The Weight of Money

As I mentioned in my last car post, we’re not actively looking for another car but we are keeping our eyes out if the right situation appears. Well, this weekend, we thought that situation had come. On one of my local email lists, someone posted a four-door car with air conditioning for sale. The details sounded right and the price was right. We went to check it out, had one small concern with it that we decided was worth accepting for the price, and agreed to get the car pending the safety inspection.

The sellers and I agreed to split the cost of the inspection and they got it done today. Since Maryland loves to nit pick all the details on safety inspections, I wasn’t surprised to hear that the car failed — I doubt any car ever passes the first go round. But the list was rather lengthy and touched on the one concern we had with the car – the transmission. In all, to get the car fixed would have been $1,000 in repairs. The sellers were willing to drop a few hundred dollars off the price, but it still took the car out of the “right price” category for it. If we were confident these repairs would resolve our transmission concerns, we would have probably gone for it. But since it included a long list of nit-picky detail that safety inspections love to hit on and just a couple minor tinkerings with the transmission, we took a pass.

I’m a little disappointed because I got very excited that our car woes would be satisfied, but I’m also not interested in throwing out money to bring another vehicle with issues into our life. Sometimes you’ve just got to let things be and I’m glad that the partner and I were both willing to walk away from this situation without trying to talk ourselves into it. It’s nice not being in a position where we *have* to take action.

The partner and I got an unexpected date night last night since the daughter wanted to hang out at a free movie event at our local library. We stopped at a local yarn store and chatted with the owner and some of the other ladies before heading over to a yummy dinner of thai food. Even though we took our time at each stop, we were still early in picking up the daughter from her event and ended up parking in library lot waiting for her to get out.

This was the perfect opportunity to talk about anything and everything without losing sleep – usually these discussions take place as we’re both drifting off to sleep. The partner reveal another upcoming change with his company’s 401K program. It sounds like his company continues to struggle financially and is still cutting corners here, there, and everywhere to stay afloat. The partner is expecting that the newest announcement, only alluded to at this point, will address the account fees associated with the 401K accounts. He expects that the company, in addition to dropping their matching program and tacking on a lengthly vestment clause for previously contributed dollars, will also stop covering the fees charged by the 401K company and will be passing those charges on to participating members. To me, this is just another kick in the shins from the company at this point.

The partner is currently on is 3rd years with this small start up company. The past year has been full of lay offs, cut backs, scaling down of options, and other negative financial steps (negative from the employee’s perspective at least). What was a nice company to work with has really drained away to just some job this past year. The other draw back is that this company doesn’t pay that well to start with, so the few perks (most of which were not financial) it offered, made a big difference in employee satisfaction. All of that has been stripped away this past year or so. I’m sad to see this change since it was a very family-focused company that seemed to go out of it’s way to support it’s staff in recognition that it’s financial support wasn’t the greatest. At the same time, I’ve hoped that these changes would prompt the partner to look elsewhere for employment, and while there have been days that he’s lost all patience with the company, he’s still pretty loyal to sticking around longer.

During our parking lot discussion, the partner mentioned just stopping all retirement contributions. This would put a few more dollars in our pockets each month, but would it be worth it? I don’t think so. Retirement is something that is going to happen – having a couple more dollars more a month might ease our financial stress a little bit, but not to the point to put future retirement in jeopardy. Since we’re already not seeing that money, I support continuing with contributions, even if we’re paying all the fees to make it happen.

This past year of making no financial progress is taking it’s toll on the partner as well – he wants to see debt going down, savings increasing, or equity growing. I understand the feeling, I want to see those things happening too – but we’re just not there yet. In fact, I’ve been anxiously waiting to hear what his raise is going to be and am starting to worry that one won’t be happening at all since his company has been struggling so much and we’re already entering the third week of July and there has been no word about this year’s raises (they usually go in effect July 1). I also struggle with the fact that the he chooses to stay with a company that limits his earning potential. In my mind, if he really wants to see progress in those areas, he’d be making the effort to apply for other positions that are available to him at this point and would come with a decent pay increase as well. But that’s not a fun argument to make and is one area that I’ve finally learned to not push too hard – but it’s difficult to not push when I see that as one of the only positive steps to reducing our financial struggles.

