Money Beagle

Net Worth Review: November 2009

2009-11-06T15:44:00.001-05:00

Last month was a pretty good month.

The biggest thing that happened, which drastically accounted for some shifting, was that I sold my old car and we purchased a newer SUV from my parents. As a result, our cash holdings went down (which is OK, since I had earmarked money specifically for the purchase of a car) and our value of automobiles went up. The value of the autos went up more than cash went because I had 'written off' a portion of the earmarked cash. When I originally started saving, I thought we might possibly purchase a 'new' car, which usually sees a big chunk of depreciation the moment you drive it off the lot.

Assets:

Property - Zillow estimated the price of our house to have fallen a few hundred dollars, but this is pretty much unchanged.
Autos - This went up significantly because the car we purchased is worth more than the car we sold.
Investment Accounts - The market was pretty choppy but ended up pretty flat. Our investment holdings went up just under 1% in value. Not a lot, but no complaints since up is better than down!
Cash - As mentioned, this dropped because of the purchase of a more expensive car.
Retirement - Our retirement account went up due to contributions plus the small market gains.

Debt:

Property - We made our standard mortgage payment
Student loans - Minimum payments here for the month as has been the usual lately.
Credit cards - We don't carry a balance, so this is just what's accrued on the card since we last paid the bill. Because this varies and makes things look worse, I'm thinking of eliminating this, and tracking it by lowering our 'cash' by the amount we currently owe. This would make for much smaller month-to-month swings
Auto - This stayed at zero as we were able to pay cash for the car. That's the first time I've ever been able to do so! I do have to be honest, and admit that my parents did give us a 'deal' on the car, but either way, we had planned all along to pay cash for the car, and I'm very glad that we were able to meet this goal and avoid any new debt.

Overall, our net worth went up around 3.3% for the month. We are at another new 'All Time High' when you remove the impact of the property (both on the asset and debt side). We are also at an 'All Time High' for retirement savings. Woo hoo!

I think I need to check my Excel formulas, because I would think that since I reduced the value of our asset, that the change in Net Worth Including Property should be lower than the Net Worth Excluding Property, but it's the other way around. Hmmmm......

When Good Deals Go Bad! Massive Price Increase On Costco / Kirkland Diapers!

2009-11-03T16:39:00.001-05:00

My wife and I went to Costco last month planning to purchase some diapers. We've been Costco members for a couple of years, and were just recently blessed with the opportunity to purchase diapers. We've been impressed with the price benefit that the Kirkland Signature brand (Costco's store brand) had offered on many products in the past. We'd also heard many great things about their prices on diapers, so we decided to take a look.

I was shocked when I found that their unit price per diaper was, for just about every size, higher than the national brand (Huggies) that they sell.

I did some digging and found that they've recently raised prices on their diapers. From the historical prices that I've been able to dig up, it looks like the prices have gone up anywhere from 26% to 33% across the board. This chart speaks for itself:

Really, Costco? For a store that prides itself on value, especially for the Kirkland product line, this is shocking. My family and I have become more and more trusting of Costco, and the Kirkland line, and this is a good way to erase a good portion of that trust in one fell swoop.

Review of October 2009 Goals / Setting November's Goals

2009-10-30T17:58:00.000-04:00

Here's the goals I set for October. With the month drawing to a close, let's see how things went:

Get back on the treadmill - I still haven't gotten up to my full 5-day-per-week routine, mostly because of a cold I had earlier in the month, and some foot issues that arose after failing to 'ease into things' properly once back on, but I'm on three times a week, and I'm happy with that, enough to call it a success.
Sell a car / buy a car - Well, I'm happy to report that this afternoon, I sold my car! I actually did make it happen through Craigslist, despite all my complaining. The person actually turned out to be a very nice lady, and her and I hit it off from the first exchange of e-mails. Just as I'd been frustrated with the selling side, she'd been frustrated with trying to buy a car, having found some lemons and people that seemed less than trustworthy. So, both her and I consider ourselves very lucky. Though I don't have the new car yet, it's all lined up for Monday, so I'm considering this one a success.
Winterize around the house - I never got to this, but am moving it to the next month. I actually read a cool news clipping about how you can use incense to determine leaky spots, so I'm planning on incorporating this tip, and I'd also like to wash the blinds when doing this, so the scope of the project has been reset.
Donate - Since we never got the bigger car, this didn't happen. But it will before I get my garage re-organized for the winter.
Figure out our Netflix plan - We haven't made it over to the library but I will be by sometime soon as I have a book on hold that I've been anxious to read. We've actually been pretty busy, so the low movie plan has worked out perfect, plus some good stuff has shown up on the On Demand section of the DVR, so although we didn't achieve this, so far there's no impact.

November Goals

Winterize - See above or last month
Donate - See above or last month
Figure out our Netflix plan - Also carried over from last month
Finalize our Christmas budget - Most of this is done, but we need to finalize it
Get a head start on Christmas shopping - Things just seem to move faster when you have a kid, so I'd like to be over 50% done with our shopping by the end of the month. Let's see how it goes
Enjoy the holidays - Can you believe that the holidays will be in full swing in a month?

Of Course....

2009-10-28T13:26:00.000-04:00

Wouldn't you know it? Within ten minutes of my post on Craigslist, I got a call about my car. Long story short, after doing a showing yesterday during my lunch hour, there is somebody that wants to buy it, full price, and hopefully can be taken care of this week or early next week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I guess I need to complain about things more often, then maybe they'll suddenly resolve.

Haha.

Anyways, wish me luck!

Lamenting On Craigslist

2009-10-26T09:28:00.000-04:00

BREAKING NEWS: A shrink wrapped package containing a shaker of salt and a shaker of pepper, on sale at the Ravenna, OH 'Everything's A Buck' dollar store was discovered as the single item for sale in the United States that is not posted on Craigslist. Workers stared dumbfounded at the package, discovered behind a stack of yellow smiley face plates, wondering how it could be possible that an item for sale is not listed on Craigslist.

Having started the process of trying to sell my car, I am absolutely amazed at how Craigslist has seemingly taken over the world. I listed my car and within an hour, my car wasn't even on the first page of used car listings. And each page holds 100 listings.

It's unbelievable!

I sold some stuff on Craigslist a couple of years ago before I moved, and it was remarkable at how fast things generated interest. Most everything at that time was furniture. Stupidly, I believed that, combined with my sister-in-law selling a car within two days last year, would set the stage for a quick sell.

Alas, it hasn't happened.

I'm, of course, using other ways to try to sell the car, but was certainly hoping that Craigslist would be a bit more 'useful.

Here are a few observations about Craigslist:

I think it has officially 'jumped the shark'. That's the term used to describe a TV show that goes from good to out of ideas. My little fake paragraph of a news story illustrates that it has gone from useful to I think a bit ridiculous. It's definitely a fad that seems to have caught on a little too well.
I think they should cut out retail establishment postings - Wasn't the original point of Craigslist to give people a chance to sell stuff online that didn't have a great way of selling things otherwise? Sorry, but I think it's crazy that car dealerships have taken over the auto listings page. When I did some investigating to find out just how 100 posts appeared in a matter of minutes, it didn't take long to figure out that 18 straight posts from 'So-And-So Chevrolet' multiplied by a lot of dealerships, would tend to push out a lot of posts. Give Craigslist back to the people it was designed for!
Enforce the right rules - They now make it so that you can't even think about re-posting your ad unless it's been active for two days. Try it even a minute before and you're prohibited from adding your ad. But, a car DEALER posting in the 'by owner' category? No problem, go right ahead. Again, pandering to the retail establishments and pushing out the little guy, not so much for the individual sellers anymore.
Update the site already! - I get how Craigslist still wants to be ad free, but really, if you're going to let the car dealership and retail networks take over the postings, why not give some additional features that might help out the little guy? Would it kill to show a page view counter for postings to see how many people are viewing the listings? Would adding a few categories so people could search a little easier really hurt?

