See you in 2006!
I won’t be posting tomorrow due to a little New Years “celebrating”. I hope you all have a great one! See you in ‘06!
New Amazon price watch tool
Amazon.com has a price guarantee policy to credit buyers back cash. If the product you purchased within the last 30 days has dropped in price they will credit you back the difference. I didn’t know this, and chances are you didn’t either. A lot of times stores will offer this type of guarantee because they figure it’ll be too tedious for someone to actually take advantage of it. Well Savy Saver tipped me off to Amazon Credits You, a service that will track your purchases for you and let you know if you’re in a position to save money.
After being tipped off on a good 60% off sale at Amazon from Boston Gal, I purchased a few heavily discounted items. I doubt Amazon will ever sales these items more cheaply than today, but I’ll add them anyway! Either way, this service rocks!
How to avoid getting scammed by the movers:
Every year it seems like I hear an awful moving story from one of my friends. In a few weeks a good friend of mine will be moving across the country and since he’s a pack rat, he’ll probably need to hire a professional mover. Thankfully, I’ve found an article by Liz Weston, which offers these tips to help avoid being scammed by movers.
A well-known name is no guarantee. Don’t assume you’re safe if you use a nationally known company. Readers have reported being stung by drivers working for even the best-known movers.
Get real referrals. Forget Internet quote services; you want to hear from real people you know and can trust. Has any of your friends recently been involved in an interstate move? (Recent is important, as you’ll see below.) Does your employer regularly relocate workers across state lines and have a list of reputable movers? If not, can you call the nearest large company and find out which companies its human resources department uses for moves? Walker also suggests checking with local real estate agents for referrals and limiting your search to local companies that have been in business at least 10 years.
Collect the right information. You’ll want the company’s name and any aliases it might operate under, along with an address, phone number and its Department of Transportation and MC, or motor carrier, license numbers. Also ask for the owner’s name and how long the company has been in business under that owner. Also ask for three references from people who’ve used the company to move in the last few months — and call those references.
Get in-person, weight-based estimates. Movers can’t give accurate estimates over the phone, and bids based on cubic feet rather than weight are more likely to be inaccurate, Walker said. If a mover won’t come to your house, strike it off your list.
It seems like the best advice is to always be on your guard. If you see something that resembles anything that an acceptable moving company MIGHT do, then question it. Don’t hesitate to back out if you feel that you’re
Dear GOD! I spent way too much this month!
This morning I logged on to check my balance and pay for my credit card bill. Let’s just say I was shocked. Usually I only charge about $300-500 depending on what’s going on at the time. Let’s just say that for December I was over - way over. Even if you exclude Christmas gifts for my parents and girlfriend, I was about 55% over my normal spending. Where did all of that money go?
Well, I think law school finals had a lot to do with it. Even though I didn’t do much while studying and taking finals, I did drink a lot of coffee. I’m not talking about the inexpensive home brew, I’m talking the venti white chocolate kind they serve at Starbucks. Not to mention I ate every single meal during finals away from home so that adds up as well. By the time finals were over I was already over $300 for the month, and I wasn’t even halfway through with it!
Then I came home and ran into old high school buddies and felt the need to celebrate. Believe me, I did. It’s amazing what a few nights on the town and a few nice meals with your girlfriend can cost. Needless to say, I know exactly what they cost now - and it’s not pretty.
I’ll be honest with you, I’m usually pretty good managing my money while avoiding making a hard and fast budget that I follow like a law. It works well until I have something going on in my life that causes me to spare no expense, like coffee to study or the joy of a drunken night with old friends. While both of those are truly necessary to have an enjoyable life, they need to be anticipated and adjusted for accordingly. So, here’s my first New Year’s Resolution: I will budget my expenses and try to live more frugally. Makes sense doesn’t it? For crying out loud - this blog is about personal finance and those are fairly strong concepts that go along with it!
So, look for several posts dealing with these two issues next year. I know they’ve been written about fairly extensively elsewhere, so I’ll try to offer these concepts with a twist. Also, I got an espresso machine for Christmas so we’ll see if I can hone my barista skills!
Debit Cards and Gas Purchases, an expensive mix?
Did you know that every time you purchase gas with a debit card, as much as $75 of your account will be blocked out from making future purchases?
That’s exactly what happened to Jessica Hathaway, a state employee from Allentown, Pa. Earlier this year Hathaway stopped during her commute to fill up her car at Rauch’s Mini Mart. She bought $22.29 worth of gas using her debit card.
The next day Hathaway balanced her checkbook using her bank’s telephone service — and something didn’t add up. The bank said that she’d made two purchases the previous morning: one for the $22.29 and one for $75.
Trouble is, she’d only bought the gas.
The problem is that this amount stays blocked until the gas station does “batch” transactions, thus notifying your bank of the amount you actually charged. This can lead to bounced checks, debit card denials, and all the other financial headaches that result from an account that’s been over drafted.
But don’t worry, not all gas stations use this ridiculous method. Shell preauthorizes just $1 for gas purchases. Chevron says it has a $1 hold that ensures a card is active. BP, Amoco, and Arco preauthorize $75 when customers use debit or credit cards. It’s important to know the amount your gas station charges if you use your debit card so that you may account accordingly and avoid some of the nasty overdraft headaches!
Advantages of Low Cost Mutual Funds
A common misconception about mutual funds is that pretty much any reputable fund will do. Of course, any investment that produces a solid return for you is better than nothing, but not all funds are created equal. When you buy a mutual fund, you’ll pay a management fee. It’s what you pay for someone to handle your accounts. A low-cost fund will charge you one-fifth of one percent per year. A typical high-cost fund will charge about eight times more than that.
Clark Howard recently quoted some research analyzing a 25 year old investing 10 percent of their $30,000 income each year until retirement into mutual funds. Comparing money put high-cost funds with that put into low-cost funds produced quite dramatic results. The good news is that the person investing in the high-cost funds ended up with around $1.7 million at retirement. Not too bad! But here’s the real kicker – the person investing in a low-cost fund ended up with $2.9 million!
What’s great about figures like these is that they show the amazing power of investing over time. Even better is that they show how simple decisions, like choosing a low-cost mutual fund over a high-cost one, can reap dramatic benefits. Look at it this way, would an extra $1.2 million (oh whatever the difference would be based on your age) be worth time it takes to make the right financial decision?
