- Catching up
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Now with the New Year here and the holidays behind us, it is time to get all caught up on things and back into a normal rythym. I love the holidays, but everything just seems to get out of whack around then, so it nice when some sense of normalcy returns. In December, I'd taken a week off at the beginning of the month (right after the holiday for Thanksgiving, which meant even more time off), time off for Christmas and New Years, was sick, work was completely quiet the few days I did return between Christmas and New Years, stuff is all over the house from buying gifts, wrapping, and opening gifts, work all over from time off and others being on time off, money all over the place (account wise) from buying gifts, getting gifts, and paying for deposit/rent at the new place and the old place. Oy! And I'm pretty far behind on my blog reading as of late.
Now, things can return to being calm. Getting work stuff back in order and getting caught up on projects, been cleaning up the house and getting everything straightened up, getting ready to make the move and had taken care of most of the expenses, and mentally working on putting myself back into my normal state of mind. Holidays do tend to stress me out some, as a lot can be going on, especially this year, so slowly getting things settled and my sanity returns.
- Merry Christmas!
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Merry Christmas to all out there in personal finance land! God bless you all!
As for my wife and I, we got to spend out Christmas sick with strep. My wife is a pre-school teacher and strep has been going around school. She had a cold part of last week, then it looks like it changed to strep around Friday. Sunday is when it kicked it up a notch, and it came down hard on me all of a sudden. This morning, it occurred to us that it might not be a cold and could be strep, so we went into urgent care in the morning, got diagnosed for strep, and was able to get some penicillin before the pharmacy closed. We didn't want to wait to see our normal doctor's until Wednesday, so figured urgent care was our best bet. Anyway, at least now we should be getting better, and will make a good store one day... "remember that year we were sick with strep on Christmas Day...?"
Bless all of you!
- Update on the move
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Finally have some good news on the housing front... we are moving on January 20th! My wife and I had gone to look at a couple of houses that were available for rent and the last one we went to we absolutely fell in love with it. It was perfect. Great price, great neighborhood, great shape, everything was splendid. So we applied for it and had to wait while we went through the process of credit and reference checking (sometimes nailbiting). Just the other day, we found out that we got it and we set our move it date for the 20th!
I now have a little countdown on my whiteboard in my office. 29 days left!
We finally hit a breaking point the other night with our neighbors from hell. I believe it was Monday night, they were smoking weed again and it was completely engulfing out place. They must have been having one good time, since it was coming in through the patio, the front bathroom air vent, everywhere. We had close the front bathroom door and leave the fan on all night. My wife had gone to bed about two hours before me, and had shut the door so the stink wouldn't come in as much. But when I finally went to bed, walked into the bedroom and it completely stank like an ashtray. At 1am, I had to open the bedroom window when it was 30 degrees out to get some fresh air just to be able to tolerate it.
We filed a complaint with the office the next day and they said they'd do the usual "put a note on the door asking them to stop"... like that does anything. Though realistically, they can't do much more. But, only 29 days left.
Then last night they were fighting for a while. I don't know what started it, but all of a sudden there was a ton of noise. Yelling, banging, everything. Sounded like two girls, like a mother and a daughter. No holds barred. But, only 29 days left.
29 days left until we no longer have to deal with apartment living. The neighborhood we're moving too looks very peaceful, and as it turns out, my wife knew one of the neighbors, so I am sure we will once again be living in peace and quiet.
- Some companies will never get it
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Come across this article regarding how Craigslist isn't interesting in maximizing profits, but are focusing on the customer experience. It is amazing how many people don't get it.
One thing that kind of bothered me is someone called Jim Buckmaster of Craigslist "delightfully communist". Why communist? The word "communist" doesn't quite have the same negative connotation it did years ago, and it was most likely meant jokingly, but why can't people just realize that hey, someone out there is actually interested in the customer more than the customer's money!
The guys at Verizon could take a lesson from Craigslist. Maybe Sony could realize customers don't want to be lied to.