If Craigslist still did what the founders set out to do when they started expanding in the 2002 timeframe, then the the lack of technology and offerings would be OK. But, with the explosive growth as well as the fact of how they've pandered to the retail shops that have taken over, what they offer now to help the individual seller is extremely disappointing.

I still think Craigslist holds a lot of value and can be useful, but the current experience of trying to sell my car has made me realize that it has become a lot less meaningful, because they had the opportunity to grow and adapt as their popularity increased. But they chose not to, and I find that a shame.

Things Missing

2009-10-16T16:32:00.000-04:00

No, I haven't been robbed and I didn't lose anything.

I wanted to discuss the changes that happened with Money Beagle over the past few months. Specifically, I'll center it around the things that are missing from what was once there, and I'll discuss a little bit more:

The old format - I was on a domain using Wordpress and hosted at Dreamhost. When Dreamhost wanted to extend my rates at about 500% of the cost of the first year, I looked at what I had made in revenue (not much) against the annual cost (a lot more than I was bringing in). I also looked at how much I was actually using the things that DreamHost offered (not many) and how much I projected my revenue growth over the next year (probably not much). I decided I wanted to move my blog to a free site, and felt that Blogger was just fine for the amount of posting and the features I used. I probably should have started with a free site, but that's a lesson learned.
The weekly roundups and carnivals - I was doing weekly links and also participated in many carnivals, and even hosted a few. I'm not doing that anymore. I'll be honest, I had been doing those things with an eye on growing my traffic (and my revenue). The problem was, it really wasn't working. I'd write a round-up and someone would write 'thanks' back, and my subscriber count wouldn't go up. I'd participate in a carnival, get about five or six links (maybe triple that if I was an editors pick) and see my subscriber count maybe go up by one person every three or four carnivals. It just wasn't worth it. I'm sure that doing weekly roundups and participating in carnivals was once a great way to grow your blog traffic, but I think that they've gotten too saturated, and they're just not worth it for bloggers like me who don't do....
Daily posts - I used to have a rule of trying to do a daily post. I would find myself not enjoying blogging. Here's the thing. I love blogging about certain things, but I realized that inspiration isn't probably going to hit me every day. So, I was doing filler and such that I really wasn't enjoying. I guess I'd rather write a few posts that I really like per month versus writing 20 or 30 a month with only a few that I'm proud of. Most likely, that showed through and may have had something to do with the fact that I didn't get a lot of great hits from my round-ups or carnivals. I promise now, though, I'm going to be more writing about things that I care about and am excited to write about. I may not write often, but when I do, hopefully it's more insightful than what I had been doing.
Blogroll - I had a pretty big blogroll going. I will actually add that back as I do read a lot of PF blogs every day. I will most likely start from scratch. Now that I'm writing more personal stuff and writing more for me, I will be adding blogs that relate to that. Blogs that focus so much on subscriber traffic that they feel the need to post updates about it constantly (sorry, The Simple Dollar) won't be added, but my guess is that they won't miss my paltry little link anyways. Also, blogs that talk about your own experiences, those will be my blogroll. So, if you talk about your 401(k) or about your frugality turning to debt reduction, that's what I want to see! If you are regurgitating the same '10 reasons why you should open a 401(k)' or '25 things to cut back on to save money', eh I've read it before and that's not what I want to send my (few) readers to because let's face it, everybody else already links to those blogs as it is.
Comments - I'm afraid I couldn't bring the comments from my DreamHost blog with me. So while I brought over most of the articles (minus round-ups), I lost all of the great comments. But I still have them in my heart, I promise! :)
Twitter - Again, I did the Twitter thing because it seemed that was what everybody was doing and thought it'd be a great way to direct readers to my blog. And I thought it was the most useless thing I've ever done. I just didn't get it, and I'm sure it had to do with the fact that I didn't have the motivation to invest hours and hours into Twittering, which is I'm sure how many have actually gotten it to work. I have Facebook for my friends and family. I have this blog for my personal finance stories. Twitter just didn't have a good place that I felt was worth the time, so I tried it and got rid of it.

I guess what it boils down to is that I'm going for quality, not quantity. I also wanted to look at my balance. I realized, especially after Baby Beagle came along, that I didn't want to spend hours per week Twittering and carnival hosting and carnival participating and commenting on 500 other blog posts to build up my traffic by a few people here and there so that I could enthusiastically report that I hit a thousand subscribers. Some can do that and are great it, and I say fantastic. But it just wasn't me.

I want to keep blogging, I love blogging, but I realized that I wanted to set realistic expectations so that I can get the most out of blogging and actually enjoy it like I know I can. I can't promise that Money Beagle the most high quality personal finance out there. In fact, I'm pretty sure it won't be. But, I can promise I'll be writing stuff that I believe in, that affects and happens to me personally, and I promise that when I write, from now on, there's no fluff.

I hope you stick with me and my little blog as I re-discover my place in the blog sphere.

This Ought To Be Fun

2009-10-15T17:39:00.000-04:00

A few posts back, I talked about my wisdom tooth surgery and how they had to do a bone graft to replace bone taken out of my jaw as well as the hole where the tooth was that they removed. Apparently, a big enough hole wouldn't have healed well (if at all) by itself, and could have led to problems with my jaw throughout life.

Yes, it's as fun as it sounds, plus it still gets sore. I guess the level of grafting that they had to do, it will probably take another two or three months to fully heal. It isn't impacting my eating or any activities, but I still don't eat foods where you have to pull with your teeth/jaw really hard, and if I do use my jaw a lot, I'll be pretty sore by the end of the day.

But, the really fun part came with the bill. Apparently, the $900 figure they printed out wasn't exactly accurate. I logged online to my insurance website and saw that the claim had been filed in the amount of $2,400. Yikes!

I really hope that, like so many procedures, the agreed upon amount is a fraction of what the billed cost was. That would make my 10% co-pay even worse.

Still, since the claim is in 'Open' status I'm having nightmares of them denying the claim altogether or revealing that they will only pay up to a certain amount, or something else crazy like that. Usually, this insurance company has come through in the past, so I'm hoping that it works out fine, but until that claim status goes from 'Open' to something more agreeable, I'm a bit anxious.

Net Worth Review: October 2009

2009-10-09T07:55:00.000-04:00

It's officially fall. We never really had all that great of a summer from a 'warmth' perspective, so it shouldn't surprise me that it's already chilly. Again, it's been below normal temperatures, which is sort of the norm for the year.

In any case, here is our net worth chart for October 2009.

Assets

Property - The value of our home was actually reported to go up a little bit this month. I've noticed houses in our neighborhood selling a lot faster than even a few months ago, so I'm hopeful that we'll at least start seeing some even values for a while, and then hope for some increases in the next year or two.

Autos - My wife's car actually reported a slight uptick in value this month, for whatever reason. Mine went down a little bit. I am hoping to put mine on the market soon, so wish me luck!

Investment Accounts - The stock market went up a little bit, so our investments went up accordingly, which was nice to see!

Cash Accounts - Cash holdings were stable for the month

Retirement Accounts - The market plus regular 401(k) contributions pushed this up. The total balance for retirement savings is almost at an all time high, which is nice to see. Although we're still off from market highs, the regular contributions have helped speed things along when it came to re-building the balance.

Debt

I'm not going to break this down into individual categories, because things have been running on autopilot lately. We haven't put any 'extra' towards debt, which was pretty much what we expected when we went to a single income. We're making progress, but it is definitely not as much fun when you can't put a little extra. Still, tax refunds and other windfalls will help in this regard, but they're going to be the exception and not the norm.

Overall

Though things are running on autopilot, there are some things that I'm very happy about. The biggest achievement for the month is that if you look at net worth excluding property, our value here is at an all time high! That mostly has to do with regular contributions to retirement plus paying down debt and not adding any new debt. Though sometimes it seems like things get a little monotonous, it's seeing things like this that show we're making progress!