One of the joys of raising children is that they need things, like clothes. Luckily, I have a wonderful daughter who isn’t the least bit interested in fashion or keeping up with her friends. This makes clothes shopping an easy and affordable experience.

A couple years ago, I stopped at my favorite thrift store to pick up some camp clothes for the daughter. These were clothes that I didn’t care what happened to them or if they ever came back from camp. Since we’re pretty frugal with most of our purchases, I didn’t want her taking her “normal” clothes to camp and getting them ruined or lost. I think I spent about $20 on shirts and shorts for the two week camp.

It turned out that she really liked a lot of those clothes and they quickly became part of her normal wardrobe. Suddenly, I realized that buying her clothes anywhere else made no sense whatsoever. So, we started shopping at thrift stores for pretty much all of her clothing needs. I love that I can pick up an entire season’s worth of clothes for about $30. I also love how flexible she is and the fact that she could care less where they come from or what they look like, for the most part. Plus, if you see the way she treats her clothes, you’d probably feel much better knowing that she crawling in the mud in a pair of $3 pants versus a pair of $30 pants.

So, today we’re heading down to our favorite thrift store shopping district to get some summer clothes that she’s been desperately needing. I’m really getting tired of seeing her running around in mid-nineties degree weather wearing flannel lined jeans (she swears she isn’t hot, but come on!). While I figure we’ll spend about $30 on clothes, maybe a little more if I get a few things, we’ll probably spend almost that much on lunch and gas as well. Unfortunately, there are no good thrift stores where we live and we’ll be making the partners commute to the stores that have proven time and again to be worth the drive. And, since we’ll be down by the partner during his lunch hour, we’ll stop in and dine with him too. A nice family lunch out on a weekday is a rare occurance these days since gas prices went up and we moved so far away from his work.

Of all the financial decision I make, it seems that my brain turns to mush when it comes to cars. Over the past two years, I feel like I’ve posted about car issues an absurd number of times, and the trend continues. I said that we were going to buy another car – one of those fancy, schmancy ones that have luxuries like air conditioning and four doors. Even better would be good gas mileage and less than 100,000 miles. So, that was the plan and I looked earnestly for another car.

And I looked and looked and found lots of good contenders, but looking for another car is work. And it also costs money – and one thing I hate doing is spending money. So, my determination to get another car has faded and I told the partner that maybe we’ll just continue to live with just the cars we have. My vanity issues are fading away, especially since the partner and a friend helped improve the visual appearance of my “total loss” car, and because there are other things I want more than a car – like money in the bank and eventually a workshop.

Also, since gas prices have increased and my general energy level has decreased, I’m finally in a pattern of not leaving the house for days at a time. Earlier this year, that simply would never happen because I get antsy to get out and go somewhere. At this point, there is no where I want to go. With the partner driving my car to work, I’m even less inclined to go anywhere in one of our other vehicles. So, just making do with the vehicles we have seems like a sensible alternative, at least for a couple more months.

So, the partner and I agreed that he’ll continue to drive my car unless I need it for some reason. I’ll also work on making sure that continue to plan our errands sensibly so that I only need to get out once or twice a week. And I’ll still have a backup vehicle capable of getting where we need to go if something comes up unexpectedly.

We are leaving the option open to still consider another vehicle because we feel we do need a better “family” vehicle – but it’s no longer a pressing need. I’ll continue scanning sales ads and local spots for sale-by-owner vehicles for the perfect car. Also, at some point in the next few month we’ll be closing on the insurance claim from my accident and may decide to use those funds for a family vehicle — if I can avoid just paying down debt instead.

So, since I’m not scratching my brain to buy a car, I can focus on some other projects — like how big of a shed can we buy/build to eliminate the $145/month we’re paying for storage.

I haven’t updated my debt meter in quite some time and it’s no longer in the $13,000-range. In fact, we started off the year at $15,000 in credit card debt, so I’m betting that meter hasn’t been updated since June of last year when we were battling down debt in order to buy a house. The purchase of said house stalled all progress in reducing our credit card debt – something we expected for the first year of home ownership.