- Tip for Christmas Gifts for Bosses on a Budget
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As a part of my Christmas shopping, I always like to get something to give to my bosses and other people at work who I regularly deal with at work. I don't normally get stuff for others on my own team at work, but I like to for other people who I regularly annoy ask for favors. For instance, our IT guy. He has a pretty demanding job, as he serves a lot of roles. He is always taking care of server deployments, management, migrations, etc, etc. Also, at my job, we have an "office mom" (she likes being called that). I don't work in the office, but she still does a lot for me, as almost anything HR-related goes through her. PTO, health insurance things, travel plans, expense reimbursement, etc.
On top of those people, I, like many others, have multiple managers. Even though the company has a laid out organizational chart, it isn't really strictly followed. We are pretty informal. Plus, I work on multiple projects at various times, for different people. For the most part, I have 3 managers. For some issues, I go directly to the CEO. For others, I go to the Director of Product Development, and for yet others, I go to the Project Lead for my product team.
A good way to handle a large number of Christmas gifts for people at work is to get together with other co-workers and to pool your resources. Almost everyone else at my company is in the same boat, and it can be very costly to buy gifts for people at work, especially when you are trying to stick to a Christmas budget. But by pooling your resources, you collectively get something a little bigger for them, at a lower cost to you.
In my case, there are 9 of us who are pooling, and we are looking at spending about $25 each. Both my wife and I allocated $30 in our Christmas budget for each of us to spend on work people, so this works out perfectly. So all together, we will have $225 to spend on 7 people. We are breaking it up as $40 ea for CEO/CTO/Director/Lead, and about $20 ea for other supportive people.
- Neighbors from hell, part deux
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A while ago, I'd mentioned some problems our neighbors downstairs. Seems the drama continues.
We've been in this apartment for a year and a half, and most of the time, we haven't had much of a problem. Some of the people around us smoke, and it can come in through our slider, but we traced it to one person and the problem had gone away. Then we had a neighbor who always thought our TV was too loud and would bang on the wall some, but that problem went away.
But then, back around September, we had the neighbors from hell move in downstairs from us. They were constantly in and out of their apartment, always slamming the front door. When they slammed the door, it would shake the floor in our living room. We'd be sitting on the couch at night, and feel the couch vibrate as they slammed the door. And it was constant... like every five minutes, someone was going into or out of their place. It was driving us nuts. And then one night, my wife had gone to bed, and I was still up when I noticed the smell of weed trickling in. I followed it to the air vent in our front bathroom. Apparently, they were smoking it in their bathroom and blowing it out the vent, thinking it would just go away. Nope, it goes up and straight into our bathroom! After that, I complained to the office. Told them about it, and she said she would look into it, and never heard anything else. Then about two weeks later, poof, the guys were gone. In late October, we realized we hadn't heard anything from them in about a week, no cars in their parking spot, and no lights on in the apartment. We thought we were freed. Either they moved or were evicted, don't know which.
We had peace and quiet for a good month, and then two nights ago someone new moved into the apartment below us. Wednesday night, our living room was a little warm, so I opened the slider for a few minutes to cool it off. I go back into my office for a couple of minutes, and when I come back into the living room, it is reeking of weed! I go out on the patio and look down, and I can hear some rustling and see shadows moving where the guy was smoking on the patio below us. Nice! Their first night living there and they are already making our place smell of weed again. And then on Thursday afternoon, I was home working and went out into the kitchen for a drink. When I came out into the living room area, noticed something was smelling like an ash tray. I go and open the slider and hear a couple of people out, being all loud on their patio, all smoking cigars. Thanks!
We are definitely looking forward to moving. Had gone driving past a couple of places that were available and called on a few. This latest happening and really motivated me to take action on finding a place and getting going on a new lease, somewhere else, and to rent a house (no more apartments!). I just want to be able to start a countdown on my whiteboard, so that anytime a door slams or I smell smoke/weed, I can look at the countdown and be content that it will all end soon. Additionally, if we are trying to have kids, I don't want even the smell of smoke or weed anywhere near my wife.
