Yes, I Am Cheap

Is 31 too young to have a bucket list? I'm not a morbid type of person but I came to the realization that a good portion of my life is gone and many things that I had hoped to do by now have passed me by. I don't want to end up in floating on a cloud at the end of my life having remorse about the things that I have never done. So internet folks, I'm making a bucket list.

I'm going to leave this post as a sticky on top so you can see as I add things to it and if I get to accomplish anything. I'm not one for big things like climbing a mountain or anything but I feel a need to DO something with my life apart from being a wage slave and virtual life liver. If I have kids and they're sitting around my death bed, I'd like to be able to look back and say, you know your mom did some crazy shit and had a damn good time! Now have a party instead of a funeral and don't waste my insurance money.

Very quick update. I've been very busy at work with no time to post, so please forgive me. I have great news...my wallet was turned in to the Lost & Found and I recovered everything last night. I mean every single thing including the change in my wallet. Who knew that nice people still exist afterall? Thanks for all of the well wishes and notes of kindness. Maybe our collective good thoughts led to some good karma.

Chase still gets the finger but I happily get my wallet.

WOOT!

For the first time in my life, I lost my purse. I know exactly how it happened too since I'm actually someone that has always been paranoid about losing it. It fell out of my unzipped bag as I commuted home. I remember hearing the "thud" and looked around to see if I saw what fell, but alas, I didn't look well enough, because my entire life is in a purse in someone else's hand. Worse yet, it was a cute Coach one that I had gotten for a gift from my old boss during one of her moments of guilt and lucidity.

Have you ever looked at what you would be responsible for if your debit card ended up in someone else's hands? According to the Federal government, your liability for the unauthorized use of your ATM or debit card depends on how quickly you report the loss. Typically, if you report that the card is lost before it has been used, your bank can not hold you liable for any charges that follow your report. If you report your card lost or stolen within two business days after you realize that your card is missing, you will not be responsible for more than $50 for unauthorized use. If you don't report the loss within two business days after you discover the loss, you could lose up to $500. I lost my card on Friday night on the way home and within 2 hours of being home, I noticed that it was gone and popped online and the phone to cancel all of my cards.

My first call was to Chase which promptly informed me that one of my cards had already been canceled about an hour before. Great, I thought! Someone is already out there spending my meager cash. Nope. It turns out that someone called Chase to report that they had found my purse. Nice! I just knew that I was going to get my stuff back. Know what Chase had done? Promptly thanked the caller, canceled my card and didn't take any contact information from the person. Now, I've found a purse or two and I distinctly remember calling Chase once when someone walked out of the bank ATM area and left their card and purse sitting there. I remember Chase not caring about the purse or anything and canceling the card while I was on the phone. They were finished with the call as soon as they canceled the card. I would have thought that they would take my information since I told them that I had someone's purse and perhaps contacted the person to let them know that I wanted to return their property. Nope! I had to insist that they take my number and make a note on the account in case the person called in. In the end I just wound up dropping the bag of at the person's house since I found their information in the bag.

What To Do If You Lose Your Purse or Wallet
1. File a police report. Not necessary in all cases, but just in case.

2. Contact your credit card companies and have the accounts closed.

3. Check your local DMV. Report ID lost and order replacement.

4. Contact your health provider for new cards.

5. If necessary contact credit bureaus to have a fraud alert activated.

6. Buy new purse or wallet.

7. Pop 2 Tylenol for the massive headache that you'll have.

8. Book a massage. You'll need it.

The CARD Act that went into effect earlier this year was designed to level the playing field for consumers and banks. Credit card statements were supposed to be easier to read, and it should have been easier to determine how your payments are being allocated. It all sounds good but you know how I am: I like to read the fine print.

Check your latest credit card statement. Somewhere on the page it should list the interest rates that you are paying for your balances. Typically, purchases, balance transfers and cash advances have different rates, with cash advances usually being about double the interest of purchases. Next to each different interest rate should be the balance that you have that falls into each category.

Finally, somewhere up top it should tell you what your minimum payment is, and how long it will take to pay off your card if you just pay the minimum. It should also tell you how much you need to pay if you'd like to pay off your card within 3 years. They're great changes to get you to see up from just how much your credit is costing you, just there's one thing that it doesn't say.

Before the reforms went into effect, banks would apply any payments first to balances with the lowest rate. This ensured that the balance with the highest interest rate kept racking up charges for as long as possible. Now, any payments above the minimum must first be applied to the balance with the higher interest rate. Here's the kicker, though. If you only pay the minimum, that money will only be applied to the balance with the lowest interest rate.