We were doing pretty good for a while in keeping things in check, but there were several instances where we chose to increase our credit card debt instead of reducing our emergency fund. The only reassuring thought about this increase is that these are not frivolous purchases – there is no going out to eat on credit or buying unnecessary items. Unnecessary items is an “eye of the beholder” situation; I’m sure that we’ve charged some items that others would not agree are necessary. Our plane tickets to attend my grandmother’s 75th birthday party last year, for instance, could be considered an unnecessary expense. But, I’m comfortable with that charge knowing that my grandmother is getting older and attending this event, that I also organized for her from 1,000+ miles away, was worth the credit increase for us. Not knowing if or when I’ll get back to see her again made the trip worth it.

Today I’ve been filing away papers and bills and have updated our credit card spread sheet. We currently have $17,300 in credit card debt at the moment. This is costing us a little less than $100/month in interest charges and we’re paying a little over $300/month in payments (this is the debt maintenance plan, not a debt reduction plan). Of the $17,000, $7,000 is currently under a balance transfer agreement and we’re not paying interest on that, which is a significant savings – this savings will end in October. The scary thing about our credit balances is that we’re still using less than 30% of our available credit – wow, what a scary thought. The $2,000 increase from January is mostly attributed to my business purchases and two rounds of car repairs.

I’m currently waiting to see what, if any, pay increase the partner gets this year to see where we can start reducing credit card debt. As I’ve mentioned several time, we knew that our first year of home ownership would put all positive financial progress on hold and would be a difficult year in making things meet. However, due to the ongoing financial struggles at the partner’s company, I’m not too confident that this year’s raise, even with a very positive annual review, will do much to alleviative our current finical struggles. But, we’ll take whatever it is in stride as we’ve learned to do this past year and continue to make compromises as we barely make ends meet.

Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the things you want. Sometimes, your brain plays tricks and makes you think that getting what you want is a good idea even when it isn’t — especially when it comes down to money. We’ve made and need to make several purchases for our house and garden this month. Thinking about our current purchasing needs, the partner started wondering if he could get a good deal on a few items purchased in bulk – specifically some EMT. We need some for the vertical garden support, but suddenly he was asking me about how many poles we’d need if we finally got a shade structure we’d been considering for a couple years.

The shade structure idea wasn’t an out-of-the-blue thought. We’ve been discussing getting a good structure for several years and somehow manage to talk ourselves out of it each time. We have a big party coming up in a couple weeks where we could certainly use a nice sized structure – but is that reason enough to get one? He almost had me convinced and those lovely little “Buy It Now” buttons on ebay can be awfully tempting sometimes. But, before clicking that button, my mind started to wonder about some of the details.

I’m a bargain hunter – I hate to pay extra for anything I think I can get for less somewhere else. Considering shipping costs, I’ve began wondering if we couldn’t get some of the structure elements cheaper, closer to home. This threw a kink in the whirlwind of activity – not so much because I was questioning the savings, but because I was taking longer look at the situation. What started out as a conversation about getting a bulk discount on EMT had turned into definite plans to buy the kit and the EMT without even knowing if a discount was possible. Having the shade structure for the party would be great, but having the cash to pay for everything would be even better and thats where the problem comes in.

I can justify needed expenses that are necessary. We have to get vertical supports up for the crops (now!) and I don’t mind forking over cash to make that happen. However, we don’t *need* a new shade structure for the party – no matter how nice it’d be to have. Also, we’re currently looking at options for buying another vehicle – one with 4-doors and a/c – and now is not the time for buying frivolous items. Once I started adding up the shelter details, all I could see was that adding up to the 6-month or 12-month increase in auto insurance we’ll be paying for a 4th vehicle.

It’s easy to get pulled along by ideas, but sometimes you still need to hit the breaks and really look at the situation. We may end up with a shade shelter, but it’ll get a lot more consideration than the 2 hours of talk we gave it last night. Also, before we make that decision, we’ll need to finally decide if we’re going to get another older car for the cash we can spare, or it we’re going to add a car payment to our already tight budget. I’m already leaning toward the first option, but am not sure the partner is on board with that idea just yet so we gotta talk it out a bit more first.

I get very uppity about money and bills. Sometimes I wonder if I spend too much time fussing over some of these little details. But when someone is trying to come between me and my money, I take notice and action. We’ve been going through lots of homeowner stress the past two weeks and have dropped lot of money on repair and treatment products in the mean time. I don’t really mind the money spent since it’s been to fix things that needed fixed, but it makes me much less tolerant of any unexpected bills that show up at the same time.