- November 2006 Networth
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I was not looking forward to compiling our networth stats this month because I knew they were going to be bad. This is the first time we've had a somewhat indulgent month since tracking our networth, so now I can see how much of an effect they have and how far they can set you back. While I don't regret doing the car maintenance (it was definitely needed) and I don't regret upgrading my computer (I use the thing all day long, so I want it how I like it), I do see how much of an impact it has in terms of backward steps in our progress.
| | October 2006 | November 2006 | $ Change |
|---|
| TOTAL NET WORTH | -$3,645.07 | -$5,760.86 | -$2,115.79 |
| Assets |
|---|
| Checking | $1,033.81 | $518.51 | -$515.30 |
| Savings | $603.97 | $605.65 | $1.68 |
| CD | $30,775.19 | $30,910.80 | $135.61 |
| Retirement | $3,834.85 | $4,555.41 | $720.56 |
| Business | $8.50 | $0.00 | -$8.50 |
| Cars | $9,545.00 | $9,545.00 | $0.00 |
| TOTAL ASSETS | $45,801.32 | $46,135.37 | $334.05 |
| Liabilities |
|---|
| Credit Cards | $16,656.82 | $19,780.86 | $3,124.04 |
| Auto Loan | $4,142.80 | $3,944.72 | -$198.08 |
| Auto Lease | $6,983.40 | $6,572.60 | -$410.80 |
| Student Loans | $21,663.37 | $21,598.05 | -$64.93 |
| TOTAL LIABILITIES | $49,446.39 | $51,896.23 | $2,449.84 |
In terms of assets, it was a pretty normal month. The checking account is down some, but mostly because we've been doing some Christmas shopping and what not. Our reserve savings account didn't increase much since I actually dipped into it the beginning of the month and haven't transferred back into it. I had made a nice $500 payment to my Dell account, but was a little over zealous. It is due just before my mid-month paycheck, and that is always our tightest time. Then my wife went out to Target and did a big shopping trip (mostly things we needed, but wasn't expecting it), so I had to transfer in $200 to keep us from bouncing. It is definitely nice to actually have a reserve savings account now. Previously, we rarely had any savings.
The credit cards are definitely where we got hit this month. With $1,800 on computer upgrades and $1,400 in car maintenance, that right there says most of it. As I'd said, I don't regret it, but I do feel the impact. Out credit card debt is now beyond our high mark from over the past 8 months I've calculcated networth stats. Previously, our high was $17,900 in April. Now, we've blown that away at $19,780. We'd finally started making some good process since my wife got her new job, and then now we are beyond where we started. Overall, our total debt is lower than it was in April, but that is just cherry coating it... credit card balances are still a dozen steps back.
As you can see from the table and graph, we were set back to nearly $5,800 from the $0 even networth point. Really want to reach that point... hopefully someday soon.
Though what's done is done, and no going back. The expensive stuff is over with, and outlook is getting brighter. November was a bad month, but December should be better. I have stuff to liquidate on Ebay, although that cash gained will most likely be offset by our need to keep money for a deposit on our new rental, and by some our remaining Christmas shopping. We've set a strict Christmas budget and so far, we've been sticking to it. Once we get to January, can hopefully start some positive movement. First of the year is always when I feel best about paying stuff off. The holiday season will have passed and it is back to our normal monthly budget.
- Two steps forward, three steps way back
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Unfortunately, looking over this month's current progress, it looks like we're taking a major step back in our debt progress. Despite our payments, it looks like we will be adding on about $2,800 of credit card debt. Several things have been going on this month:
$2,000 in computer hardware purchases. Since Windows Vista was officially released (and available to MSDN Subscribers and beta testers), I decided to go ahead and upgrade my computer. I wanted several things just done and out of the way. My computer is my cash cow... I need it to make my living, and since I am on it all day, little annoyances can over time become major pains. I decided to just take the dive and upgrade it, especially since we decided we weren't going to be buying a house right now.