You might be wondering why that's a negative. Well, if you have a promotional interest rate for balance transfers - let's say 0% - and also have additional balances like a cash advance at 29.99% on the same card, then by paying only the minimum, you're only reducing the balance on the debt that costs you nothing while racking up interest on the cash advance. This might actually end up costing you a ton of money in the long run. How do you avoid this? Simple. You must pay more than your minimum payment amount. Anything that you pay above and beyond the minimum must then be allocated to the balance with the highest interest rate.

Paying more than the minimum has always been a good practice, but now you have even more incentive to do so.


This post was included in the
Carnival of Personal Finance #269: THE DIVA$ EDITION hosted by Miss Thrify.

It's will soon be the middle of summer and my garden wilted from record 100 degree days here in New York. On the bright side, there's always free Shakepeare in the park so, I bring you the Festival of Frugality #241: A Midsummer's Night Dream Edition.

Editor's Picks
I like all the people trying to build their own garden's so I had to give some kudos to Kristia who presents Freeze Your Garden Produce Now and You'll Be Thanking Yourself Later posted at Family Balance Sheet.

Just because I like the crazy, I also chose Kaye's submission on 8 Uses for a Rubber Band posted at Mrs. Nespy's Frugal World.

Finally, since I firmly believe in bargaining, I selected the submission from FMF on How to Ask for a Discount When You're Embarrassed to Ask posted at Free Money Finance. I did this a few years back at P.C. Richards when we needed a new washer. My BF was embarrassed and thought that I was crazy, but he appreciated the extra $50 in his pocket when I was finished.

SHAKESPEARE DIDN'T DO IT FOR FREE
Kristina presents Money is Relevant posted at Dinks Finance.

vh presents When Is a Splurge a Good Thing? posted at Funny about Money.

Big Cajun Man presents A magic number: 833.33 posted at Canadian Personal Finance Blog.

Financial Uproar presents How Patience Saved Me Over $1400 posted at Financial Uproar.

Super Saver presents Eliminate Recurring Expenses to Save Money posted at My Wealth Builder.

Ramsay presents 5 Things You Should Never Say About Money posted at MoneyedUP.

Briana Ford presents Why Saving Before Spending is a Better Idea posted at Go Banking Rates.

Squirrelers presents 5 Tips to Save up to $268 in Annual Utility Costs | Squirrelers posted at Squirrelers.

Neal Frankle presents How To Get Senior Term Life Insurance Cheap posted at Wealth Pilgrim: Money Management Advice, Financial Stess Management, Addiction Recovery Plan & Resources.

HAMLET SAID YOU CAN'T TAKE IT ALL WITH YOU
jim presents New Credit Card Applications Hurt Your Credit Score posted at Wanderlust Journey.

Nerdwallet presents Costco TrueEarnings: the Best Credit Card for Well-Rounded Spenders? posted at NerdWallet Blog - Credit Card Watch.

jim presents Review Your Credit Reports Every Year posted at Identity Theft Wall.

Craig Ford presents Expensive Shopping is Good | How To Shop For Value, Not Price posted at Money Help For Christians.

J. Money presents Wanna Know the Cheapest Way to Travel The World? posted at Budgets Are Sexy.

MoneyNing presents How to Dress Well on a Budget posted at Money Ning.

freefrombroke presents Costs To Consider When Buying A Car posted at Free From Broke.

Donna Freedman presents How to go to the movies for free. posted at Surviving and Thriving.

Jacob A. Irwin presents Aldi vs. Wal-Mart vs. All the Rest posted at My Personal Finance Journey - Personal Finance, Intelligent Investing, And Frugal Living Tips.

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS, RIGHT JULIET?
Jason presents It’s Better to Buy a House than Rent posted at Live Real, Now.

PT presents Mortgage Short Sale: Tips for Buying and Selling posted at PT Money.

Lauren presents Homemade vs. Store-Bought Cost Comparison posted at Richly Reasonable - Money, Saving, Living, Playing.

THE REST OF THE STEW POT
Miss T presents Why I Love Our CSA | Prairie EcoThrifter.com posted at Prairie Eco-Thrifter.

Simon Zhen presents Change How Things Look For the "New" Vibe posted at Realm of Prosperity.

Paul Williams presents Should Everyone Go to College? posted at Provident Planning.

Roshawn Watson presents Hey Broke People, Stop Overpaying For College! posted at Watson Inc.

Who can guess which play the final cartoon is from? Submissions in the comments below!

Hello! I took a little vacation from blogging for the past two weeks. It's my first time off since I began blogging at the beginning of last year. My brain was in need of a vacation, but I'm back into the swing of things and have lots of great topics to cover this month.

July was a tough month for me financially, but the debt did go down a little, which is always a good thing. Let's run the numbers then I'll explain what happened.

