For Christmas I was given a couple of prepaid VISA cards. I found that I could order stuff online and pay for it with these cards, rather than my debit card. The advantage to this is tremendous.
Frequently when you order something and pay with your VISA, you are somehow giving the company permission to send you more product periodically and for them to thus help themselves to another chunk of money out of your account without warning. I had this happen to me several times, which is why I now go over my bank statements with a fine tooth comb.
One of the offenders was Lauren Bacall cosmetics. They send you all kinds of shit monthly once you’ve ordered their main item, the round makeup set compact (which in all fairness I have to add is a great product!)
Other companies that have continued to dip into my bank account once I’ve ordered from them are travel clubs, magazine subscriptions, gourmet food orders, credit report agencies, etc. It’s very insidious and sneaky, many many times even after reading the fine print I didn’t realize that this was an ongoing thing that I was agreeing to.
One of the ways they get you is to offer you something amazing … a free airplane ticket for trying their travel club, for example. You can cancel within 30 days without having to give back the ticket … that sort of thing. I stumbled into that by opening a bank account once. The travel club was presented as a “free service” that came with the account.
By paying for anything you order online with a prepaid VISA card, you aren’t allowing anyone access to your bank account or line of credit. All you are risking is the $100 (or whatever amount) that you used to buy the card initially. From now on, I intend to buy a $100 VISA card when I get paid once a month and use it for all online ordering.
Another thing I do is to once a year destroy my old ATM debit VISA card and order a new one with a new account number. Even going over my statements carefully, you can miss things plus it helps to clean out the cobwebs and avoid identity theft.
Another way to use prepaid cards is as a budgeting tool, especially for those of us who are paid once a month. Rather than keep envelopes of cash in your purse - it's too easy to grab from envelopes for impulse buying - instead I'll put $20 on my Starbucks card, buy a gas card to the station I frequent most often, buy a Trader Joe's card to use throughout the month. It's the same thing as buying prepaid cell phones. When the card is used up, no more luxury items until next month.
My friend Breann has a $500 limit on a visa card. Once that card is used up, that's it. That's her spending money for the month. A clever idea I haven't tried yet.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Buying Tires
I’m not very knowledgeable about buying tires. In fact, I dread anything to do with auto-related purchases. I always feel taken advantage of since I’m a single woman. Also, I used to buy a new car every couple of years back in my wealthy past so no new tires were needed, but those days are gone forever. I now have a Saturn Vue that I’ve been driving since the summer of 2003.
I drove on the original set of tires that came with the car for 3 and a half years and finally got new tires in December of 2006. They were a size larger than the car originally came with and it felt a lot sturdier to have those larger tires on. The new tires lasted just about exactly 2 years. Lately they’ve been dying one by one. So last September I bought one new tire and in October I bought a second new tire. I crossed my fingers and hoped we could get through the holidays without having to buy the final 2 tires.
In November I had a coupon for an oil change at Ramon Tires in Rancho Mirage. They told me that I had 2 good tires and two bad tires (duh). Unfortunately one of the new tires was the wrong size!!! This led to a lot of panic with trying to figure out who sold me the wrong sized tire and why didn’t they know any better. They warned me about how evil it was to have two different sized tires on my car (“like walking with one high heel and one sneaker on”) and how it would throw everything out of alignment.
Since my boyfriend Phil was visiting after Christmas I took him with me back to Ramon Tires and asked how cheaply I could get out of this mess. They gave me a quote for 4 new tires at the price of $749.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 new tires when I already had, at their admission, 2 perfect practically new ones!
I came to the conclusion that having a man along was having it's ups and downs. Clearly I must look like a wealthy snowbird (a visiting tourist) but now I also looked like I had a husband and price was no object. Phil told me that he didn’t think it was that big a deal to have two different sized tires. If one was taller than they other, perhaps they could let a little air out of one tire so it was the same size as the other? I like how he thinks!
I went by COSTCO and looked at their tires. Phil pointed out that they only carried high end tires … specifically Michelins, which I couldn’t afford. A friend advised me to get out of Palm Desert and buy my tires in the less affluent areas of the Coachella Valley, like Cathedral City or Indio.
