due to the fact that they’re very busy, can’t manage their time worth a hill o’ beans, and they even dropped the ball big time on a Major Deadline because of their little wedding project –

1) I’m not going to GET the promotion OR raise after all. (no rational reason for this. In the last 8 months I’ve accomplished goals that haven’t been hit in years, logged more time and work hours than my workaholic boss.)
2) They’re delaying so that they’ll hit my 2-year anniversary mark so that they can give my coworker an undeserved, equalizing promotion. (rational reason for this: they actually have a SCHEDULE for promotions. Two years, first promotion. I’m a few months early. 4, actually. And she and I were hired and started on the same day. And she’s a bratty, tantrum-throwing troll.)
3) Any Number Of Disastrous Things are Brewing. Not in my favor.

Again, even though I “know” that it’s gonna happen and that I’m supposed to come up with an new job title that’s *snazzy* and *important-sounding* to match all the work that I’ve taken on and pushed through, I’m still on edge. Because it hasn’t actually happened yet. And it’s making me a little stir crazy.

And at the same time we’re trying to start interviewing for what should be my former position (actually, to replace a departed coworker, really). A position for which my friend would be perfect, and also incidentally needs in a major way. But I can’t seem biased. Though, I personally want him to get it and and feel that professionally, he’s right for the job.

So when all this is resolved and dust settles, I may be able to intelligibly post about How Raises and Promotions Seem to Work in a Small Office. (population: 3 student interns, 4 full time staffers, 1 supervisor staffer, 1 reigning Boss). Until then I’m going to be nervously shuffling my projects around my desk and trying to work through the increasing anxiety.

July 10, 2006

Citibank Pros and Cons

I previously touched on a few things I wasn’t happy with in working with my Citibank accounts system, so I thought it’d be fair to do a full assessment.

Pros:
** Immediate online access to all my checking and high-interest savings accounts. (I suppose this could be a con for those who don’t want easy access to their savings, but I find that it just doesn’t make sense to have emergency money that’s not readily available.)
** Linking Citicards: You can link all your Citi branded cards and it will show your basic card information such as total balance, amount due, amount available, and some transactions. I don’t particularly need the transactions as I just log on to the Citicard account but it’s still handy.
** Ability to show or mask all your account numbers: Let’s be honest. I’m simple. I want to be able to do stuff online, and not have to lug every single account number around with me in my head or wallet. I can just show the account numbers so when I call with a dumb question, I don’t have to fumble around looking for any bank account information that I don’t have.
** Next Day Transfer: double -edged ability, this one. It’s great for a one day transfer of my savings from my WAMU account which is loads better (and worth 2-3 days of interest) than the transfer times I had with ING or ED. But it can be a con as well.
** Awesome sign-up bonus — when they pay you. My signup bonus was $100 for opening a checking account (after 90 days) and another $100 for linking and paying a Citi credit card online (I don’t remember how long it says I have to wait for this part). I haven’t seen my money yet since I opened the accounts at the end of April so I still have a few more weeks before they’re late. I’d opened a checking account a few years back just for the bonus and closed it soon after, and they waited a while to deposit the money but didn’t give me any problems. Feathers crossed that they’re still as hassle-free this time around!
** The requirement of having a checking account with them was good to me because they give you a set of free checks (not just starter checks, printed ones) which is convenient if you just use a few checks.
** Thank You Points: the break-up radio commercials ads may be annoying, but a little extra for free is always good. With these points I may eventually be able to liberate those stray points that never quite add up to a good reward ($100 GCs = yum!)

Squawks:
** So far it doesn’t look like they’re terribly prompt with interest payments, and I’m not a fan of the rolling statement date. I’d gotten used to the last of the month statement-ending-date with ING and ED. That’s minor though.
**As previously mentioned: The savings accounts are money market accounts, which means there’s a limit of 6 transactions per statement period. Ideally I wouldn’t need that many, but I’m still working out the allocations and everything, I need some slack!
** Next Day Transfers: from outside institutions are unreasonably restricted, very annoying. (see previous post). I can understand if this were a transfer into a checking account in which case they’d be protecting themselves from people who transfer ghost money and write bad checks which may not be caught for a while, but these. are. savings. accounts!! I can only try to transfer money out, which just wouldn’t go through anyway if I didn’t have the money!