$550 in car repairs, another $770 later this week for tires on my car, so around $1,300 in car expenses. My wife had the oil leak in her car, and my car is in need of tires. After driving through some heavy rain on our way to Thanksgiving at my parents, I realize it is certainly time to get them. I could tell it was getting poor traction in the rain, and don't want to go into the rain season with them still on there.
There have been a couple of other little happenings. First, end of last month, MBNA finally merged with Bank of America. Due to some sort of quirk with the move, my payment for this month never went through. Never withdrawn from my checking account, and never posted on the credit card. I got them to reverse the lay fee and have another payment going through, so hopefully it is all taken care of now. My main thing is not letting it get 30 days past due. The other issue is I never got my new statement for November (normally have it by around the 15th). Hopefully it was just lost in the mail or delivered to the wrong person.
Also, next month is when we need to start making payments on my wife's other student loan. I knew it was coming, but now the day is finally here. Another $130 in minimum payments to throw that way.
With making the computer purchases, I was going to be able to recoup most of the costs through selling other stuff. Total, I am expecting to get about $1,500. The problem? I don't think I will be able to use it to pay the balance off the credit cards. In January, we are going to be moving and renting a house, so I will be needed to make a security deposit. Typically, this is about one months worth of rent, so I am expecting it to be about $1,500. It is money that I will eventually get back (or most of it), but it is still cash I need my account, to hand over while we live there.
The thing that really bothers me is that our credit card debt will be the highest it has been all year, even though this year we'd payed of three accounts, and really close on another card. While we are in a much better place now than we were a year ago, mentally, it can feel like a pretty major blow.
Though on the more positive side, there are a few things to be happy about. For starters, I guess I am finally out of the ugly APR on my Citibank card. I had regularly been late with payments before, never 30 days, but just a day or two here an there, causing my APR to jump. Their period is pretty long, but now I am finally getting dropped down to the lower rate. While it doesn't cut my debt, it does help with finance charges, so it is certainly not bad news.
Additionally, I do try to think of how much better of we are this year than last year at this time. So while it is a set back, it is definitely one we'll recover from. We just need to buckle down on some spending, evaluate things, and continue trucking forward. With all of these expenses out of the way, going forward, we should be looking much better.
- iTunes money pit
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Found this post about a guy who ran up an tab from 8,000 downloads on iTunes (via Get Rich Slowly). That is one reason I consider iTunes to be evil. I had recently turned my wife onto iTunes and set her up on my account. Every time she made a purchase, it would email me the invoice the next day. I didn't really care what she was buying, since I figured a little here and there wouldn't hurt. And then, in the course of 3 days, she purchased 60 songs, and 40 in one day. In the emails, it lists the songs she bought, and skimming through it, I noticed a few of them were songs we already had on CD, or songs I had as regular MP3s.
At that point, I realized the problem with download services like iTunes. First, it is expensive to build up your library. We have eclectic music tastes, and what we feel like listening to at any particular time can vary greatly. I don't want to spend hundreds/thousands building up some music library. Second, you don't actually own the songs you buy. You basically fleece them. You can only use them on so many computers, with their software, etc. You don't own it. Third, it is too easy to get sucked into a buying fever. One click and you "purchased" a song. No swiping of the card or needing to go through some checkout process. It is too easy to buy more than you even realize.
The solution? Dump iTunes and get a service with a subscription. Apple doesn't believe in the subscription model, and so I'm not going to give Apple my money anymore. There are plenty of subscription music services from Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo, and the one I'm using now, Urge (since it is right there in Windows Media Player 11). I can get all the music I want, when I want it, for a flat (and reasonable) rate. Why spend hundres/thousands building your library of stuff you don't actually own anyway, when you can just pay $10/month and get it all.
Typically I hate monthly services, though this is one time where I think it is justified.
- Expensive car repair
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On Monday, I had taken my wife's car in because it had been leaking oil. Ended up being caused by a crack in the oil sending unit, just above the oil filter. Though while it was there, I also had them do the 60k tune-up on the car and also replaced the battery, since it was running low. Final costs? $550.