Our house has a 30+ year old boiler that supplies our heat and hot water. On Saturday or Sunday last week, we suddenly had no hot water. This isn’t really a big deal since the partner is pretty good at fixing things; the complicated part is figuring out what is wrong. But, it threw a kink in our regularly schedule programming. At this time, we also noticed we were finally almost out of fuel (see below) and thought that might be contributing to the problem, but turns out that it was just a coincidence and we managed to solve the broken boiler before solving the lack of oil.

One of our in-progress projects was replacing our ancient oil tank with a newer tank. We’d placed all our oil deliveries on hold so that we could run the tank empty and switch them out. However, while we’d finally run low enough to make the switch, the heat, broken boiler, and the impending baby arrival made us rethink that plan and decide that late fall would be better timing. So, we called our oil company for a delivery and let them know we hadn’t switched tanks yet.

The oil company insisted that the tank had to be inspected before they’d deliver oil. This made no sense and I argued about it being the same tank they’d been filling, but they insisted and I finally shrugged it off and agreed. We had a tech out that afternoon. The tech takes two seconds, a quick swipe of his hand on the underside of our tank, and fails it. Crap! Then, he gives the partner a $50 bill for the inspection – what?! No one said anything to me about charging me $50 for the inspection — I was pissed and immediately called to refuse to pay it. The reasoning: no one told me that there would be a charge for the inspection. Had they mentioned it upfront, I would have hemmed and hawed until the dropped the inspection requirement in general. It also didn’t improve my spirits that we now had to switch out tanks.

Fuel oil companies are very competitive with each other and there is nothing holding me to this particular company. Also, because we’d had our oil deliveries on hold for so long and were still on monthly budget billing, we have a sizable credit with them that I was more than willing to take elsewhere. I immediately called the company and got an agreeable CSR on the phone who was a bit stubborn at first but quickly realized I was much more stubborn. She wasn’t able to cancel the charge, but she gave me an extra $50 credit on our account to cover it – problem solved.

The tech that failed our tank said that they probably wouldn’t be a charge for the to reinspect the new tank that we now had to put in. This wasn’t the case when it came time (the next day) for that inspection. But, the person on the phone did let me know about the charge ahead of time and I was going to let it go. That was until the oil company dropped the ball…

When the new tank passed inspection, a delivery should have been ordered right then. The tech called in the passed inspection as he was supposed to, but a delivery order wasn’t placed. Around 4pm this afternoon (on a Friday) I noticed we still didn’t have oil and called to find out if the truck was running late. Since I called so late, I was told there was nothing they could do and it’d be Monday, maybe, before a delivery could be made. Also, I was told that I have to call back first thing on Monday to make sure an order is placed (why do I have to call again?) and that it may still be another day or so after that since they only travel to my area once or twice a week during the summer – most customers use oil for heating only and they reduce their trucks and staff in the summer.

So, considering this issue too – I’m going to write a letter about the entire ordeal to the company and will expect some sort of corrective action (in financial form) for this entire ordeal. In the meantime, I’m thankful that I’ve got such a talented partner and know that we’ll have hot water even with an empty oil tank over the weekend – of course, I don’t need to let the fuel oil company know that.

I’ve written many times about how much my tendency to procrastinate has cost me – it’s usually not a pretty site when the reality dawns on my that my laziness has a dollar value. It’s one thing to make foolish choices and lose money; it’s another to lose money for doing nothing. But a couple weeks ago, that same tendency actually earned me extra cash.

We’re still dealing with the car accident, slow and steady, and have finally reached an agreement on the settlement amount. The best part is that it took no work on my part. The week of the accident, the insurance company offered me $2,100 for my car if I wanted to keep it. As I previously mentioned, we’d just put a lot of work and money in the car just 3 months prior and I wasn’t happy with that amount. What did I do? Nothing.

Life was very busy at that same time with vacation and three shows I was working on for my sewing business. I didn’t have the time to devote to this issue, so I just let it slide. The insurance company called several times, usually catching my voice mail, but I kept brushing them off. At one point they also called the attorney I retained to deal with the personal injury side of my claim and he directed them back to me as I had asked him to do. He also sent them a letter stating that I was managing the property damage portion of my claim and that I was also unsatisfied with their current offer.

