Monthly Archives: March 2010

Credit Card Companies Cutting Credit Limits Like CRA-ZAY!

Posted on by
Reply

As you may have noticed, I’m a huge proponent of the debt snowball. But something happened today when I sat down to pay my Discover card today. I noticed that my available credit was $-7. Negative seven dollars.

Last month my credit line was $2600. And after paying $1,762.85 to them per my plan, they dropped my limit to $800, which is BELOW my new balance of $807!

I’m highly annoyed, so I started doing what any good blogger would do and Googled the hell out of this. Apparently many people are getting screwed by having their credit limits reduced. Look at all of the comments on that last link. SO MANY people are getting screwed because of this. I must find a way to punch these bastards in their faces.

Anyway, know that this can happen to you while doing the debt snowball. In my case, I’ll be paying the card off ASAP, so this won’t screw me financially, BUT it WILL reduce my wife’s available credit, which I’ve read is 1/3 of the FICO score. Not a problem for me since my FICO score is good, but this is my wife’s card and hers isn’t the greatest. *SIGH* I shall call them and give them a stern bitching to.

Be careful out there fellow financial adventurers!

-MG

Tips on How to Save Money on Your Cell Phone Bill

Posted on by
Reply

MY GOD CELL PHONES ARE EXPENSIVE! I got to the point where I was paying $107 per month for my cell phone bill and $85 a month for my wife’s cell phone bill. I really got fed up with these prices. I was able to save around $40 a month. So I want to give you some tips on how to save money on your cell phone bill and how to bring the cost down so you’re not paying a million dollars a month on your cell phone bill.

First of all, this was the gist of my previous cell phone plan and costs:

  1. I have Verizon.
  2. I use a Blackberry, which means I had to have an unlimited text plan.
  3. I had 900 minutes a month.
  4. I had unlimited texting.
  5. I had insurance on my phone.

My usage goes like this:

  1. I text a hell of a lot.
  2. I call a couple people most frequently and talk to them an hour each week.
  3. I use data a lot.

The basis for my savings is using Google Voice to optimize my cell phone billing plan.

Google Voice gives you one phone number for people to call so you can consolidate all of your phone numbers(work, home, cell, etc). This has the cost benefit of having a cell call going to your home phone or desk phone at work. If you’re not using cell minutes for those calls, you can reduce your cell minutes and decrease your cost.

The next thing is that you can send text messages through Google Voice. You go to their website and send SMS messages through their website. OR, you can download the Google Voice app for Blackberry. This allows you to send SMS messages from your Blackberry. It’s not quite integrated into the Blackberry framework at this point, BUT it’s available and I have started using this for 100% of my texting. Guess what that means. I TEXT FOR FREE! So I took texting off of my cell plan. That’s $20 savings.

Also, since I use Google Voice, I dial a single number to make phone calls and all incoming phone calls look like they come from a single number. So I go to my account maintenance page, setup Friends and Family to have my Google Voice number for incoming calls and the number I call for outgoing calls(different for some reason). Suddenly all of those calls aren’t counted toward my minute usage.

After talking to the Verizon representatives for a while, I found I could reduce my cell minutes from 900 minutes to 450 minutes. Unfortunately, I lost Friends and Family by doing that, BUT the Verizon folks assured me that I still haven’t been using 450 minutes. So I’m going to see how that goes.

On top of that, I’m getting a 20% discount from my employer. So that’s also helpful. Check with your company to see if you can get a discount on ANY cell provider. Maybe you need to switch to save some dough.

All in all, I’ve saved over $60 on my cell phone bill(in theory, I haven’t gotten my cell phone bill after doing this). So we shall see what happens and I’ll report back on the results.

There’s a large waiting list to get in with Google Voice, but it seems to have saved me a significant amount of money so far.

Leave a comment with your own cell phone bill reducing strategies!

-MG

10 Ways to Save With a Baby on the Way

Posted on by
1

Babies are expensive. How expensive ARE babies? Well, they’re more expensive than girlfriends. I’ll leave it at that. My baby boy is due next week(April 1), and for the past 9 months, I’ve been finding ways to save money. Check out the top ten ways I’ve used to make extra money and save in preparation for my little guy.