So I dropped Phil off at the golf course and went to Discount Tires in Cathedral City (my usual haunt) and the guy there said that the 2 good tires were exactly the same size. They were just different brands so the numbers were different but they translated to the same size. Hah, take THAT Ramon Tires!
He quoted me a really good price for 2 more tires and we had a deal! By the time Phil finished his 18 holes I was driving around with 4 good tires!!!!!!! *phew* Now I don’t have to go through this again for another couple of years.
Lesson learned - buy all 4 tires at once, a matched set.
I drove on the original set of tires that came with the car for 3 and a half years and finally got new tires in December of 2006. They were a size larger than the car originally came with and it felt a lot sturdier to have those larger tires on. The new tires lasted just about exactly 2 years. Lately they’ve been dying one by one. So last September I bought one new tire and in October I bought a second new tire. I crossed my fingers and hoped we could get through the holidays without having to buy the final 2 tires.
In November I had a coupon for an oil change at Ramon Tires in Rancho Mirage. They told me that I had 2 good tires and two bad tires (duh). Unfortunately one of the new tires was the wrong size!!! This led to a lot of panic with trying to figure out who sold me the wrong sized tire and why didn’t they know any better. They warned me about how evil it was to have two different sized tires on my car (“like walking with one high heel and one sneaker on”) and how it would throw everything out of alignment.
Since my boyfriend Phil was visiting after Christmas I took him with me back to Ramon Tires and asked how cheaply I could get out of this mess. They gave me a quote for 4 new tires at the price of $749.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 new tires when I already had, at their admission, 2 perfect practically new ones!
I came to the conclusion that having a man along was having it's ups and downs. Clearly I must look like a wealthy snowbird (a visiting tourist) but now I also looked like I had a husband and price was no object. Phil told me that he didn’t think it was that big a deal to have two different sized tires. If one was taller than they other, perhaps they could let a little air out of one tire so it was the same size as the other? I like how he thinks!
I went by COSTCO and looked at their tires. Phil pointed out that they only carried high end tires … specifically Michelins, which I couldn’t afford. A friend advised me to get out of Palm Desert and buy my tires in the less affluent areas of the Coachella Valley, like Cathedral City or Indio.
So I dropped Phil off at the golf course and went to Discount Tires in Cathedral City (my usual haunt) and the guy there said that the 2 good tires were exactly the same size. They were just different brands so the numbers were different but they translated to the same size. Hah, take THAT Ramon Tires!
He quoted me a really good price for 2 more tires and we had a deal! By the time Phil finished his 18 holes I was driving around with 4 good tires!!!!!!! *phew* Now I don’t have to go through this again for another couple of years.
Lesson learned - buy all 4 tires at once, a matched set.
Monday, January 12, 2009
At The Movies
There is something about recessions/depressions that makes people go to the movies even more often. Escapism for the price of a movie ticket, I guess. I know I’ve been to a ton of movies this holiday season, way more than usual. Also, we are a little more comfortable these days because we have paid off our moving expenses (utility deposits, security deposits, etc.) and are now paying our true rent.
So this weekend I took my 16 year old granddaughter Rachel to the Palm Springs Film Festival. You can get a “six pack” of tickets for $50 and that got us into 3 films. Luckily all 3 films turned out to be really good. Saturday morning we went to see “The Witch Of The West Is Dead.” Shirley Maclaine’s daughter Sashi Parker played the elderly grandmother in a Japanese film and it was fun seeing her speak most of her dialogue in Japanese. It was also fun to see her in the audience looking very young and glamorous and ungrandmotherly. Aren’t actors amazing people?
Saturday afternoon we saw “The Black Balloon”, an Australian film about a family with the oldest boy being autistic. It was a wonderful story about how the younger brother both loved and hated his brother and dealt with how his life was turned upside down on a daily basis because of his brother’s condition. Rachel really identified with this film as she has two little autistic girls who frequently come to visit and was able to spot their different kinds of behaviors in the austistic onscreen performance of actor Luke Ford.
The third that we saw at noon on Sunday was “Tales from the Script” about screenwriters experiences having their scripts made into movies. I was worried that she might find this one too boring but she’s a prolific writer (just like her grandma!) and was really in to it.
