The Weight of Money

I often get turned around with simple math problems and I used to think this meant I’d never be able to manage my finances. However, lots of patience, double-checking, and perseverance pays off and I’m proud of how far I’ve come in the past 5 years in terms of managing cash flow.

When I added the Credit Card Debt Reduction meter to my sidebar, I made a mistake in my calculations. Our debt goal is to move from $30,500 in credit card debt to $0 and when I went to update it today, my calculations were telling me that we were doing worse even though our debt had reduced by $5,000 – obviously there was a problem. I realized that I had failed to factor in the fact that I was counting down to zero (not up from) and that inverted the percentages.

The problem is fixed and I’m proud to announce that we’ve accomplished 53% of our goal and now have a credit card debt of only $14,336. I’ll update the numbers every other month or so, because the monthly reductions usually are not great enough to recalculate the numbers for each time. November was a special reduction month because of the special found money that was put 100% to debt reduction.

Also, I’ve updated our home savings and the percentage has gone down. We’ve not touched the money; it was never $2,500 to begin with. The partner and I each have individual savings accounts that equal about $10,000 and we will certainly make use of those funds, as needed, for a house purchase. However, since our joint savings account is starting from the ground up and I want to start tracking its actual progress and not factor in any dedicated contributions from our individual accounts. I’ll also be updating this meter every other month since, unfortunately, it too moves at a snails pace.

These are all just small steps to help shape our personal and financial plan for 2007. This is a great week to get all of those ducks lined up and accounted for.

I sent my mother a gift of savings along with an invite to join ING. No, this wasn’t just to get the $10 bonus, but it was to encourage her to at least start saving something. We often have talks about money and she’ll agree with many of my suggestions but say that she just can’t save. I figured that if I sent her some cash, a pretty good amount of cash, that it might encourage her to save. I was extra surprised to find out that she came up with the $250 needed to earn the $25 bounus — great. For me, it is a gift knowing that she has started the process and that maybe there’ll be something there when she needs it some day.

Wow, it’s only been a month since my last, make the call post and I’m doing it again. This week’s call was in response to ourvery first cable internet bill. Against my better judgment, and after a valiant attempt to make do with dialup, we ordered Comcast high-speed internet.

Background: Last month the partner got fed up with dialup and talked me into ordering cable. He logged on and found it available for $60 a month, for non-cable customers, $20 to install, and a cable modem cost of $100. He made his case and I agreed that we could get it but that I would order it the next day.

The next day, I went online, did some searching, and ordered service with a 3 month promotion of $29.99 a month, a $100 rebate, and a free modem. I told the partner to expect the modem to arrive in 10 days and to be home for the installation at the same time – he was impressed.

Make the Call: Yesterday, our first Comcast bill arrives and I’m shocked to find the total amount due of $145.89 – whoa!

Call #1: I call billing and get transferred to tech support – needless to say that tech support couldn’t fix my billing problem.

Call #2: I call back and kindly tell the billing clerk that I’m being charged $57.95/month when I should be paying $29.99 for the first six months (did ya catch that? I wanted another 3 months thrown in there). The agent searches through her available promotions and says that she can give me the $29.99 for 12 months instead of six. Sure! She prorates the offer to include our start date, recalculates my bill, and suddenly the installation charge is gone too. I ask about it and she says that promotion must have taken care of it. .

Results: If I had done nothing, my annual bill would have been $725.39. I called because I expected to pay only $557.63 for the first year, and, thanks to the call, I will only pay $359.51.

Actual savings of $365.51 (50.4% or $30 a month).

Previous Make the Call Posts:

Save Money: Make the Call I - - utilities and late fees ($59.90 saved)
Save Money: Make the Call II - credit card interest rates (43.2% reduction)
Save the Money: Make the Call III - high-speed internet bill ($365.51 saved)