Couponing
So... a few days ago, an online news story was about extreme couponing. They had the Extreme Coupon Professors as guests, and were talking about TLC's show Extreme Couponing. Haven't seen the show yet... don't watch tv. Would like to though, if they ever bring it to Netflix.
They talked about clipping services to order multiples of good coupons, checking out related blogs, and calling manufacturers for coupons. They mentioned, coupons.com, redplum.com, freetastegood.com. I have gone to them, signed up for things, and am getting blasted with advertisements now in my email. I don't know what's from them and what is spam at this point.
Bills
Yesterday, there was this story on Yahoo.. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/First-Person-Slashing-My-ac-3970251951.html?x=0. She slashed her household expenses by $6,600 per year "without sacrificing."
So if I'm working on learning how to coupon that should help. But other expenses that we have are ridiculous, so I checked them out.
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Auto Insurance - We pay $731. every 6 months for 2 new cars with full coverage and a deductible of $500. If we increased our deductible to $1000., we would save $12.17 per month ($146.04 per year). If we increased our deductible to $2000., we would save $24 per month ($288.00 per year). I'm not so sure that's worth it. What if we got in an accident next week? Where would the $1000 or $2000 come from??
We have been paying our auto insurance monthly. A discount is offered if it is paid in full at the beginning of the 6 month term. We would have saved $146.00 if we had done that for our 6 month July-December policy (1 year overpayment of $292.00). You can bet I'll find a way to pay our policy renewal in January, in full.
Debt
I have been working over the past couple of years on paying off our debt, which is also ridiculous, and the interest we pay... I don't even want to think about... but I will, at some point soon.
1.
I called USAA to see if we could get our APR lowered. They can do that with some accounts, but our account was not set up with a variable rate. sigh... oh well, it's still the lowest APR we have right now, at 12.5%. We have had this account since 1994.
2.
Now Citibank... *nasty namecalling here*... We had an account with them since the year 2000. Very good payment history... APR of 9.24%. In July of 2009, I received a letter about a change in Terms of Service. My new APR would now be 29.99%!!!!!!! WHAT?? I called them up and asked what I did wrong, and what I could do to fix whatever mistake I made.
Apparently I did nothing wrong. They were sending this letter out en masse. I really wonder how many people stayed with Citibank with terms of service like that. 29.99% is Criminal (IMHO).
They offered me a "good customer discount" of 26.99% but that's no bargain. If I wanted to stay at 9.24%, I had to deny the TOS change, and cancel my card. Which I did. But my long standing good credit with them is gone, and is no longer reflected in my credit history report. I received numerous dings to my credit report because of this. Not the least of which, my debt to credit available ratio is severely unbalanced.
3.
I have paid off a credit card at my bank which had a 17.25% APR and had an available credit of $7500. Which of course I had maxed out at one point. Did you know that the bank can cancel your line of credit if your credit score goes down? Yep, they can. You still have to make the payments, but your available credit is zero, and the account is closed. Again, the debt to credit available ratio unbalanced even more.
It is an internal struggle for me to pay off debt I cannot use again before paying down/off debt that could be available for future emergency situations.
4.
Currently at the top of my "to pay off first" list, is a 16.74%, which was at a zero balance last month, but then I needed a dress for a wedding. This is an important wedding, not one I could wear just any dress to. I will be in the family pictures. A once in my life event that will never happen again. So to me, this was worth both spending the money and using the card.
5.
Next in line is a debt with no possible future use. It is at 13.00% APR. This one had an available credit balance of 10,000. This is still at $9,500ish because we worked hard on paying the others down first, and were only making slightly over minimum payment.
This line of credit at my bank was truly a just pay the interest minimum balance. The actual balance never went down. They calculate the finance charge and round up to the nearest dollar.... that's the amount of the minimum payment due!!
This was another one where they gave me a bunch of money to spend, I maxed it out (stupid, I know), and then they closed it because of my low FICO score. So one more instance... (the third I have listed here) of having debt out there that is higher than the credit available to me. Can't imagine what my available credit to debt ratio is. One has been paid off... two more to go. UGH
Pay Attention people... they will rob you blind, and have been doing a good job on me for a while now... because I wasn't paying attention. I won't take my business elsewhere though, they have good customer service, and I have an account history with them of about forever. I'll just be smarter in the future.
6.