About a week after that letter, I get a revised offer letter that gives me another $550 for my car. Now, this isn’t a huge jump, but it is enough for me to be content. Would I like a little more for my car? Of course, but I’m also not interested in jumping through more hoops to get it either. In my mind, this extra cash almost covers the new clutch we put in my car and is a fair offer considering the actual value of my car. Also, during this time, we’ve established that my car is drivable and the partner has done lots of work to make the body look better. The partner is now driving the car daily because of my vanity issues and because he commutes 75 miles a day and my car gets 35mpg and our other vehicles only get 15-18mpg.

I finally called the claims agent back and I’ll be driving over to sign some paperwork and leave with a check this afternoon. I originally rejected the in-person idea since I hate driving, but as I was writing this post I realized their office was 2 miles from the bank which I need to visit anyways.

This timing works out well because the partner and I finally agree that we need to purchase another vehicle, soon! In a couple more weeks we’ll have a new little one in the house and our “family” car options have almost evaporated. I don’t trust my car, safety-wise, to use it as a family car, plus the partner will be driving it, and our Blazer has had problem after problem lately and I’m stomping my foot hard on putting another dollar into that thing. We’re now deciding on what type of vehicle to get, but thats a whole different post.

The decision to not drive my accident-damaged car is mostly based on vanity issues. I don’t want to drive a car that is smashed in on one side, no matter how much I love the car or how much I dislike driving our other two vehicles. We decided to keep the car, as-is, and the partner can start driving it to work since his commute is 70 miles a day and his current vehicle gets about 16mpg and the car gets 30mpg. Before that switch happens, though, there are still some repairs/improvements the partner wants to make and there is the issue of wrapping his mind around driving a stick-shift car. The partner worked on the car a bit this weekend, making it drivable and the passenger door is now mostly-operable. But, he’s not quite ready to drive it yet, so it’s in the driveway this week.

I had several errands to run today, which happened to be in opposite directions. Living out in the country has the disadvantage of being far away from everything. Last night, as I planned out my morning trip: chiropractor, freecycle pick-up (on the way), fabric store, feed store, and attorney’s office – I realized I was going to be doing a lot of driving. Since the partner had fixed the immediate driving problems with the car, I had the option of driving it or the utility van I’ve been driving. Because the cost of gas is at the seriously-painful point, for me at least, I couldn’t ignore the financial implication of my two options:

All of my errands totaled a 41.5 miles roundtrip. Current gas price is $3.79/gallon.
1. Vanity Option: Drive the van, at 18mpg, for a cost of:$8.74
2. Practical Option Drive the car, at 30mpg for a cost of: $5.24

I decided to save the $3.50 and go with the practical option. Also, considering the fact that 30mpg is my low estimate and the majority of my driving is at highway speeds (one advantage to country living, everything may be far away, but you don’t have to crawl to get there), I probably saved a bit more than that. I still don’t want to drive the car, but if it means helping our dollars stretch a little further – I will do what I can.

Also, since the accident, our gas usage has dropped dramatically. Because I dislike driving the van, I will stay home if I have the choice. This means combining trips even more than before and resiting the urge to just get out of the house – a very common issue for me. Now that I have the option of the van or the car, at least till the partner finishes the improvements he wants, I’ll still probably chose to stay home due to vanity and gas-price concerns.

For the past three days, counting today, my bank’s website has been down! The only thing I get is an error message, no friendly notice that they’re working on the problem or anything like that, just a technical, auto-generated error message. On day 1, this error didn’t bother me as I assumed it’d be fixed promptly. However, on day 3, I’m getting pretty upset that they haven’t made enough progress to at least let customers know whats going on.

I don’t like not having online access to my accounts. i don’t like that I feel my only option is to call them and I’ve got a million other things that need done instead. I don’t *need* access to my account at the moment, though I did want to schedule two upcoming payments and looking to see if our tax returns or stimulus package amounts have been deposited. Luckily, I know we’re covered in instances like this and I don’t have to stress over the fact I can’t get into my account. However, I’ve now lost all patience with the situation and want to know when this situation will be resolved.

Oh, and you know the saying “when it rains, it pours”? Oh so true and maybe I’ll have some fun updates this weekend or next week with how life just gets more and more exciting here every day. In the meantime, if someone wants to buy the partner and I two new cars, I won’t complain.