It ended up costing more than I thought it would, but the bulk of the cost is from the tune-up and the battery. I could have gone without the tune up, but I have always felt that car maintenance is important. I take a lot of pride in my cars. I like them nice and clean, like them in good visual order (ie, no big dents, scratches, etc), and in full working order. Even though I know a car is a horrible investment, it is something that we definitely depend on. If one of our cars broke down, we'd live, but it would be a major inconvenience. So I try to keep everything in good mechanical shape. Also, I know for a fact my wife has never taken her car in for a tune-up since she bought it, and she also went about the entire first year she owned the car without a single oil change. I knew a tune up was definitely on the menu to make sure everything checked out. Also, the tune up covered the inspection of the oil leak, so saved probably $30-40 there.
Next up on the lovely expenses... new tires for my car. With the rain already starting, I probably shouldn't go much longer.
- October 2006 Networth
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It has been a busy month, especially the last two weeks. Now that October is over, welcome to the holiday season! Probably the most expensive time of the year. But, we are confident that we are in a much better position now than we were a year ago, so this time, we're approaching it prepared.
| |
September 2006 |
October 2006 |
$ Change |
| TOTAL NET WORTH |
-$3,896.30 |
-$3,645.07 |
$251.23 |
| Assets |
| Checking |
$2,143.66 |
$1,033.81 |
-$1,109.85 |
| Savings |
$500.69 |
$603.97 |
$103.28 |
| CD |
$30,635.68 |
$30,775.19 |
$139.51 |
| Retirement |
$3,455.39 |
$3,834.85 |
$379.46 |
| Business |
$192.78 |
$8.50 |
-$184.28 |
| Cars |
$9,545.00 |
$9,545.00 |
$0.00 |
| TOTAL ASSETS |
$46,473.20 |
$45,801.32 |
-$671.88 |
| Liabilities |
| Credit Cards |
$16,873.92 |
$16,656.82 |
-$217.10 |
| Auto Loan |
$4,373.08 |
$4,142.80 |
-$230.28 |
| Auto Lease |
$7,394.20 |
$6,983.40 |
-$410.80 |
| Student Loans |
$21,728.30 |
$21,663.37 |
-$64.93 |
| TOTAL LIABILITIES |
$50,369.50 |
$49,446.39 |
-$923.11 |
October started off strong, having paid off my Chevron gas card, and making the final payment on my Chase card, though towards the end of the month, had a few extra expenses to make for a smaller jump in our worth. Overall, our credit card debt only went down $217, but some of that is balance on our gas card (which is paid each month) and some other stuff. Disappointing, but still progress nonetheless. Better to see it go down only a little than to go up at all. November is going to be an expensive month though. Taking my wife's car in for work on Monday, already had to purchase some software upgrades for stuff at work, and I should be getting my new tires now that the rain is here. Kind of preparing for this month not to be good. But, I do have a $450 payment on route to Dell, which is nice. I have more things to put on Ebay, whenever I catch a break from work. So I know we'll have some expenses, but hope I can keep the damage as minimal as possible.
It is kind of evident how much getting my paycheck early skewed the stats last month. Our checking account was artificially high, and this month, it looks like we lost a lot, paid little to savings, and little to retirement. In reality, half of the transfers that were intended for October were in September because of that paycheck. Ultimately though, I wanted the networth statements to reflect the balance on the final day of the month. And regardless of how it was counted, I would still be in the same place today.
I'm still tracking our debt reduction to buy a house, even though we aren't going to buy a house as soon as I thought. It is still a goal of mine, and one I definitely want to reach by the time we buy a house. We're up to $2,784 paid off, just over 25% of the way there! Overall, some good progress. Should note that once I pay off a card, I no longer count the balance if I use it. IE, we have a balance on our Chevron card since we regularly use it, but I no longer carry the balance. It is paid in full each month. I am mainly looking to reduce the balances we carry, because that is what affects out monthly debt payments and debt-to-income ratio.
Overall, kind of a mixed month. We made some good progress, our liabilities are continuing to drop, and our networth is slowly approaching $0 even. Had some expenses, but I know we'll recover. Regardless, looking forward to the new year, when the expensive season will be over and we can refocus to knock that debt off.