Monthly Goals - Review and New Ones for October

2009-09-30T10:27:00.001-04:00

Let's review the goals I set for September and see how I did:

Continue to work out - Mostly accomplished - I was doing great up until my wisdom tooth surgery. I haven't gotten back into it yet, just because my recovery has taken a bit longer than expected, but I am gearing up to get back into it full swing next week pending doctor approval.
Recover from wisdom tooth surgery - Mostly accomplished - My surgery for extracting teeth was rather complicated, and as an update to my post, I had a further complication last week when a small hole appeared between my sinuses and one of the extraction sites. The surgeon was fairly confident that this would heal on it's own. I'll find out more next week. So far it seems to be doing well, and I'm back to eating all but really crunch foods.
Figure out what to do with my MY money - Somewhat accomplished - As I mentioned, I bought a pair of running shoes with money that my parents gave me for my birthday to spend on myself. I still have some left, but am in no hurry as I don't want to spend just for the sake of spending, but would rather wait until something truly important comes along. In any case, the money is earmarked accordingly.
Sell a car / buy a car - Not accomplished - Again, I'll blame the wisdom teeth. I have a few small things I need to get straightened out, as well as do a thorough cleaning. I'm moving this to October.
Do good in my fantasy sports leagues - Accomplished - I had dropped from first to fourth in my baseball league, but am now at second. Either second or third is likely for me, and that will ensure me some prize money. I also started off 2-1 in my football league, so I can't complain. This week might be brutal, though, as I've got a double whammy of injuries and bye week players that are leaving me no choice but to field a bunch of scrubs.
Get caught up on insurance co-pays - Accomplished - Everything is finally caught up with the bills from Baby Beagle's delivery. I also had an issue to work out with regard to coverage for Baby Beagle's immunizations that was straightened out. Even the oral surgery bills are pretty much finished off, except for one claim that I'm expecting to run through any day.

October Goals

Get back on the treadmill - By the end of the month I should be fully back into the workout routine unless something really creates a setback with the wisdom teeth removal.
Sell a car / buy a car - I'm moving this one up a month and see no reason that it can't happen.
Winterize around the house - Some of the windows need re-caulking and I'd like to have the furnace tuned up to make sure everything is running efficiently.
Donate - I have stuff that needs to be donated that has been with us for way too long. Getting rid of those piles in the basement and the garage will help get those areas clean, and hopefully help others that can use the items.
Figure out our Netflix plan - Right now, we're on the $4.99 minimum plan where you get two movies per month. We've actually now gotten into a habit where we like to watch a movie on Saturday night. So, this leaves us two or three movies short per month. I am convinced that our library has a decent enough selection where we could supplement our Netflix rentals with free library rentals, but my wife is skeptical. We need to go check it out and determine if we can stick to our current Netflix plan or if we will need to bump back up to the next highest plan ($8.99) that would allow us to watch a movie a week.

Happy autumn!

Wisdom Of Teeth Removal

2009-09-22T12:21:00.000-04:00

I had three of my four wisdom teeth removed last week. I had been in discussions with my dentist about my wisdom teeth for years. Probably 15-18 years ago, he pointed out that my wisdom teeth were in bad locations and were not ideal candidates for 'automatic' removal, which is the path that many dentists / oral surgeons seem to be leaning towards. The idea behind that is that getting them out in your late teen's or early 20's is the most ideal time, as your body can adapt and heal the quickest.

The main reason that he recommended holding off is because my bottom wisdom teeth were in very close proximity to a nerve, and he thought the likelihood of damage outweighed the benefit of taking them out without cause.

So, I was fine for years and years, but then a few months ago, the area around one of the teeth started to hurt. I went to the dentist, and was told that I had an infection and that once a wisdom tooth started getting infections, it should come out. We gambled on leaving them in, but unfortunately it didn't pay off.

I was referred to an oral surgeon. Upon exam, he actually recommended taking three of my four teeth. He recommended the one on the bottom that was getting infected as well as the two on the top, which had shown progression that would lead to decay of other teeth within a few years. He actually pointed out that the surgery would not be easy. The bottom teeth, in addition to being close to the nerve, were embedded in my jaw. The upper teeth would need to be cut out, cracked, and removed in pieces to avoid damaging the roots of the nearby teeth.

He recommended that I get knocked out during the surgery. I stopped him and said that I wanted to get knocked out just for hearing any more details about the extraction!

The day of the surgery came and things went well. The knocking out portion was the easiest. They hooked up an IV, and I asked "Did you guys start the medicine yet?" The nurse answered, "Yes, we just did." I said, "That's what I thought because things started...."

And next thing I know, they were waking me up having extracted all three teeth.

All three of the removals were as complex as could possibly be. The bottom removal required a bone graft in my jaw. While they didn't know if any nerve damage occurred, the graft would reduce the chances of any damage being permanent, as well as reduce the time for the bone to heal, which would minimize my chances for future infections. The upper teeth both were discovered to be extremely close to my sinus walls. In some cases, the removal actually breaches the sinus wall, in which case secondary surgery is often necessary to close the sinus cavity. Luckily, mine wasn't breached, but because the hole from the tooth was so close, I have to take extra medicine and additional precautions to minimize the risk of blowing open my sinus cavity during the healing process. This meant trying to avoid any sinus pressure, so I was on medicine to reduce that, as well as not holding in sneezes.

So far, my recovery has had it's ups and downs. I am still not eating solid foods. The fact that they had to do so many cuts and go up so deep into my tissue has made it difficult than a simple yank. I was also concerned that I was still getting occasional bleeding as late as yesterday (4 days after the surgery) but was told that this is normal given the complexity.

On a positive note, the complications seem to *knock on wood* have been minimal. If I'd had nerve damage, I would have spots on or around my lips where I would have little or no feeling. So far, I think I'm in the clear. I also haven't had any problems with my sinuses, where if I'd have had any bloody noses or undue pressure, there could have been complications.

If I can get away with the short term pain and not being able to eat solids for a week or so, I'll take that as long as I don't have any major complications.

The other fun part will be in dealing with the insurance and financial aspect. I actually went to a different oral surgeon than my dentist referred me to, for the reason that I wanted to go to an in-network facility. They were great with working with me, and even had me pre-pay a certain amount knowing my dental coverage. There will be a little bit extra cost on the dental side because my maximum claim limit for the calendar year was exhausted. That I'm cool with. What I also expect to be fun is the bone graft side of it. That gets billed to my medical insurance.

I had previously called my medical insurance provider to make sure that they covered it, and that the oral surgeon was in network. Both were confirmed. The submitted claim price for this was $900, so if everything went according to the way it should work, the most I should have to pay is $90, since my insurance covers 90% of such procedures. It could be less if they have a 'negotiated' price on services, which would be nice.

However, things with the insurance company are never easy, so I expect it will not be as easy as just writing a check for $90 to cover that. It never is.

All in all, I'm on the mend. Today is the first day that I've felt halfway normal, and I'm hoping to be eating somewhat solid foods by the weekend. It's so nice to have goals!

Running Shoes

2009-09-15T12:44:00.000-04:00

I've taken up running on the treadmill in the morning's before work. Actually, I run three days, do a high incline walk one day, and a simple walk another day. I take the weekends off.

One thing I quickly realized that I needed was a pair of shoes to fit the habit.

I actually waited several weeks to make sure that I was going to committ to the routine. So far, so good.

So, at the recommendation of a friend, I started looking around for some Asics running shoes. My friend runs about 20 miles per week, and has used Asics for a good portion of the time he's been running.

I looked online and determined some of the 'better' reviewed types. Armed with that information, I went to my favorite store for shoes:

Kohl's.

Although I didn't get the help to properly size them, I felt it was pretty easy. The 8-1/2's felt too small and the 9-1/2s were way too big, and the 9's fit perfect. So, pretty easy choice.

The local store had a pair that I wanted on sale from $89.99 to $64.99. On top of that, I had a printable 15% off coupon that I used over the Labor Day weekend. All told, including taxes, they were slightly over $58.

And, after using them for a week and a half, I love them! They feel like I'm running on air.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that my parents gave me some cash for my birthday to spend on myself. I'm happy to say that a portion of their money went towards these shoes, and I couldn't be happier with them!

