About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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January 10, 2008
About a month ago, during a rather rough patch, I accidentally missed the payment date for my Chase card by a day. I was still distraught, so I miscalculated processing times when scheduling the bill payments, and was hit with a late fee a few weeks later.
The weird thing was the amount: $15!
I was going to call and ask for it to be waived so the amount didn’t really register in my mind until after I called. The standard late fee has risen to $39 for most every other card I can think of, I wonder what happened here?
Some days you’re the windshield, I guess?
January 8, 2008
I’ve done the App-o-rama thing a couple of times now, but have never actually gone and canceled the cards that sprang from those efforts before. Annual fees were starting to roll in, so I had to bite the bullet and get it done. I’ve been procrastinating for at least five or six weeks … something else was always more important. And as with most chores, it really wasn’t so bad once I got to it. I was even pleasantly surprised a couple of times.
American Express Gold Business ($125 annual fee): four minutes. The annual fee charge will be removed and I don’t have to pay and wait for a refund. That would have been a waste of time.
Result: cancelled, good.
United Mileage Plus Platinum Business ($75 annual fee): five minutes. The CSR offered to change to a no-annual-fee, high rewards card. I dunno why I kept it. I had a weak moment? But really, no skin off my nose. I’ll just call and cancel later if the paperwork looks like a waste of time.
Result: kept it, good.
American Express Starwood Business ($45 annual fee): five minutes. They wanted to change it to another card like the Chase folks did, but I held firm this time. Poor Todd, he sounded so disappointed.
Result: cancelled, good.
CitiBusiness AAdvantage MC ($75 annual fee): ten minutes. I was offered an additional 2500 miles to keep the card for a while longer. The miles will be mine to keep whether or not I ended up canceling anyway, it’ll keep my AA miles active for another 18 months, and get 37 days grace period after the annual fee is billed to cancel and receive a full refund. The only downsides would be missing the cancellation window, and not receiving the miles in time.
Result: kept it, good. Not so good if I have to cancel to save my money before the miles come in.
CitiBusiness Platinum Select MC (no annual fee): seven minutes. I was offered 3000 bonus miles (or $25 cash, credited to the statement when I asked if that was his best offer) to keep the account open. Again, it’s already a fee-free card, so this is just bonus miles with no risk.
Result: kept it, good.
Citi Simplicity MC (no annual fee): fifteen minutes. The non-business card call took a lot longer to accomplish approximately the same things as the business card calls. I just wanted to move this credit line to a card that I’m keeping, and close this account. To do those two things, in that order, she said it would take 7-10 business days. Instead, she offered to consolidate the accounts which accomplishes the exact same thing, and could be done immediately. I have no idea what the difference is, except getting what I want now, and getting it in two weeks. Now, please! 🙂
Result: closed, mediocre.
Citi Diamond Preferred (no annual fee): seven minutes. I intended to just close this account as well, because I have too many cards. I was offered an additional point per dollar spent on regular purchases for twelve months. That’s not bad, the only way I get two points per dollar is from my CitiBusiness PremierPass, and that’s only because I have a backlog of flight points earned from the Vietnam trip and a couple other short flights. I may promote this to replace the PremierPass card and avoid the annual fees on that one!
Result: kept it, good.
Not bad for a little under an hour’s work, wouldn’t you say? 2500 miles, 3000 bonus points, and a replacement card for a 2% reward card.
January 7, 2008
Monthly Expenses
(some are close estimates, as the cost may vary slightly)
Fixed
Rent: $1360
Trash/Water: $80
Cable: $26
Landline: $37
Cell phones, Padres: $75
Cell phone, mine: $50 currently, will go up. A lot. Est, $80
Gas, home: $30
Electric: $125
Internet: $18
Gas, auto: $300
Groceries: $200
Truck payment: $400
Auto insurance: $300
Total: $2631
Variable Categories (personal, unbudgeted)
Eating out
Clothing
Travel
For the last section of variable categories, I don’t have a budget other than “as little as possible” because the fixed expenses have crept up to more than I make. It’s usually no more than $200 per month for all of the above, though, which isn’t much because even a cheap flight is about $120.
My plan to bring down the expenses:
1. Truck payment
Goal: Sell that sucker!