All in all it was a great weekend visit, one of our best ever! Usually we have to go buy special Rachel food but now her palate has matured and she’s also into eating healthy, so no special food was needed.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Reality TV
We spend a lot on our cable bill. I just can't bring myself to go back to basic cable, plus we don't go out much so ... what to do but pay up and enjoy ourselves? Over the last couple of years, daughter J & I have become addicted to Reality TV. One of our favorite shows is Jon and Kate Plus 8. Like the rest of America, we just love those kids.
Monday night we stayed up late to watch the start of the new season. At least it appeared to be the first show of the new season, but it looked old because of Kate’s hair which was short and red. She’s been growing it out lately, based on recent booksigning photos and those photos sure didn't match how she looked on this show. The network must have a ton of old footage that can be made into episodes but are limited by having to keep the kids around the same age and trying to match the parents evolving looks.
This episode was about making soup at home. I watched it carefully and don’t believe I heard Kate use her favorite word “organic” even once. She & Jon described some of the ingredients in her soups – broccoli & cheese in one and beef with an assortment of veggies in another. Once again I was amazed me at what sophisticated and adventurous palates her 8 kids have. When my 3 were growing up, they never cared for cheese-based soups or the squash or root vegetables that she named. She had two huge lobster-style pots on her stove and were cooking both soups at once which had to have taken forever! I also wondered at how many meals she’d be able to get out of that batch, since there are 10 in the family – she claimed that she’d be able to get 5 or 6 lunches out of it if she included grilled cheese sandwiches. This definitely made it worth all that effort!
Kudos to Kate in this episode for keeping her cool when her stovetop exploded and she had to get a entirely new stove. Trust me, non-working appliances are a biggie in the Mom stress-o-meter level counter. It was always the one thing that threw me as a single parent - the one hassle I couldn’t just shrug off even back when money wasn't so hard to come by.
The kids were jumping on a Little Tyke inflatable bouncy toy. I saw something like that at Sam’s Club recently and thought it would be a great thing for the Gosselins to have since they have so many kids of the same age. Lunch time brought about the oddest part of the episode - watching six 4 year old children sitting in high chairs and wearing bibs ... all righty then!
During lunch they announced that they would be moving soon. Kudos to little Alexis, the oldest of the septuplets, for figuring out how to get her own bedroom. Evidentally she’s “disruptive” and so sleeps on her own and was informed that this arrangement would continue in the new house. Yup, she scored a major coup in that family!
Monday night we stayed up late to watch the start of the new season. At least it appeared to be the first show of the new season, but it looked old because of Kate’s hair which was short and red. She’s been growing it out lately, based on recent booksigning photos and those photos sure didn't match how she looked on this show. The network must have a ton of old footage that can be made into episodes but are limited by having to keep the kids around the same age and trying to match the parents evolving looks.
This episode was about making soup at home. I watched it carefully and don’t believe I heard Kate use her favorite word “organic” even once. She & Jon described some of the ingredients in her soups – broccoli & cheese in one and beef with an assortment of veggies in another. Once again I was amazed me at what sophisticated and adventurous palates her 8 kids have. When my 3 were growing up, they never cared for cheese-based soups or the squash or root vegetables that she named. She had two huge lobster-style pots on her stove and were cooking both soups at once which had to have taken forever! I also wondered at how many meals she’d be able to get out of that batch, since there are 10 in the family – she claimed that she’d be able to get 5 or 6 lunches out of it if she included grilled cheese sandwiches. This definitely made it worth all that effort!
Kudos to Kate in this episode for keeping her cool when her stovetop exploded and she had to get a entirely new stove. Trust me, non-working appliances are a biggie in the Mom stress-o-meter level counter. It was always the one thing that threw me as a single parent - the one hassle I couldn’t just shrug off even back when money wasn't so hard to come by.
The kids were jumping on a Little Tyke inflatable bouncy toy. I saw something like that at Sam’s Club recently and thought it would be a great thing for the Gosselins to have since they have so many kids of the same age. Lunch time brought about the oddest part of the episode - watching six 4 year old children sitting in high chairs and wearing bibs ... all righty then!