Net Worth Review: September 2009

2009-09-09T12:49:00.000-04:00

Here is a snapshot of our net worth for the last month.

Basically, things were moving in the right direction with the exception of Property. Let's just say that the housing market sucks and leave it at that. Looking at prices around the neighborhood, I'd say it's gone from 'maybe' to 'certainly' that we're underwater; in other words, we would not get what we currently owe.

Luckily, there are two things that make that easier to swallow. First, we're not planning on moving anytime soon, and second, the thought has never crossed our mind to do anything but continue paying and wait for things to improve. We love our house, we haven't had a devastating job loss, and we're not societal deadweights that think it's OK to abandon a house because it's worth less than what you could get for it.

Anyways, on a more positive note, we saw gains elsewhere that are very encouraging.

Actually, our net worth excluding our house is nearly at a record high, as is our retirement. The fact that these two are approaching this milestone at the same time is pretty much expected, since retirement is the biggest chunk of our net worth at this time.

That shows that we're doing some things right: We're investing, we're paying off debt, and we're saving. That sounds pretty good to me.

September 2009 Goals

2009-09-01T11:36:00.001-04:00

Here are some personal and fiinancial goals for the month.

Continue to work out - I'm in my fourth week of getting up five days a week (before work) and exercising on the treadmill. I need exercise. I love exercise. I love working out on the treadmill, but working out in the afternoon / evenings wasn't getting it done because there was never opportunity to get into a groove. Just too much going on. So, I had to overcome the fact that I hated getting up in the mornings to workout and actually do it. After about the second week, I stopped hating the alarm going off, so I think I may be over the hump.
Recover from wisdom tooth surgery - OK, so I haven't had it yet, but it's scheduled for later in the month.
Figure out what to do with my MY money - I just had a birthday and my parents gave me a little bit of cash, with the stipulation that I spend it on myself and something I enjoy. I think sometimes I get so caught up in saving money or applying any extra money to a particular 'goal' that I forget what it's like to go out and do something nice for myself. So, I am putting the money aside and thinking of what to buy with it.
Sell a car / buy a car - With Baby Beagle, the two cars we have aren't ideal. My parents have agreed to sell us a slightly larger vehicle, so now I have to get that in motion. Get my car ready to sell (mostly cleaning), sell it, and then go through the purchase of the car with my parents, as well as all the plate transfers. I would love to have this all done by the end of the month.
Do good in my fantasy sports leagues - I'm currently in a dead heat for first place in my baseball league. I should, barring anything crazy happening, finish in the top two (first would be nice as I am the defending champ), which will net at least $100 in winnings, so I just need to monitor that. In addition, some of my buddies and I had our fantasy football draft last night, and I'm hoping to get things going on the right foot there, as well.
Get caught up on insurance co-pays - We are still getting bills for things associated with the birth of Baby Beagle, which took place back in May. Every time I think that we're done, it seems another bill finds our mailbox. For most of the summer, it seems not a day would go by that we wouldn't get either an Explanation of Benefit statement or a bill. We only have one bill outstanding, which I need to call on to get an understanding of what it's for (since I thought we had already paid up), so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can cross off everything to do with paying for the delivery from the list.

None of this seems outrageous, so I'm hopeful I can get everything done.

Welcome To Money Beagle 2.0

2009-08-25T07:15:00.000-04:00

I've been taking a break but I'm back. I've decided to move my blog to Blogger. You can still find me at the same address (http://www.moneybeagle.com) but I'm now hosted here. I've moved over most of my articles, but I think that the links are different.

In any case, I'll be posting a little bit more about my absence and my decision to move the blog here in a bit. Meanwhile, please be patient with me as I tweak things around. Thanks!

No Kung Fu For You (OK, Really For Me)

2009-07-20T14:03:00.000-04:00

Wow, I wish I had an extra $130 per month. But it’s disciplined spending and a dose of reality that makes me keep a level head and not blow $130 per month.

My wife and I were walking around our local downtown area a week or so ago when I walked by a new place and stopped. It was a martial arts academy, and it reminded me a lot of a martial arts academy that I had participated in for a few months years ago.

Back a number of years ago, I can’t even remember, but I’d say probably 10 or so, a friend of mine brought to my attention a martial arts academy that he wanted to try. I was looking for something fun so I tried it out and I loved it!

The academy featured kung fu as it’s main discipline. It was taught not so much from the perspective of physical combat as it was for self-defense, self-discipline, and to achieve grater peace. Taking part in mediation practices along with the physical training was highly encouraged, especially for those who were working at higher levels.

I never got to the higher levels. As much as I loved it, there were a few drawbacks at the time. It was pretty far away from where I lived. It was probably 30-40 minutes away, which made getting to class as often as I liked difficult. It was also expensive. After the initial sign-up deal, the prices went up to a pretty steep price per month. I don’t remember exactly but it was probably $90.

But back to my story.

Walking by, the logo and the name looked familiar, though it was quite a few miles away from where I practiced.

I ventured in just to see what was happening, and after a minute of conversation, the person I was talking to indicated that it was familiar to me for a reason: It was a second location of where I used to practice!

How awesome. I instantly had thoughts of picking up where I left off. I don’t do as much physical training as I should, and I really enjoyed what I was doing back then. Now, I wouldn’t have the location issue, as the current location is only about three miles from where I live. Getting there and back would be a cinch.

However, there are two things that would simply make this prohibitive. First, is cost. It’s now $130 per month. If I were to use it, I would certainly get benefits of going. And paying that much, I’d definitely be motivated to go and to get as much out of it as I could. But, that price tag is way too rich for our budget. We simply don’t have the wiggle room in our budget with everything else.

The second factor in the way is time. My wife stays at home, but our life is certainly much more busy now that we have a newborn. He’s eight weeks old now and our evenings and weekends are pretty full as it is. As it is, from the time that I get home until bedtime, or from wake until sleep on the weekends, I’m not even sure where all the time goes. I think it would be completely selfish to take the four or five hours a week that I’d be pulling out to go do that.

I think the way I have to approach it is this:

Maybe someday I can do that. It’d be a ways away according to any budget I can come up with, but one can hope, right? But in the mean time, this should serve as motivation to use the workout tools I have. We have a treadmill right in our basement. We have sidewalks around our neighborhood. I have a perfectly good bike in my garage. I could probably take 2 hours a week to engage in these activities, and do them for free. Admittedly, I don’t do much of those now, so I should at least start somewhere.

This is definitely motivation. It’s a bummer that I won’t be able to pick up my martial arts, but that’s simply a luxury item that there isn’t room for, neither from a time nor a budget perspective.

Money Hacks Carnival #73: Working For The Weekend Edition

2009-07-15T14:03:00.000-04:00

t’s the middle of summer, the middle of the month and the middle of the week as Money Beagle is proud to present the 73rd edition of the Money Hacks Carnival.

With all that said, there can only be one thing that we’re working for in this slew of middles.

The weekend!

Here are some fun summer things to do that won’t break the bank and are great summer weekend things to do for fun! Enjoy these and the great articles that make up this weeks carnival.

Editor Picks

Grab the tents or the RV and get camping!

Billeater presents Dorm Life – Cheap College Living Tips posted at Billeater. There are some great tips and a lot of them. I didn’t do too bad in college, but this list would have helped me out. Print this out for any college bound person you know, as the time is coming soon.

Anne Simone presents 100 Motivational Blog Posts for the Unemployed posted at Psychology Degrees. Everybody knows that unemployment is the highest it’s been in decades. These are a group of blog posts that can help you through if you find yourself in that unfortunate situation.

ChristianPF presents 10 Minutes, 10 Months, 10 Years | Review posted at Money in the Bible | Christian Personal Finance Blog. I loved this post, it really gave a new perspective on how to prioritize things, and it can apply to things personal finance and beyond.

MoneyNing presents What to Do When Money Conflicts with Ethics posted at Money Ning. Ning always posts some great articles and this is no exception. Don’t miss this read!

Career

Take a walk or a hike on a nice summer day!

FMF presents Four Ways LinkedIn Can Help Your Career posted at Free Money Finance.

