Save on Gas

For those who shop at Krogers and have a Kroger card, it is a good way to save on gas. Anytime you enter your phone number at the pump, it will recognize you as a Kroger card customer and will give you three cents off the price of gas. If you spend $100 in groceries during a particular month, you get ten cents off instead! I have spent over $100 at Kroger's this month, and just filled up my tank. I got $3.05 cents a gallon rather than the $3.15 posted price. Nice!

Change Jar

One more small step to better money management--I am starting a change jar! I have had one before and did quite well, but had to cash it in. Of course I needed the money, and that was OK. But I didn't start up another one until now. I can use the extra savings. I will "cash in" the change every so often and deposit the money into my credit union savings account. Hopefully I won't need to withdraw it for quite a while and can let it grow. But I might need to tap into while I am studying for the bar exam, and that will be OK. I just don't want to wait another couple of years to save my change again.

Financial Mistakes Pass in Front of My Eyes

There is nothing like having to stare down your mistakes. Seeing them in black and white. Your financial mistakes laid out in a row for you to see how you messed up year after year. And all the money you wasted. That is what happened to me tonight. I have to fill out a bar application, which includes filling out financial information from the beginning of time. I haven't pulled a credit report yet (shudder). I am sure it is slow. But going through some old papers, I found some old credit reports that will help me reconstruct my past. Looking at them made me just shake my head.

I am really dreading filling this out. My one saving grace is that I have never declared bankruptcy, and I have always paid off my bills. Even if it has been slow. I always make payment arrangements. I am not worried about my dedication to paying off my bills. I am worried about how bad this looks to someone else. One good thing is that by seeing this right in front of my eyes, it reinforces that enough is enough.

Saving With My Debit Card

I took a step today I have been meaning to do for a while--sign up for rewards with my check card. It was free and easy to do online. You can get money back by using your debit card at certain retailers. I think that is a good idea as long as I would be shopping at those stores anyway. The offers are good both online and in the stores. Another little step towards better money management!

America Saves Week

Well, leave it to me to learn about America Saves Week toward the end of the week. Truly a day late and a dollar short!
There was a good column today on Yahoo Finance titled "Saving in the Age of Chronic Consumption" that talked about America Saves Week. Sponsored by the nonprofit America Saves, the group's Website does have some good tips on saving money. I will definitely be following some of the suggestions.
The column also talks about how much easier it is to be a consumer today in the age of the Internet, when you can gamble, shop, or participate in an auction in the middle of the night. It used to require some effort to be a consumer. You had to get in your car and drive somewhere to make a purchase.
Also the article talks about how consumers have less discipline today in an era in which they need to save money the most. There is less job security and more part-time jobs with no job benefits. People are more likely to have a volatile income stream.
http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/moneyhappy/68883;_ylt=AjDvyiA02K23s6fC24x683e7YWsA

Property Taxes

It is near the end of February, which means "property taxes" to most of us homeowners. I paid my taxes in full a week ago, but by that I mean I paid my delinquent property taxes in full last week. For the last couple of years, I have run a year behind. That is OK, because you have two years to pay your property taxes--at least here you do. Like everything else, my finances have screwed up a number of things--paying my real estate taxes on time included.

All that means is that I am paying extra interest and penalty, and paying for it in extra stress and anxiety as well.

I always breathe a sigh of relief as I write that last check. Almost like a feeling of "saved by the bell." I am never really worried as I know I will always have the money by the deadline. I feel sorry for the people who won't and end up with their property being sold at a tax sale. You see their names and property listed in the newspaper.

I know it is dangerous to wait until the last minute like this and am not going to do it again. I am cleaning up my finances this year, and will be helped by the fact that I will not have to pay tuition anymore in a few months.

The danger is something could happen--you could forget to pay, you might not have the money when due, you might get deathly ill, have a car accident etc., and the tax is forgotten. The consequence would be dire--your property is sold at a tax sale. (Although you do have a number of opportunities even then to pay up.)

I don't want to be in that position anymore.

Even talking about delinquent taxes reminds me of the book and movie, The House of Sand and Fog, a truly wonderful but sad tale of a young woman who is depressed and thinks she has taken care of an erroneous business tax bill on her house but hasn't. The house is sold from under her, and she becomes obsessed and desperate to get it back, as I am sure we would all be. It is very sad to see perfectly normal people become undone and end in tragedy.

All because she didn't open her mail.

Just gives me the shivers thinking about it.

Repo Man

Like many people, I have a car payment. I get paid every two weeks, so my paydays vary from month to month. This month I will have to pay my car payment a couple of days later than usual, so I called the company and let them know. They said fine. Well then, I get a snitty letter saying I should call to make a payment arrangement. Helloooo!? I just did that. I called and explained my frustration, and they said that these letters are automatically generated and of course they had my payment arrangement and to just ignore it. I said fine.

But these letters can be scary. They talk about pursuing all and any remedies......

What I have just learned in my secured transactions class is that a car can be repossessed without notice. (I am not worried about this, as my payment is only going to be a few days late, not enough to get into this dilemma.) But I guess I never knew that they didn't have to give notice for this. This is because, of course, that if you knew they were coming to repossess the vehicle, you would have it somewhere else!

But a few tidbits about reposssesion I learned in class:
--They do not have to give notice.
--They can't breach the peace in repossessing. They can not break into your garage for example to get the car out, and they can't go into the garage to get it even if the garage is unlocked.
--They can reposssess it from the street or the driveway.
--But if you see them repossessing the car and you come out and make a fuss about it, they are supposed to leave. That is because at that point they are breaching the peace.
--They can come back to try again after a break in time from the first attempt. The law does not define how long the break in time has to be. It might be again later that night.
--I remember something about they cannot have a police officer to come with them, etc., but I am foggy on this detail.

This was part of my test the other night. How do you think I did?