July 1, 2010
Student Loan #1 $991.87 @2.48%
Credit Card #1 $1,104.54 @13.99%
Credit Card #2 $2,738.82 @14.24%
HELOC $42,622.45 @3.125%
Student Loan #2 $37,828.33 @3.3-7.5%
The bed $999.00 @0%
Personal Loan $0
Car Note $0
Total: $86,285.01 $

Emergency Savings: $800.24
Emergency Savings Goal: $3,000

August 1, 2010
Student Loan #1 $843.89 @2.47%
Credit Card #1 $1,193.20 @13.99%
Credit Card #2 $2,633.44 @14.24%
HELOC $42,332.66 @3.125%
Student Loan #2 $37,747.21 @3.3-7.5%
The bed $849.00 @0%
Personal Loan $0
Car Note $0
Total: $85,599.40

Emergency Savings: $1,152.02
Emergency Savings Goal: $3,000

I didn't do as well as I would have liked because a few of those "emergency" type of things happened. I had lots of things go on with the car - to the tune of about $350. It had to be done, so there was no way to avoid it. On top of that I am having my transportation costs deducted from my paycheck on a pretax basis, but what I didn't realize was that the entire chunk would come from one paycheck instead of being spread into two as it was before. That was kind of painful, but I learned that lesson and will adjust appropriately for August.

Let's review my internet income.

Internet Income in July
Google Adsense $0.05
Sponsored Tweets $0.00
Commission Junction $15.70
Cash Crate $66.05
eHow $0.82
Total: $82.62

My income from Google ads pretty much sucked last month. Horrible really. I don't know why I keep it...I know, so that I can get to that $100 payout amount and then I'll kick that like a bad habit. On the other hand, Cash Crate really paid off for me last month. I only filled out 5 offers and the balance came from bonuses that I received from a few of you signing up so that was good. Might have to do a few more of those in August. Once I get that check it will go right to the smallest student loan.

My goals for this month? Again, work at that smaller student loan and now that I think about it, that card with the lingering 1K balance. I also have to pay property taxes soon for the house which will be a pain, but it has to be done. I'll let you know how it all goes at the end of the month. It would be nice to finish the year with the bed, student loan and the lower credit card debt gone. That was I can focus on the two largest monsters.

Everyone who is anyone these days, and even a few nobodies has some form of a social networking account. What qualifies? Everything from Facebook to LinkedIn, Myspace and Classmates.com. These days, everything seems to be about how many friends you have and who they might know, but have you ever thought about how social networking might negatively impact you life? Here are a few examples.

1. Not only does your prospective employer Google you, but they might also look you up on the sites that I've mentioned. You might have innocent photos on there that your prospective or even current employer can deem unsuitable and they can decline to hire you or even fire you because of it. Don't think so? Here is one example. And for all that is holy, assume everything that you write will be seen by your employer whether it is "private" or not.
   


2. Did you know that your creditors also use social networks to find out if you're a responsible customer, or even worse, if you owe a creditor money and have been dodging them, they can use these networks to find you? If you don't already know the story about the "cute girl" that was actually a profile illegally created by a debt collection agency to fool people, read about that one Consumerist.
   
   That one really is illegal because it probably is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) which requires debt collectors to be truthful and treat debtors with fairness, dignity and respect. That and the fact that the fake profile now allows other people to know that you have an account under collections. Also be aware that your current creditors can evaluate your credit worthiness based on your the friends that you have in your social network, so be sure to "friend" Donald Trump, Oprah, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to be safe.
   


3. Are you in the process of a divorce and you're battling it out with the spouse over money? Our good friend, the social network, can really wallop your pockets this time. Did you know that attorney's consider Facebook and other social media sites to be the best source of evidence in a divorce case? According to this article "66% of the lawyers surveyed cited Facebook foibles as the source of online evidence." So if you're telling your spouse that you don't have money for alimony or child support and you post photos of you with your new BMW on Facebook (it's happened), it can, and will be used against you.
   


4. Finally, I present the case - there are more - where you could be sued for libel based on what you've said on your social network posts. Yes, you have the freedom of speech, but hate speech and things considered libelous are not protected. Even if you do win a suit brought against you, just think of the expense of having to pay a lawyer to defend you. This bring us to T & J Towing vs. Justin Kurtz. Justin might have won his case, but others have lost theirs, so think hard about what you say.

I know that I might be slightly paranoid, but just remember that the internet isn't anonymous. Social networking can be great for landing you a job, connecting with friends all over the world, and sharing your life experiences with the people you love. Just be aware that every "friend" that you have does not always mean you well, and just because you deleted something, doesn't mean that someone hasn't screen captured your 2:00 a.m. rant.