Linda Jones presents 100 Useful Twitter Tools and Feeds for Your Job Search posted at JobProfiles.org – Job Descriptions and Online Schools to Start Your Career.

Aryn presents How to Work at Home and Stay Productive posted at Sound Money Matters.

d. ninja presents What would you do? posted at Punch Debt In The Face.

nissim ziv presents First Interview Questions | First Interview Tips posted at Job Interview Guide.

Debt & Credit

Grab that charcoal and get your favorite meat cooking!

Joe Plemon presents How Does Debt Snowball Work? posted at Personal Finance By The Book.

Roshawn Watson presents Colleges Pimping Their Students posted at Watson Inc.

The Dough Roller presents Freecreditreport.com Versus Annualcreditreport.com–Where to get your free credit report posted at The Dough Roller.

Mr Credit Card presents Pitfalls To Chargebacks posted at Ask Mr Credit Card.

Kate Kashman presents One Small Step to Improve Your Finances posted at The Paycheck Chronicles.

Patrick @ Cash Money Life presents Debit Card Versus Credit Card – Which Is Better? posted at Cash Money Life.

Michael Schindler presents What You Should Know About Your FICO Credit Score posted at Your Personal Finance Source.

apply4-credit presents Benefits of Getting a Credit Card Online posted at Apply4-Credit.

Silicon Valley Blogger presents myFICO To Drop Experian Credit Score and Report: One Less FICO Score posted at The Digerati Life.

Economy

Dust of the picnic basket, grab some sandwiches and snacks, and enjoy a nice picnic lunch.

PT presents Cash for Clunkers Bill posted at Prime Time Money.

Frugality & Saving Money

Lions, bears, tigers, and much much more. Visit the zoo for some great summer fun.

Sarah Eliza presents Your Toolbox for Obtaining Organic and Local Produce… AFFORDABLY! posted at Devastate Boredom,.

Save Money presents Revising and Simplifying My Budget (One More Time) posted at How I Save Money.net.

Chris presents Exchanging currency when buying property posted at Home I Own.

Matt Jabs presents Emergency Fund Is For Emergencies ONLY – 6 Ways To Leave It Alone posted at Debt Free Adventure!.

Anthony Samuel presents Save Money on Your Coffee Addiction: Buy a Starbuck’s Gift Card posted at Personal Finance Analyst.

Ray presents Is A Costco Executive Membership Worth It? posted at Money Blue Book.

Madison presents WTDirect $25 to $150 Sign up Bonus posted at My Dollar Plan.

freefrombroke presents Car Allowance Rebate System – Cash For Clunkers posted at Free From Broke.

Tom Drake presents How To Build An Emergency Fund posted at The Canadian Finance Blog.

Wojciech Kulicki presents Overview of Cash for Clunkers posted at Fiscal Fizzle.

Tim Johnson presents 5 Easy Ways to Save Over $1,000 on Your Move posted at Relocation.com.

kathryn presents The 20 Best Twitter Users To Follow For Money Tips posted at Out of Debt Christian.

Leave Debt Behind presents Need to Lower Your Car Payment? Here’s what to Do posted at Leave Debt Behind.

Income

Spread out that blanket, rub on some suntan lotion and enjoy a day at the beach!

Online Dividends presents $100 Checking Bonus at Bank of America posted at Blogging Banks.

Insurance

This is the season for live music. Find a cheap ticket and a date, and enjoy some tunes!

Jim presents What is the Average Cost of Car Insurance for a Teenager? posted at Finance, Credit, Insurance and all.

Brian McKay presents Best Auto Insurance: Do I Need Rental Car Insurance? posted at MonitorBankRates.com.

Investing

A lounge chair and a good library book is a great way to enjoy a lazy summer afternoon.

One Family presents Southwest Airlines (LUV) – Stock Analysis posted at One Family’s Blog.

Mike Piper presents Where is the best place to open a Roth IRA? posted at The Oblivious Investor.

Dividends4Life presents 12 Dividend Stocks With A 5-Star Strong Buy Rating posted at Dividends Value.

Darwin presents Lazy Portfolio Claims to Beat S&P – But Upon Further Inspection… | Darwin’s Finance posted at Darwin’s Finance.

Dividend Growth Investor presents Best Yielding Stocks for 2009 2Q Update posted at Dividend Growth Investor.

jim presents Best Online Discount Brokers posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

Saj Karsan presents Screening For Value posted at Barel Karsan.

The Smarter Wallet presents Investing In Gold: Trading Spot Gold vs Buy and Hold posted at The Smarter Wallet.

Manshu presents PEG Ratio posted at OneMint.

Bank Savings Review presents Highest CD Rates – July 2009 posted at Bank Savings Review.

nickel presents Reinvest Automatically With Lending Club posted at fivecentnickel.com.

Todd presents Investing in Master Limited Partnerships posted at The Personal Finance Playbook.

CJ presents What is a Roth IRA? posted at Wise Money Matters.

Ray @ Financial Highway presents Canadian Discount Brokerage Review and Comparison for TFSA and RRSP posted at Financial Highway.

TIP Guy presents Estimation of Beta-Based Expected Returns posted at TIPBlog.in.

Other

Thrills are the order of the day at your nearest amusement park. Remember, lift your hands up in the air as fly down the first hill!

Aniruddha Gore presents How Banks Calculate Average Daily Available Balance posted at Let’s be curious.

My Life ROI presents The Three Most Influential Lessons From My Childhood posted at My Life ROI, Getting the Best Return On Life.

Home Life Weekly presents Credit Card Safety Guide posted at Home Life Weekly.

vh presents Foil debit card hacking and balance inquiries posted at Funny about Money.

Patrick @ Money Saving Deals presents FREE iPod with Mac Computer posted at Cash Money Life Deals.

Jack Schmidt presents Real Estate: The Time to “Buy Low” Is Now posted at SectorMatic Money Journal.

Chris McClelland presents Estate lessons we can all learn from Michael Jackson posted at Lucrative Investing.

Matthew Paulson presents Qualified for an Interest Rate Buy Down? Take Advantage and Save posted at American Consumer News.

MatthewPaulson presents Advantages of Using Credit Unions posted at Fine-Tuned Finances.

debt kid presents Why You Need an Emergency Fund posted at DebtKid.

Ben presents Happy Financial Independence Day posted at Money Smart Life.

That concludes this edition. Thanks for all the great submissions!

The next Money Hacks Carnival will be hosted on July 22nd at Suburban Dollar. Get your submissions in today. Have a great week!

Our Water Bill Is Going Up Less Than I Thought

2009-07-14T14:05:00.000-04:00

I was excited to see that our water bill will only be going up about 5% total for the next twelve months. We have been hit with 10-15% increases for the past couple of years, and I had been expecting a similar increase this year, but the increase was less than I had anticipated

One of the things that our city did is fix a problem that I complained about as soon as I moved into the city. Not that I had anything to do with changing it, but it was still nice to see. The problem: They went from collecting water bills four times a year to collecting them six times a year. But in doing so, they kept the ‘base fee’, which is a fee you pay just for having service, the same. This resulted in a 50% increase in revenue in the base fee structure. I didn’t think that was very fair, and was happy to see that they actually lowered the base fees by about 30% this year. Though that only represents a small portion of our total bill, it’s still nice to have even a little bit of savings!

Financial Moves In The Event Of A Job Loss

2009-07-13T14:05:00.000-04:00

With the economy the way it is, I think it’s a good idea to have preparations in the event of a job loss.

My job is what I would consider relatively safe. I recently transferred into a just created position that is fully funded for the foreseeable future. ‘Baseline’ positions, as they are known here, are considered the best type to be in, because the customer funds them for a year at a time, and generally funds them in blocks versus individually.

Still, even though I don’t feel insecurity, I’ve learned that it’s always best to be prepared.

So, I have somewhat of a contingency financial plan in the event that I suddenly found myself unemployed. This would require a lot of changes since my wife is (by our choice) staying home full time.