During lunch they announced that they would be moving soon. Kudos to little Alexis, the oldest of the septuplets, for figuring out how to get her own bedroom. Evidentally she’s “disruptive” and so sleeps on her own and was informed that this arrangement would continue in the new house. Yup, she scored a major coup in that family!
the 99 Cent Store
Cool things I’ve found at the 99 cent store:
Kitchen sponges with the scrubber on one side
Fat Free Half and Half (for my coffee)
Super fresh produce
The best Italian meatballs ever
Plastic food storage containers
Holiday decorations
Office supplies
Eggs
Coffee
Vanilla frosting
A full color coffee table book about celebrity marriages (half of which were already kaput…)
Pizzas & Pizza rolls
Cute socks
Revlon Makeup
Tooth whitening kit
Sugar free candy
Sparkling water
Dog treats
Hair ties and clips
Self-tanning lotion
Pregnancy Testing Kit (!)
Kitchen sponges with the scrubber on one side
Fat Free Half and Half (for my coffee)
Super fresh produce
The best Italian meatballs ever
Plastic food storage containers
Holiday decorations
Office supplies
Eggs
Coffee
Vanilla frosting
A full color coffee table book about celebrity marriages (half of which were already kaput…)
Pizzas & Pizza rolls
Cute socks
Revlon Makeup
Tooth whitening kit
Sugar free candy
Sparkling water
Dog treats
Hair ties and clips
Self-tanning lotion
Pregnancy Testing Kit (!)
Joke gifts
The 99 Cent Store Rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The 99 Cent Store Rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Advantages of the Current Economic Crisis
After my last post, I started thinking about the plus side of the current economy. For one thing, it's kind of fun to have everyone in the same boat.
I can only imagine that this is how it must have felt during World War II when everyone made sacrifices for the war effort. My friend even has her own 'victory garden' ... her personal victory over inflated grocery store produce prices.
Here are some other good things that have come out of the current crisis:
#1) Free Groceries - I have 3 great coupons in my purse right now. The first one was mailed directly to me from Ralphs grocery store. I earned $14 in free groceries by using my Ralphs Reward Card when I shopped. They also included valuable coupons for items I buy from there on a regular basis. The other two coupons came in the mail with the Wednesday circulars ... one is for a free $10 gift card if I buy $50 worth of groceries from Stater Bros. The other is for $5 of free groceries if I buy $30 worth at Fresh & Easy. These incentives are really appreciated. Also some groceries have gone up in price but I've noticed that others have dropped.
2) We have been forced to explore alternative forms of transportation. This is possibly the greatest thing that has come out of this crisis, more and more people sharing cars, using buses, buying scooters, etc. And believe me, I am someone who never would have considered using a bus to go somewhere, now everyone I know seems to be carrying around bus route pamphlets!
3) Recycling is something we do religiously now. Good for the environment plus we usually make enough to go out for lunch after turning in our cans and bottles.
4) As people are unable to sell their homes, more and more properties are coming up for rent and thus rent prices are dropping. We ended up with a two bedroom/one bath unit that rivals what I used to pay for rent $10 years ago!
5) I'm enjoying watching the governments efforts to get people back into all these houses that are sitting around empty. It will be interesting to see what incentives they come up with. I don't know if it will ever be worth my while to own a house again some day though. With house prices falling, all the old reasons for buying one have flown out the window! The only way it would make sense now is if it was an income producing investment, not for personal use.
6) How can I put this delicately, hmmmm ... the people who wait on me now at McDonalds actually speak English! Also, we live in a town that relies heavily on tourism and we appreciate our visiting snowbirds more than ever. This makes us more tolerant of their eccentricities.
7) Besides saving on housing and groceries, a lot of companies are trying to figure out ways to make things more affordable for people. We will all benefit from this, no matter what our economic status is.
8) There are more and more enjoyable reality TV shows about how people with large families manage to make ends meet. Besides being entertaining, a lot of the shows have helpful suggestions for trimming costs.
9) Better health - people are gardening, walking places, trying to make better choices when eating so that the food they have truly counts.
10) Camaraderie - I'm not the Big Loser trying to get by during a time of prosperity, everyone is feeling the pinch and trying to save money. Learning to get by on less is also good for everyone. My daughter and I are in a much smaller place than we've ever lived before and it's suiting us just fine. We enjoy being resourceful in creating storage space ... for example, using my 2 drawer file cabinet as a side table in our living room, using a hope chest as our coffee table, etc.