  1. Move in with your parents or in-laws. This would have made me puke years ago, but I save THOUSANDS doing this in NYC, which has enabled to me to pay down my debt DRASTICALLY. Next step? Buy house and get the hell out :)
  2. Get a second job. I did some freelance to get some extra cash when I found out I had a baby on the way.
  3. Cancel services you don’t need. Cable ring a bell? Do you REALLY need it when you can download many many shows for free? Consider it. Also, what about that porn site you subscribed to 7 months ago and keep meaning to cancel? That’s some serious cash people. Let’s cancel that kind of crap.
  4. Reorganize your cell phone bill. I called my cell provider and found out that I wasn’t using anywhere near my minutes. So I downgraded. Then I started using Google Voice to do all of my texting for free from my blackberry. So I downgraded again! And that’s $40 a month saved. Plus the 20% discount I get from my employer.
  5. Start paying utilities on a level payment plan. This doesn’t REALLY save any money, but it frees up money during the winter months when electric and gas costs can get out of hand.
  6. STOP SPENDING ON SHIT YOU DON’T NEED! Seriously people! Just STOP! There’s a baby involved here and it’s your duty to give him or her a good life. You can’t do that if you’re buying crap constantly or getting yourself further into debt.
  7. Move in with your significant other. Paying for a bedroom in an apartment or having two people living in one bedroom and splitting the cost. PHENOMENAL savings on rent!
  8. Combine salaries with your signficant other and get finacial advise from one another. When I married my wife, we combined salaries. I see my money as “our money” and so does she. We setup a budget for paying off debts and for monthly spending. When I start overspending, she’s there to kick my ass. And when she overspends, I’m there to remind her that “we can’t afford it.” It’s working wonders for our financial life.
  9. Set goals. Set a goal to pay off your debts in a year. Set a goal to save 5000 by the time the baby is born. This is going to give you the financial cushion you need to land safely when the baby is born. Even if you’re still unclear how much a baby costs 9 months down the road, at least you’ll have the security of some savings and decreased debt.
  10. Ask for a raise. Crazier things have happened. I got a good raise right before the recession. I was busting my ass and asked my boss for more responsibility. They loved it and gave me a raise. Bam.

Let me know what you have done to save money with a child on the way in the comments section.

-MG

Is Your Financial Ship Sinking? Create a Blueprint to Fix it!

Posted on by
Reply

Two years ago I found myself being sued over credit card debt. It forced me to open my eyes and look at my financial situation, which included multiple delinquent credit card debts, car loans and school loans. I weighed many options including bankruptcy and debt consolidation, but decided I needed to stop trying to take shortcuts and get out of debt the right way.

I sat in my car at lunch and wrote in my journal. I wrote and wrote so that I understood how much debt I had, why I had it and what I was going to do about it.

Eventually I began to picture my financial life as a ship. But I had created huge holes in the hull with my financial actions and it was sinking. FAST!

My Debt Was Like a Hole in My Sinking Ship

My Debt Was Like a Hole in My Sinking Ship

This picture is from one of those sessions of sitting in my car. It shows my ship, the major hole(credit card debt I was being sued for) and some smaller holes(delinquent credit card debts).

I began to brainstorm on ways to fix the sinking ship. I very literally and logically asked myself “How can I stop this ship from sinking?” And I very logically created a drawing that showed my blueprint.

I had planned to have my crew(money) erect a huge steel pseudo floor(lawsuit settlement) and slide it into place. Once it was in place, I would secure it(automate my payments to the debt settlement attorney) and start bailing water(fixing my credit report).

Then I would have my crew(money) start patching smaller holes(unpaid credit card debts). I would likely have to find some extra crew members during some of this and I thought of ways to find some(401k cashout, stop contributing to 401, cashout stocks, ask for a raise, get a side job).

I started following the plan and ended up settling the account I was being sued for and paying off the others. Just as the plan dictated. And a massive weight was lifted from my shoulders and chest.

There were some difficult decisions along the way, like selling my car and taking the train to work, but the plan I came up with was the best solution for me. I automated payments so I was never late and began to really rebuild my financial foundation and credit.

I have a question for you.

What’s a good representation of your financial picture? A sinking ship? A crashing plan? The Leaning Tower of Pisa?

Whatever your financial picture is, draw it out. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be good. Draw it out so that you can see it.

Now write a step by step plan on how you can fix that picture! Then leave a comment and let me know what you’re picturing.

Good luck!
-MG

Wondering How to Figure Out Your Car’s Fuel Efficiency(MPG)?

Posted on by
Reply

I’m at a gas station pumping in the rain as I start writing this. I’m dying to figure out my cars fuel efficiency. I’ve been wondering what you can do to improve fuel efficiency because my gas bill is killing me! But it occurred to me that I drive a 4Runner and maybe it’s performing as the manufacturer expected it to. Maybe I’m just overpaying at the pump because I drive a truck and maybe I need to suck it up.

But before I swallow my pride and openly throw away hundreds of dollars per week on gas, I need to figure out what my mileage is and how that compares to the manufacturer’s rating.

So here’s what you do to figure out how many miles per gallon your car gets:
1. Go get your car filled up right now.
2. As you leave the gas station, reset your trip counter.
3. When you get to 3/4 of a tank or lower(the lower the more accurate), go get the car filled up again. Make sure to keep your receipt and make sure the recipt has the number of gallons that were put into your car. Fill it up all the way! This is very important because it will tell you how many gallons you burned since you filled your car last.
4. Look at your trip counter and write down the number of miles since your last refill on your receipt.
5. Do the math. Grab a calculator if you want. Divide the number of miles on your receipt by the number of gallons. So if you went 20 miles and you put 4 gallons of gas in your car, that’s 5. What’s this number? It’s your fuel efficiency! In otherwords, you get 5 miles per gallon. God bless you if you get fuel efficiency this low.

Do this process a few times and take an average to account for any mistakes or inconsistencies.

Now what? If you’re above 20MPG, you’re in decent shape. I’d personally want better. Above 30 miles per gallon, you’re in excellent shape. If you’re below 20, you’ve got a certifed gas guzzler. Consider trading it in or getting a tune up like I’ll be doing.

Good luck!

-MG