The Plan

Unemployment Benefits / Health Care

I would expect that any state unemployment benefits that I would receive would be eaten up by health care premiums, whether it be COBRA or a privately funded insurance policy.

Paying the Bills

We have an emergency fund specifically for events like this. The money isn’t earmarked for anything else. We would use this to pay essential bills. It is funded for about 4 months.

If unemployment were to continue for longer than that time, we would look into one of several options. First, we could sell some investments. We have non-retirement investment holdings that I could sell that would sustain us for another 6 months or longer. Second, we could re-evaluate some of our other cash holdings. We have additional dollars alongside our emergency fund that are earmarked for things like a new car, home repairs, etc. that could be re-allocated if necessary.

Concentrate on the Job Search

Due to having a fully funded emergency fund, I wouldn’t be panicked, as I know that we would be able to pay the bills for quite a good long time without running into financial difficulties.

This would allow me to focus on finding a new job.

Reducing Expenses

There are definitely some expenses I would look to cut as a method to reduce our cash outlays. Even though we have a fully funded emergency fund, the fact remains that with a job loss, it would no longer be fully funded after I found new work, and would need to be re-built. I would employ the following strategies to make sure that our cash lasts as long as possible and to ensure that we could get back on track as quickly as possible once I found new work:

Postpone student loan payment 1 – We have two student loan payments, once of which is paid ahead. We currently make at least the minimum payments, but we could suspend those if need be with no penalty for at least four years. I’m hoping that I would get a new job by then!
Eliminate Netflix – We’re currently on the barebones plan for $4.99 a month, but I’d still suspend that.
Eliminate eating out – We spend probably about $80 – $100 a month getting pizza, takeout, or going out occasionally. We would have to buy more groceries, but this would allow us to reduce this amount by a decent amount.
Unlevel some of our spending – I currently put aside an equal amount every month so that our monthly spending is fairly even. But, this has increased the amount of cash that is on hand. So, for example, instead of putting aside $35 per month for the cat’s vet bill, I would suspend doing that, although I would have to ‘catch up’ later on. There are other categories that would help us in this regard.
Let the lawn go brown – I admit I like having green grass. I don’t water nearly as much as some of our neighbors, but the sprinkler system would be turned off if I lost my job.
Reduce or eliminate the A/C – The design of our house and landscaping makes it where we run the air conditioning on most days when it goes over 82 degrees. I would increase this threshold as well as re-adjust the thermostat to reduce the energy use.
Cut back grocery spending – If the job loss was short term, we could get by pretty well by eating down a lot of the food we have in the pantry or freezer. I’m a big believer in stocking up just so long as you don’t waste food, but this would give a cushion for cutting back grocery bills as we could go through our existing food stockpile which would cut grocery bills down for a bit.

There are definitely other things that we could look at but I think that these would keep us afloat for a long time and let me concentrate on finding work.

In future posts, I will share some experiences in the past that gave me some of this knowledge. I’ve actually had to employ some of these in the past, but under different personal and financial circumstances.

What plans do you have in place that I missed discussing? I’m always up for ideas!

Net Worth Review: July 2009

2009-07-10T14:06:00.000-04:00

July saw our three month streak of positive gains come to a close, as the stock market has done a slow downward spin erasing many of the gains from the last several months.

ASSETS:

Property -I use a combination of Zillow and CyberHomes. I make a small adjustment based on what I’m seeing things sell for, and I remove 7.75% for expected selling costs. For the month, the value went down, continuting a trend showcasing the mostly downward spiral of real estate values in the Michigan market.

Autos - The value of our two cars has held pretty steady the last couple of months as the used car market has heated up. We saw a modest decline, but nothing unexpected.

Investment Accounts - Our investment accounts declined 7%, pretty close to tracking the market decline for the month as there was a pretty decent giveback of gains made over the past few months.

Cash Accounts - We raised our cash accounts slightly. I expect this to fall next month with some planned purchases that we’ve been saving up for.

Retirement Accounts – Our retirement account went down 4% for the month. As with the investment accounts, we’ve tracked the markets decline, with a slight offset due to my contributions. My employer stopped matching, but we’re still contributing 10% of my salary at this time. Unfortunately, we’re not maxing out our retirement, but I still feel like we’re moving in the right direction.

DEBT:

Mortgage - Nothing special, just the monthly payment. Our mortgage is a 30-year loan at 5.875%

Car Loans – We paid off our second car a year ago and we have no outstanding car loans!

Credit Cards – This is the balance that’s accrued since the last statement. We pay our credit cards off every month. We have a little lower balance than last month but still quite a bit higher than usual (as evidenced by the increase from 12 months ago) simply because of the added costs of our newborn.

Student Loan 1 – This is the loan that had a higher balance and a higher interest rate. After paying the car loan off, we concentrated our debt payment on this loan. We’ve paid 57% of the balance from a year ago, which is great, although as you can see, we’re not putting as much towards it nowadays since my wife is no longer working, but I’m still happy with our progress.

Student Loan 2 - This is the second loan but it is at a very low interest rate. We make the minimum payments on this loan. After Student Loan 1 is paid off, we’ll have to decide whether to snowball the payments toward this loan, or switch to something else (such as the mortgage, investing, or adding even more to our retirement)

Overall, our net worth went down 7.6% for the month, and is down 25% from a year ago.

I was disappointed in the decline, but not surprised as I didn’t expect the market rally to sustain itself, given how much we went up so quickly over the prior months.

Stay tuned.

Would You Hire A Driver For Your Own Car?

2009-07-08T14:06:00.000-04:00

Personal Finance Playbook is one of the newest additions to my RSS reader feed. I get his articles delivered when he writes them.

One of the articles made me really think about how far I would go to save money.

In this post, PFP writes about how he was planning a bachelor party. He was planning things the right way because there would obviously be some drinking going on, since he was planning alternative methods of transportation other than driving.

First, I applaud his responsibility in that regard. Always better safe than sorry.

However, the post went on to talk about how he was planning to bypass some of the more traditional methods of transportation in such a circumstance, namely a limo or a taxi.

The reason, both were simply too costly.

Again, more applause to PFP for being frugal in that regard. It sounds like he was planning some fun stuff, but the reasoning was that the ‘getting there’ was less important than the fun of the planned events, so why spend the money?

Right on.

The alternative, though, to the three ideas listed above (driving, limo, taxi) was given as this. He was planning on hiring someone from Craigslist to drive his car, where they would be (hopefully) fully sober and available for the egal, vening.

Now, I like the idea of turning your own car into a limo / taxi of sorts. Again, cue up the applause for saving money and creative thinking.

BUT, this idea had all sorts of red flags on it. Specifically:

How do you know if the person you hire is a licensed and safe (driving record-wise) driver?

How do you know that they are trustworthy, in that the second the bachelor party heads inside somewhere, that the person doesn’t peel rubber and head to the nearest chop shop?

Or, maybe a little less dramatic, but what if there is damage to the car in some way? What happens then? What if they pull a ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ and take it for a joyride (if the car is joyride-worthy)?

What are the auto insurance liabilities in the event that there is an accident?

What are the medical liabilities in the event that the ‘driver’ was somehow injured?

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just paranoid but there seems like maybe just one too many ‘what if’ situations that could play here.

If it were me, I know that I’d be nervous about all that, even if I decided to go through with it. I’d be peeking around the corner to make sure that the car was just there and that if it was, there wasn’t a group swapping out my battery and tires with those found from a salvage yard.

I’ll be interested to see how this turns out, so hopefully PFP will post a follow-up when and if he decides to go through with this.

I guess, I’d probably consider other alternatives:

I might see if someone I know is willing to fill this role. Granted, depending on the places that they’re going and the ‘pops’ that might be consumed, this might be embarrassing, but I’d still make sure to leave no stone unturned here.

I might see if the costs can be spread around. Most bachelor parties that I’ve attended generally involve people ‘pitching in’ to ensure the fun times of the bachelor. If everybody threw in an extra $5-10 with the argument being that we all get a ’safe and fun time’, this might make the taxi a more feasible idea without putting the burden exclusively on the host.