- Paying for things you only think you need
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Lately, I've been looking for some ways to trim our expenses a little here and there. I was mainly thinking of canceling my Netflix subscription, and my Vonage phone service. I don't use Netflix much anymore since the new TV seasons have started, and I don't use Vonage a ton, so Skype sounds like a cheaper alternative. But then I was doing some thinking... these are only like $17/mo bills... I wasn't even looking at some of the larger monthly expenses, such as my cell phone bill.
I hate cell phone companies. Their sole purpose is to rip you off. They can nickel and dime you to death like nobodies business. Last night, I was looking over our cell phone bills from the past couple of months and noticed a few "features" we could cut and save $25/month on our bill.
First, we are on a family plan with Verizon that has 700 monthly minutes. Even though we have a family plan, some features are billed per line, such as text messages. Both my line and my wife's have $5/monthly charges for 250 text messages each. If you have no text message plan it go over, it is $.10/message. In looking at our bills, in the past 3 months, I've used maybe 5 text messages. And my wife, on average uses about 20, though sometimes <10. So we are paying $10/month for 500 text messages we never come close to using. If we declined the feature and continued at our regular usage, we'd be paying about $2/month for per messages charges.
Second, my wife likes downloading songs from Vcast. She usually gets 1-2 a month. I had thought that it was a free service, since she has the "Vcast with Music" service. No, it is not. And Verizon's music charge is a pure rip off. They charge $1.99 per song. Compare that to the $0.99 per song on Itunes or MSN Music. They are twice as much, and it can only be used on her phone. She has an MP3 player, a fairly nice one. I told her she should just use it more.
And finally, since her "Vcast with Music" service apparently isn't for music or anything, I am not sure what it is used for. It is a lovely $15/month and I don't know its purpose. It wouldn't let me remove it online, so I'll probably go into the store and ask for it to be removed. I don't know what it provides her, but either way, I don't think it is worth $15/month.
It is often times worth while to scruitinize bills to make sure your money is working for you, and then you aren't paying extra for something that isn't worth it.
- Non paying Ebayers suck
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In order to help get some more funds for our debt reduction, I've been planning on selling some stuff that I don't really need on Ebay. Last week, I posted the first item. I decided to only do one to keep it simple, and it was going to be a nice ~$400.
The day before the auction was the end, someone had bought it using the Buy It Now option, since the reserve hadn't yet been met. I was cheering... woo hoo, my item sold, $400 richer! That was Friday afternoon. It is now Tuesday morning. Still no money, still no word from the buyer. I've sent the invoice twice, and have just sent him another message.
Hopefully this guy will contact me and pay, and things can move on, but things like this make me really hate selling things on Ebay. Craigslist is better, since it is more controlled by you (ie, final price, who gets it, no fees, all local), but the audience for some items are just too small. If it is like specialized computer hardware, most people on Craigslist aren't interested in it, so I need to go to Ebay. But then you just end up getting screwed by people like this.
One piece of solice I have is that in the purchase email, it included his address and his phone number. I think if he doesn't contact me by this evening, I am going to give him a call. I am not too confident though. My guess is it is a scammer.
Update: He paid this afternoon! Yay! Shipping it off tomorrow morning.
- Paid off another card!
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Today, I submitted the payment for the remaining balance on my Chase credit card! It felt good to select the option for "Pay current balance" instead of "Pay current minimum" or "Pay other amount" and enter in some small fraction of the balance.
This is the first time I've had a $0.00 balance on a regular consumer credit card since I got my first card! I like looking at my list of accounts in Microsoft Money and finally seeing some accounts which say $0.00.
Next on the chopping block: my Dell preferred account. Hoping to chop its balance down to zero by the end of next month!
- Fell a day behind in my blog reading
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I fell behind a day on reading new posts, and after my earlier post about mortgage tax savings, I find that yesterday, JLP at AllFinancialMatters posted a tidbit on mortgage deduction and taxes.