Deadline: By the second week of February. [After the wedding!]
Action: I have a figure in mind that I want to sell it for. I’ll get a quote from CarMax to see if they can match that price first. If they can’t, then I’ll take photos, and post it on Craigslist and perhaps AutoTrader.
Associated benefit: the auto insurance should come down quite a bit as well.
Savings: $400 + insurance reduction
2. Cell Phones, Ma/Pa
Goal: Change plan
Deadline: By Feb 22nd, the end of their next billing period
Action: Reduce their family plan to the cheapest one available.
Savings: $10/month.
3. Cell Phone, mine
Goal: Maximize minutes, minimize costs
Deadline: Feb 1st
Action: When I activate the iPhone, I’ll ask for the plan with the MOST minutes (6000) for the first month, then reduce it to the cheapest plan available. Since AT&T/Cingular has rollover minutes, I plan to bank the remaining minutes for use through the rest of the year. I do need to verify that they don’t penalize for changing plans, nor do the minutes expire.
Cost (before tax):
$880/year for 10,950 minutes
vs.
$720/year for 5,400 minutes
The difference is an extra $160 for 5,550 minutes. This is a situation where I’ll have to spend to save more overall. There’s no way I can use only 450 minutes/month when no one other than my officemates are on AT&T, and I am not paying any 40 cents/minute overage!
I’ve finally just completed my list of monthly expenses, and paying this week’s bills. Nothing’s quite like the negative reinforcement of watching all your month go zip! zip! zip! out of the savings account. Actually, I love that half of these payments go on a credit card which is paid in full at the end of the statement period, at least I get something back, but it’s almost worse watching the balance on the credit card creep ever higher. It’s like anticipating the pain, knowing it’s coming … soon … and BAM! All the money’s gone.
Alright alright, I guess it’s not all that dramatic, but it feels like it.
City, trash: $85
Gas company: $30
Credit card (gas, purchases, some of last month’s bills): $220
Cable/tv: $26
Landline: $36
Auto insurance: $824
This week’s total: $1221
January 4, 2008
While formulating my financial plan for 2008, I said that I ran into a series of walls and needed a break. I’d crunched the number every which way to Wednesday, and still couldn’t stretch my income to cover my savings AND expenses. Know why? Because I was turning a blind eye to what I was really doing: ignoring the expensive drain on my cash stash.
The huge barrier to my ability to save and plan a new year is my inaction regarding selling the truck. It was identified as a problem months ago, but the convenience of a third car, especially after Ma bashed in the front of the second car, has been luxurious and I let myself get complacent.
Well, no more o’ that nonsense!! I’m running short a full $400 per month just because of a danged car payment that I didn’t want in the first place, and it’s stupid to let it affect my plans for the year and then get in a funk when the numbers don’t work. Of course they don’t work, dummy, it’s time to get rid of that thing! Hmph!
This year, I’m taking the financial planning back to the basics.
Part 1: Reduce Expenses. Part 2: Increase Savings.
Stay tuned.
Every so often, I ponder removing the ads on this site because at this rate of earning, I’ll probably hit the minimum payout requirement in 13 years. I never do it, though, because I get a kick out of seeing how many pennies or nickels I’ve scored each given month.
Today, I discovered that the Adsense account site shows the earnings history FOR ALL TIME, so I got curious. It turns out that my first four months of Google Ads-ing were the most profitable:
August 2006: $1.35
September 2006: $3.69
October 2006: $8.94
November 2006: $11.05
Earnings dropped off sharply thereafter … reaching an anemic $9.76 for the year of 2007. Again, November was the peak earnings month. I wonder why that is? We love clicking on ads during Thanksgiving? Pre-Black Friday talk? Did I even post about Black Friday?
January bids fair to possibly match last year’s earnings, clocking in thirty cents as of end of business today.
Good thing I wasn’t planning to quit my job, though I think that Flexo could, if he chose, to rake in the online-business income full-time! (Good on you, Flexo!)
January 3, 2008
I’ve been crunching the numbers for my 2008 financial goals all week, and every time I think I’m close to publication, they change. Usually this is a fun exercise that keeps me happily occupied for HOURS, but I’ve hit a series of walls and am frustrated.
RX: Crawl under the covers for a break and try again tomorrow!