What do you think? Are there other ideas? Would you consider this? Let me know what you think.

Is 7-11 Full Of (Cold) Air?

2009-07-06T14:07:00.000-04:00

It’s summertime and that means that it’s time to enjoy frozen treats of all kinds.

One of my favorite summertime treats has always been the Slurpee, which is an icon and one of the things that instantly comes to mind whenever anybody mentions the 7-11 convenience stores.

However, experiences over the recent years have made me question whether 7-11 is full of cold air.

Let me explain.

If you’re unfamiliar with how the Slurpee works, you take a cup, put the domed lid on and fill it through the hole in the top. This ensures that you get a full cup.

What I noticed, a few times that I recently went, was that although I filled the cup to the top of the dome, that it was significantly lower by the time I paid and got out to my car.

Yes, of course I take a few sips while in the store, but was I really sucking enough down to where it was below the level of the plastic dome? It didn’t seem possible.

So, I tried a little experiment and didn’t take any sips to watch what happened to the level. Got my Slurpee, stood in line, paid, and went out to the car.

Took a look, and…..almost to the bottom of the dome!

What gives?

Well, after thinking things through, I determined that the Slurpee machines were most likely adding a bit of extra ingredients to our frozen treats:

Air.

If they add a bit of extra air, it fills the cup with less product, which can probably add up to quite a bit of less product used when you consider the millions of Slurpees purchased every year.

Still, air is free so why I am paying for it?

After I figured out their trick, I would actually fill my cup, do a quick lap around the store, and then add a bit more to fil up the cup after the air settled out. Only then would I add my straw and start drinking (so that I didn’t add any of my germs to the machine).

This is one alternative, but I found another that I like even better:

Get a ‘Speedy’.

If you’re lucky enough to have Speedway gas stations near you, you’ll find that they most likely have a frozen drink machine. They can’t call them Slurpees, but they do the same thing.

There’s a few reason I like them better:

First, they don’t add air. When we first discovered that they had the frozen drink machine and tried one out, my wife and I filled them up and did out quick lap around the store. When we went to fill up the cups, we discovered that we didn’t have to! There was barely any settling. This told me that Speedway is giving you what you pay for!

Second, they’re cheaper! The frugal shopper in me noticed right away that their prices are generally 10 to 25 cents less. Granted, this difference won’t make me rich, but the way I see it, I’m getting a better product and for less money. I think shoppers should give their business to the stores that provide this distinction whether it be for expensive items like TVs or cheap items like frozen treats.

Bonus: Speedway is running a summer special for the second straight year (that I’ve noticed anyway), at least in the Michigan area. All fountain drinks and frozen drinks are 89 cents, regardless of the size! So, the price difference is even greater during these summer months when a frozen treat is especially rewarding.

Oh, and in case you didn’t figure out from my opening sentence in this section, my wife and I have dubbed the frozen drinks from Speedway as the ‘Speedy’. Though maybe not as catchy and iconic as the Slurpee, I venture to say that you won’t be disappointed should you have the opportunity to try one.

Happy frozen drink hunting!

Pack And Move Yourself To Save (And Make) Money

2009-07-05T14:08:00.000-04:00

I’ve seen a lot of posts from fellow bloggers about moving. It does seem to hold true that summer is the most popular time to move, whether it be to a bigger place or across town or even across the country.

In a lot of discussions, I’ve seen various points or questions raised regarding whether to move yourself or hire movers.

I’ve done both.

After college, when moving from my parents house to my first apartment, I ended up enlisting the help of friends and my roommate to move my stuff. That was a pretty simple decision since I didn’t have a lot of stuff.
A couple of years later, when moving from my apartment to a temporary living situation, I hired movers. The justifications were that it was relatively inexpensive since I still didn’t have much stuff, it was wintertime, and I had a (at the time) very nice television set that I was afraid of anything happening to
A few months after that, I moved again when the temporary living situation expired. I moved into my own condo. Again, I hired movers (the same movers that had done the first move). The reasons were the same. Overall, I sort of regretted paying for movers twice in just a few month time frame, but they gave me a slight discount for the repeat business, and I also justified it because the reason for the temporary living situation was so that I could live rent-free for a few months.
Eight years later, when I moved from my condo to our home, I went back to moving ourselves. With the help of friends and family, we were able to handle everything. We were trying to save some money, we had people willing to help, it was spring/summer, and the TV (still with me) was now 10 years old and no longer a prized possession.

One of the things that I learned with the last move is that by doing it ourselves, we were able to save not only the money for paying the movers, but that I was able to get rid of stuff that I might not have had I not moved.

Let me explain.

When I was doing my own packing (something that I always advocate no matter what, even if you get re-location that will do this for you), I had to touch virtually everything that I owned. Whether it be clothing, knick-knacks, kitchen items, tools, paint supplies. I had to touch everything, and when I did, you tend to start asking yourself the same question over and over:

Do I really want to deal with moving this?

You start thinking about whether this is something that you will use. Whether it makes sense to pack and unpack it. Whether it makes sense to find a new place for once you get settled into your new place.

For most things, the answer is obvious. But, when you’re going through linen closets and basements and the back of closets, and junk drawers, you really start finding things that you can weed out.

So, you can save in a lot of ways:

Save money on packing supplies for the unneeded stuff – Less boxes, less packing material
Save time in having to pack and unpack items
Save space in your new place

Plus, if you’re really industrious, you can take some of that unwanted stuff and turn it into money.

If you have time for a garage sale or can spend some time on Craigslist or eBay, you can turn some of this stuff into cash in your pocket.

In a lot of cases, I imagine that this could even cover the moving costs of doing it yourself.

I couldn’t imagine not having packed all of my own stuff, because I know that if I hadn’t, I would have certainly moved a lot more stuff that would have turned into unneeded and unused clutter.

So, if you can, always pack and always move your own stuff. I guarantee it can add to lots of different type of savings in the end!

Mid-Year Review Of 2009 Goals

2009-07-01T14:09:00.000-04:00

It is amazing to me that 2009 is half over, but here we are beginning the second half of the year. Wow!

I thought it would be a great time to take a look at the financial goals I set at the beginning of the year and see where we stand:

Pay regular payments on the mortgage. Admittedly this was sort of a gimmee, but we’ve Achieved Goal and On Track for success throughout the year.
Avoid double digit declines in housing value. Unfortunately, we’re down 11% for the year and the Detroit market will need a lot of time to recover. So we have Not Achieved this goal and I can safely say we are Not On Track for the year.
Sell my car and purchase a new family friendly car. We have Not Achieved this goal but I believe we are On Track for something to happen by the end of the year.
We hoped for a 10% increase in the value of our mutual funds. So far, the market has been kind so we have Achieved Goal, but it’s Too Soon To Tell if we will meet this goal for 2009.
Long Term Savings – We have avoided any unexpected outlays so our reserves are steady. So far we have Achieved Goal, but it’s Too Soon To Tell if we will meet this goal for 2009.
Retirement – We had hoped for a 30% increase in our balance. Between market increases, regular contributions, and matching contributions from my employer, we have already Achieved Goal. Still, it’s Too Soon To Tell if we will meet this goal for 2009.
Level Out Monthly Expenses – So far,we’ve Achieved Goal and On Track for success throughout the year.
Transition to a Single Income Household – Again, we’ve Achieved Goal and On Track for success throughout the year.
Dont’ Freak Out About Baby Expenses – Some close calls, but we had saved well and found some good bargains along the way. I’d say we’ve Achieved Goal and On Track for success throughout the year.
Maximize our rewards for normal spending – We are using a Citi Dividend Card for grocery and gas purchases (paying us back 2%) and have rewards attached to our debit card that gives us nominal points for regular spending. We might be able to do better, but I personally do not enjoy chasing rewards/rates for things like this or for savings accounts, since they change so much. Since we’re getting a level of rewards I’m comfortable with for nearly all of our spending, I’m going to say we’ve Achieved Goal and On Track for success throughout the year.
Reduce student loan balances by 30-40%. Right now, we’ve paid 18% of the balance off. With a single income, we’re not able to pay as much, so while we have Achieved Goal in terms of being on track, I do not expect that we’ll probably come up short so we are Not On Track for this goal. Still, I’m happy with how much debt we’ve paid down and that we continue to do so even in small amounts when we have the opportunity.
Refinance the mortgage – We had hoped to take advantage of the lower interest rates, but unfortunately the declining value of our home has made this all but impossible. We would either have to put another 20% of our home’s current value into a down payment or face PMI costs. Neither of these is something we want to pursue, so we have Not Achieved this goal and I can safely say we are Not On Track for the year.
Begin saving for major home repairs – We want to start saving for long term expenses such as new roof, new windows, new driveway, etc. Due to putting a nice chunk of our income tax refund towards this, we have Achieved Goal and are On Track for the year.