I can only imagine that this is how it must have felt during World War II when everyone made sacrifices for the war effort. My friend even has her own 'victory garden' ... her personal victory over inflated grocery store produce prices.
Here are some other good things that have come out of the current crisis:
#1) Free Groceries - I have 3 great coupons in my purse right now. The first one was mailed directly to me from Ralphs grocery store. I earned $14 in free groceries by using my Ralphs Reward Card when I shopped. They also included valuable coupons for items I buy from there on a regular basis. The other two coupons came in the mail with the Wednesday circulars ... one is for a free $10 gift card if I buy $50 worth of groceries from Stater Bros. The other is for $5 of free groceries if I buy $30 worth at Fresh & Easy. These incentives are really appreciated. Also some groceries have gone up in price but I've noticed that others have dropped.
2) We have been forced to explore alternative forms of transportation. This is possibly the greatest thing that has come out of this crisis, more and more people sharing cars, using buses, buying scooters, etc. And believe me, I am someone who never would have considered using a bus to go somewhere, now everyone I know seems to be carrying around bus route pamphlets!
3) Recycling is something we do religiously now. Good for the environment plus we usually make enough to go out for lunch after turning in our cans and bottles.
4) As people are unable to sell their homes, more and more properties are coming up for rent and thus rent prices are dropping. We ended up with a two bedroom/one bath unit that rivals what I used to pay for rent $10 years ago!
5) I'm enjoying watching the governments efforts to get people back into all these houses that are sitting around empty. It will be interesting to see what incentives they come up with. I don't know if it will ever be worth my while to own a house again some day though. With house prices falling, all the old reasons for buying one have flown out the window! The only way it would make sense now is if it was an income producing investment, not for personal use.
6) How can I put this delicately, hmmmm ... the people who wait on me now at McDonalds actually speak English! Also, we live in a town that relies heavily on tourism and we appreciate our visiting snowbirds more than ever. This makes us more tolerant of their eccentricities.
7) Besides saving on housing and groceries, a lot of companies are trying to figure out ways to make things more affordable for people. We will all benefit from this, no matter what our economic status is.
8) There are more and more enjoyable reality TV shows about how people with large families manage to make ends meet. Besides being entertaining, a lot of the shows have helpful suggestions for trimming costs.
9) Better health - people are gardening, walking places, trying to make better choices when eating so that the food they have truly counts.
10) Camaraderie - I'm not the Big Loser trying to get by during a time of prosperity, everyone is feeling the pinch and trying to save money. Learning to get by on less is also good for everyone. My daughter and I are in a much smaller place than we've ever lived before and it's suiting us just fine. We enjoy being resourceful in creating storage space ... for example, using my 2 drawer file cabinet as a side table in our living room, using a hope chest as our coffee table, etc.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
The Current Economy
Oh no! Our economy is in crisis! Wall Street crashed! The president got involved, making a big speech informing us about this sorry state of affairs. Even the candidates acknowledged it! Well, welcome to the party guys, what took you so long to notice?
This is some small ways of how the current economy has affected one person (me!):
This is some small ways of how the current economy has affected one person (me!):
1) My sewing basket was reinstated, the sewing machine brought out, dusted off and given a permanent place of honor in our house. No more new clothes … our clothing is patched, repaired and altered instead. If we need something new, it comes from WalMart or a thrift shop.
2) Food – no more experimental recipes using a wide range of ingredients. No more looking at the sides of packages trying to figure out calories, carb counts or fat grams. The only numbers I pay attention to now is price!
3) Pets – no new pets and we cover their little ears whenever we discuss whether we can afford to keep the ones we’ve got. Bob has needed a rabies booster for over a year, as well as eye treatments. Lady is a candidate for new knees, which will probably never happen. Their food is expensive but, since they are Chihuahuas, we keep buying it.
4) We move around to be closer to work to reduce our gas prices. This has to be done cleverly so that the amount spent on the move doesn't add up to more than the gas would have cost but we've pulled it off on more than one occasion.
Am I in favor of the government bailing out those big businesses that are about to go under? No. Am I prepared to deal with the consequences of those businesses going under? Not even. I can’t imagine the trickle down effect of that.
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