Best Buy... Gotta love the "Same as Cash" option. You do have to make minimum monthly payments, but if you pay it completely off by the date specified, you have paid no interest. If you do not pay it off, they charge you all of the interest accrued from the time of your purchase.
By using this "Same as Cash" option on two separate purchases, each for a 6 month term, I did not have to pay $18.97 interest on a purchase made 12/10, nor did I have to pay $19.91 interest on a purchase made 1/2011. I just paid the minimum payment each month until the last month, when I paid it in full.
I have one more "Same as Cash" purchase on my card. My son needed a computer for college, I purchased it for him as a loan in 7/2010 on an 18 month term. He paid me back pretty quickly. I used the cash he paid me back with to help pay down high APR debt, and only paid the minimum due each month on the card. I will continue to do that, and pay the full balance due shortly before 2/8/2012.
At this time, the interest accured for that computer is at $130.03... and I will never have to pay it, because I will pay it off on time.
One would think saving $18.97 or $19.91 isn't a big deal, but these were lower cost items at a shorter term. But when you look at a higher cost item (approx $500.) at their 24.24% interest rate, and the 15 month savings of $130.03 so far, it's pretty huge. I wonder how much I will have 'not had to pay' when the full 18 months is up.
Communication bills
Doesn't seem we can do much with the cell phone bill, the slightly lower rates for like half of the plan minutes we currently have just doesn't make sense if we were then to somehow go over our minutes. (Approx $1980 per year for 3 cell phones.)
Cable seems pretty set in stone too. Too many family members refuse to do without it, and just paying for it seems like less stress than dealing with the complaints I'd hear about it going away. Plus, it covers our home phone (which we never use), and our internet... which we run both of our home based businesses on, so cannot lose that. ($2136 per year. landline/internet/cable tv (no premium channels).
(That's ~$4000 per year to keep in touch and veg on the couch, and on the up side, run two businesses.)
Utilities
Electricity and Natural Gas... we'll see. We just put in new windows on the top half of the house, and replaced the patio doors. (We paid cash for the windows and sweat equity for the labor, so could only afford half... but no interest... yay!! A 60% savings compared to what my friend paid to contract out for her upper floor windows.) I'll calculate over the next year the differences in our energy usage over each month.
Garbage and Water/sewer are pre-determined.
Savings so far, just by paying attention...
Dollar Tree
Toothpaste for kiddo and she likes it! - Aim Kids Bubble Berry 4.8 oz
- I bought 3 @ 1.00 ea.
Toothbrushes - Colgate Extra Clean 42 Soft Full Easy Grip & Cleaning Tip
- I bought 2 @ 1.00 ea.
(Not to be confusing, but with Oral-B toothbrushes on Sale at Cub for 2 for $6, paying only $1 per, made me happy... calculated, it's a savings of $4.00!!)
Amazon.com
Story time... Hubby went to Home Depot to purchase the replacement cartridge for our refrigerator water filter. Came home with it... said it was $44, up $10 dollars from last time he purchased it.
I said I bet we could find it cheaper online. I found it at Amazon.com for $32.45 and FREE SHIPPING. Hubby didn't think the difference was worth the trouble, but I told him it all adds up. (I have said that for years, but have never followed through on giving him any proof... with luck, I'll stay with my venture in Saving money this time.)
I looked at the Home Depot receipt, what he paid with tax was $48.16. The difference between what he paid, and what I paid at Amazon.com is $15.71. Totally worth a side trip to return the expensive one to Home Depot the next time I go pay my mortgage two blocks from there. (won't make a seperate trip, don't need to waste gas)
But wait, there's more... I ordered the filter cartridge on Amazon.com, and went to check out. Normally, I don't pay attention to and purposefully avoid anyone that offers me a credit card. (Too many credit checks will hurt your credit score.) But this one said if I applied for an Amazon Credit Card I would get $30. off my order, and have this card which had some rewards or points system. Knowing my credit sucks anyway, I said yes. Huh!... They approved me, so I have a new card with a rewards system that I'll need to figure out how to use wisely. And I got my water filter cartrige replacement for $2.45!!
I saved $45.71 on this one item!!! I will pay the card the full amount due of $2.45, when the bill comes, and will not pay any interest on this purchase.
A happy side note... when Amazon.com sent me my terms of service and use information (which I've never actually read on any other card before), way at the bottom, it told me what my FICO score is. So now I have a solid base number that I can work on improving.
I purchased it, and will return the expensive one to Home Depot.
Yay Me!!