Overall, I think we’re doing very well and I’m pleased with our progress for the year. The biggest bummer is that the home value declines have erased most, if not all, of our equity, making any financial goals around our home pretty difficult until that decline levels out.

Still, given how things have gone for a lot of people this year, I’m very pleased with how we are doing in terms of our financial goals.

Our War Against The Chipmunks

2009-06-30T14:09:00.000-04:00

This is the third summer season that we’ve been in our house. I really don’t count the first one (2007) because we moved in late June, so we barely had a handle on things and I really didn’t know a lot of what was going on.

That year, I did the basics, mowing the grass weeds and pulling weeds from the beds. But, it was only last year that I really started working on really making the outside look better. I attacked the weeds that were filling in the grass and made it look like a real lawn again, mulched the beds, and we also got some flowers to adorn our deck.

The flowers themselves didn’t do so hot, and it turns out we weren’t getting the right type of flowers for the type of sun we got.

So, this year rolls around and we went to the nursery, armed with the knowledge of what flowers would thrive on our deck. We bought them, planted them, and watched with glee as they thrived.

At first.

Now, they aren’t looking so hot. Well, at least the yellow pansies that we have aren’t looking so good. The other flowers (mostly geraniums) are doing OK.

It turns out that the chipmunks are the culprit.

That’s right, chipmunks. Alvin, Simon, Theodore, and they’re host of friends and family.

After the winter thaw, I noticed some strange holes in the ground in the front planting ed under the tree. I figured something was underground, and sure enough, my suspicions were confirmed when the hole kept re-appearing after I filled it in. I even placed a rock that weighed a few pounds on top, only to find it moved.

After keeping an eye on things and consulting with my father and father-in-law, I confirmed that we had chipmunks.

I decided our property needed to be ridded of these beasts. Initially, I had done some research and found that an effective way of eliminating them is to drown them. A five gallon bucket of water with sunflower seeds placed over the water, and a small ramp so they can get to the top is a pretty effective way to get them. They love sunflower seeds, they go to get them, fall in, and that’s all she wrote.

Unfortunately, my wife made me feel so guilty about this plan that I decided against it.

Instead, my father-in-law loaned me one of his traps. The idea being that I would trap them and take them elsewhere. While releasing animals isn’t exactly legal where I live, it is more humane than killing them off.

So, I started setting the trap and caught eight of the little buggers (as well as one really annoyed squirrel) and released them a couple of miles away. Still, I knew that we weren’t rid of them as I still saw them around occasionally.

But, I got lazy as I got tied up with other projects, including staining the deck.

The deck staining involved me moving the flower pots out of the way underneath trees and what not. Apparently, this attracted the chipmunks to ’sample’ the flowers, because when we went to put the flower pots back on the deck, it was with sadness that we noted that our yellow pansies, which previously had been taking over the pots, were now largely wilted messes.

At first, we attributed this to the heat wave that we had last week, when temps were in the 90’s.

Still, the condition didn’t improve even with extra watering and fertilizing, and I couldn’t figure out the deal.

Until a couple of days ago, when I looked outside and saw a chipmunk reach up and yank on the flower, tearing pieces off and uprooting it from the soil.

I actually went outside and chased it off the deck, but either it or another one was back at it a bit later.

I have cayenne pepper spray repellent that is supposed to keep the animals away. I sprayed that on the flowers, and tried my best to replant them (though not sure if they’re too damaged yet or not).

After my wife saw this, she was finally understanding of why I wanted to rid our property of these pests. Prior to that, I think she watched with some level of amusement as I was catching and transporting them, but after seeing what they were doing to her flowers, she was all for the war to continue. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if she opened up to the bucket idea!

So, I went back to trying to catch them last night. My father-in-law caught 25 or so before it slowed down, so I could have a ways to go.

Last night was the first time I went back to setting the trap, but was unfortunately not able to catch any. The reason, heavy winds in the area that kept tripping the trap.

I’ll have to try again.

Let’s hope that we can ‘re-locate’ the chipmunks and save our flowers!

My Brush With Identity Theft

2009-06-29T14:09:00.000-04:00

I’ve never had my idenity stolen. I’ve read many of the horror stories that come along with it, but have never had to go through that.

But, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t come close. Or at least feel like I came a little close. Because there was one time where someone came pretty close, or at least a little too close for comfort.

A few years ago, I went through my mail, and there was what appeared to be a bill from UPS. I don’t make any shipments, and when I do, I typically pay for them at the counter. The bill was for a few dollars.

So, I thought nothing of it and threw it away.

A few weeks later, I got a second bill, again, not for very much money, but for a larger amount, but still under $50. Again, I discarded it thinking it weird that I was getting bills for something I didn’t use.

They got my attention a few weeks later when they sent another letter indicating that if I didn’t pay my balance, I would be turned over to collections. So, I immediately got on the phone.

My conversation went a little like this:

Me: “I’m calling about a bill that I got for a bunch of packages.”

UPS: “Yes, we need you to pay that.”

Me: “I’m confused, I didn’t send any packages using UPS.”

UPS: “But it has your name and address here.”

Me: “While that’s true, I didn’t ship any packages. In fact, the ’ship from’ location for all of these is in California.”

UPS: “Yeah, and?”

Me: “I live in Michigan. How would I have shipped these packages from California?”

UPS: *long silence*

Me: “How would someone have opened an account with my name and address?”

UPS: “Well, that’s all you need to open an account.”

Me: “You don’t need a credit card? A social security number? A drivers license?”

UPS: “No.”

Me: “So, anybody could just find someone elses name and address and open an account and start shipping packages, and UPS is OK with that?”

UPS: “Yeah, seems a little strange, doesn’t it?”

Me: “So, you’re going to take those charges off my account, the one that I never opened, and close the account, too, while you’re at it?”

UPS: “You’re sure you never opened that account or shipped those packages?”

Me: “Positive.”

UPS: “OK, then, we’ll take care of that.”

Pretty amazing stuff, isn’t it? Now, this was a few years ago so I’m really hoping that UPS does not simply allow accounts to be created in such fashion. It seemed that before, you could just create an account and start shipping with it. Granted, the number of shipments was small, so I’m guessing (hoping) that for bulk shippers, they would have required a line of credit.

But, really, who knows?

At the time, I didn’t really think much about it, but it was about as close I could have gotten to having my identity stolen without it actually happening.

It taught me a few lessons though:

Pay attention to your bills - I simply threw the bills out because I knew that they weren’t mine, but if I hadn’t, who knows if UPS would have somehow been able to find me and put a blemish on my credit report. It doesn’t seem likely since they didn’t have my SSN, but then again, I would have thought it pretty unlikely that they would open an account without somehow verifying the person opening the account.
Be careful of your personal information - Keep your personal information, especially things like account numbers, drivers license numbers, and other key information, safe.
Check your credit report – I check my credit report (and my wife’s) every four months, using our three free reports from AnnualCreditReport.com. After this, I have always kept an eye on it to make sure that every single creditor is someone I know. So far, I’ve had no surprises.
Check your balances often – Did you know that the longer you wait before notifying a bank or credit card company of fraudulent activity, the more you’re responsible for? I try to check my balances every day or two days on my bank accounts and credit cards.

Any other tips on preventing or dealing with identity theft? Any close calls?