Hm, I guess I’m more a fan of Citibank’s new accounts than I thought.
Hope this is useful for someone out there 🙂

Vanguard tools rock!

I did decide to check the numbers again, and I seem to recall that Vanguard probably has some sort of calculator that tells you how much is REALLY taken out of your check if you contribute X amount of dollars. I’ve played with something like that before. But before I could find that tool, I signed in to see a new Retirement Income Outlook. It graphs your current contribution of your average monthly contribution, and shows alternate monthly contributions on the x-axis and how small increases could increase your (estimated) monthly retirement income on the y-axis. I’d show it here but I still don’t know how yet … that’ll have to wait until I learn a little more than basic blogging!

But it also had a sidebar that sums it up:

Can you live on $527 per month? That’s the amount we estimate you may have in retirement. This estimate is based on:

• Your average monthly contribution of $108.
• Your current account balance of $1,496.

How cute is that? No, but thanks Vanguard!
Ok that totally sidetracked me but I need to stop procrastinating on my work or the next few blog posts will be: “Unemployment: how it screws MiniDucky’s retirement and savings goals!”

July 9, 2006

Tis the Season

of denial….

The Women in Red of MSN recently had a discussion about their frustrations with maintaining a budget that would allow them to accomplish the financial goals they set for themselves (ie: get out of debt, save for emergencies, retirement, etc.) while their friends lived a totally different lifestyle. At first I thought, “that sucks, I’m glad that’s not how it is with my friends who are still, though post-college, not spending much more than they did when they were college students.” Plus, after paying our first auto insurance premium (nearly $1000!!) I’d resolved to spend absolutely no more money between now and the end of the month. In fact, I’d *sigh* virtuously decided, I was going to return the great deals I’d bought at Macy’s because even after the extra 15% off, it still added up to $60 for a tank top and a blazer. A very very nice blazer that actually FIT, but wasn’t easily matched, so, ta-ta blazer! But today I discovered that, boy, it’s all too easy to get sucked right into careless, and thoughtless, buying when you’re just hanging out with friends.

I’m normally safe with these two friends as we worked together, whined together (about our pathetic paychecks), and budgeted together but today was just temptation after temptation! Denny’s was the easiest part of the day. We met up at Denny’s for a very lowkey meal and chat session.

Then we headed to Target – which is SUCH a no-fly zone when you’re on a spending diet – and barely managed to escape there unscathed. Well, Married friend and hubby were supposed to keep it to $60: $80. Single friend got her one item but also ended up picking up a wallet for herself while helping me look for one: $20. I held strong at $0.

Then we went to the mall to return my stuff. Of course it’s a scorching hot day again, and just walking from the parking lot to the mall drove us to the food court …. we got away with a bottled water and a cup of ice water. Then we stopped by Hollister in search of a really really good sale on flipflops (very nice ones for about $3, even I couldn’t resist that!) but they didn’t have any. Instead, we ran across nice tank tops …. $12.90, layering tees …. $9.90, we finally walked out of there emptyhanded. Penney’s had a very cute kid’s skirt on sale for $15, and I don’t have any spring/summer skirts …. but the beading was loose on more than one skirt. And on and on went the day; close calls but always saved by some small justification why it wasn’t worth the buy. You know, other than “I don’t HAVE that money to spend.” We finally made it to our final destination: Borders, for some free air conditioning while I got some work done. But I could easily have spent a couple hundred dollars just picking up things that I liked! Thank goodness these friends understand the lament of the empty wallet, I know too many people who like to pressure others into buying just to have Stuff. (Of course, this does explain why I have no cute clothing, shoes, or bags …. but no debt! Yay for no debt!)

I came home to find voicemails on my cell phone telling me that there were dinner plans and movie plans (Islands: $15-$20, movies: $10). Instead I’m sitting at home blogging about how easily “spending time with friends” becomes Spending. *whew!*