Me, Myself and Mommy

It’s been a few months since I’ve written anything about money. I wish I could tell that it was because we struck gold and have been busy on a first class tour of the world. Unfortunately, it’s because we’ve been busy working hard and trying to keep up with the big changes that are about to take place in our lives. We’ve not done a very good job at tracking our money recently which without a doubt means we’ve been spending more than we should. We plan on catching up on all of earning and spending tracking really soon, and getting back on track with some of our goals that we have lost site of.

In the mean time, I thought I would share a little credit card story with  you.

In recent months a law was passed to keep credit card companies in line. One of the clauses of this law requires credit card companies to include some new, and eye opening, information on your credit card bill each month.

Have you noticed this new information?

Go ahead, and find a recent bill and take a look at it. I’ll be waiting here with an ammonia stick to bring you back around after you pass out from the shock.

Did you find it?

This new law requires credit card bills to state how long it will take you to pay off your credit card if  you only make the minimum payment and do not purchase anything else. Your credit card bill must also state how much money you will end up paying in interest over the millions of years it’s going to take for you to pay it off.

In case you are too afraid to look at your own credit card bill, I will let you know what mine had to say.

Statement Due Date 04/04/2010 (This was an old bill, so don’t panic)
Current Balance $5, 388.21
Minimum Payment $124.00
Interest Charged for this period $120.77

How insane is that?? Less than $4.00 of my minimum payment goes to paying off the balance, the rest goes to interest. I have an interest rate of roughly 25%. It would take me forever to calculate the weighted whatever of the interest rate of my purchases and cash advances.

It gets better, or worse, depending on your perspective.

If I pay only the minimum payment it will take me 221 years to pay off this poisonous thing. In 221 years this stupid credit card company probably won’t even exist. Credit cards as we know it probably won’t even exist in 221 years. My great grand kinds would have to pay off my credit cards if I only made the minimum payments.

If I only pay the minimum payments over the next 221 years, I will have paid $142,320.00 in interest.

Did your jaw just hit the ground? Mine did.

The credit card company also includes some good news. Here is the good news (if you can call it good news), if I pay $216.00 a month towards the card, it will be paid off in three years. I will pay $7,770.00. That’s a savings of $134, 550.00!

Three years isn’t fast enough for me. My goal (our goal I should say) is to have this thing paid off by the end of the year. We pay at least three times the minimum payment, and most of the time we pay more than that.

Back on January 1, 2010 the balance was $5,910.01. Today the balance is $4,033.15.  That’s a pretty good junk we’ve taken out so far, but if we were on schedule it should be all the way down to $2,955.00. We’re $1,078.15 behind. I could make excuses all day for our stunted debt pay down, but I’m not going to waste your time with that baloney. Fear not, we have a plan. It’s going to involve a few stunts and moving money around, but it’s going to be totally worth it.

Last week I shared with you my weakness of eating out, and how it has cost me way more money than I’d care to add up. Without a doubt it’s in the thousands of dollars. How many thousands, it’s hard to say.

I am proud to say that I no longer medicate my stress, pain and loneliness with eating out. Although, I sure could use a plain double cheeseburger right about now, or creme brulee. We have saved tons of money in recent months by limiting how often we eat out. Our credit card debt is thankful for the extra cash we have been throwing its way. Our health is also grateful for nixing the deliciously bad for you food.

When it comes to food, I am more than happy to pay good money for a great meal. On our monthly date, I have no problems dropping $100.00 or more for an amazing dinner. Fewer things make me happier than fresh and sometimes organic (we are slowly making the switch) veggies, fruits, meats and herbs that I can make into something spectacular. However, there are certain foods that I am not willing to spend more than the bare minimum on.

Here are a few examples…

I buy the cheapest Roman noodles on the shelf. I will do the math to make sure that I am getting the best price on my Roman.

If meat isn’t on sale, we go vegetarian for the week.

I would rather spend my precious time washing, slicing, chopping and dicing fruits and vegetables than spend the few extra nickles on the stuff that is already precut and washed.

Steve and I share a stick of gum.

I will not spend more than $0.90 per can of Pringles, $1.25 for Hamburger Helper or $1.10 on a can of spaghetti sauce (unless it’ the really good stuff for a special occasion).

So tell me, what is the psychology behind all of this. Why am I such a cheap-o when it comes to gum and pasta, but I’ll spend my retirement fund on a single date without thought? If given the opportunity to travel the world for just the sole purpose of the eating foods of our seven continents, I would be tempted to take out a second mortgage on my home (I don’t own my home; we rent, but still). If you think I’m going to pay full price at the grocery store for cheese and chicken, you’ve gone mad.

What foods are you willing to spend your hard earned money on, and what foods do you think are criminal to pay even a dollar for?

This debate and struggle over what foods are worth spending money on, and what foods I am not willing to give up my pennies for is long from over. This is going to be an on going discussion here.

__________

Announcing the winner of the $25.00 gift certificate to Bonefish Grill

Congratulations Steph!!!

Steph shared the restaurant habits she and her husband share, “Wow that was great customer service!! We eat out once a week, but only somewhere we have a gift card or a coupon. I’d love to try Bonefish Grill!”

Thank you all so much for sharing your restaurant spending habits and dining out weaknesses. I loved having so many other perspectives on the subject. I could really relate too the whys behind dining out and your restaurant weaknesses.

Steph, I hope you and your husband have a great time at Bonefish Grill. I recommend starting with the Sesame Seared Tuna; it’s to die for.

Typically, Steve and I only go out to eat once a month for date night. Other than that, all of the food we eat must be purchased in a grocery store and prepared at home. Don’t get me wrong, we love going out to eat; it’s just not in the budget right now. Going out to eat (even fast food) gets really expensive really quickly. You’re literally eating your money – money that could be gong to more than a hundred other things.

For us, the money we used to use on eating out and picking up pizza and fast food on the way home now goes to paying down debt. Paying down debt is a top priority right now. It’s so infuriating that a big portion of our hard earned money goes to paying for our past. Ironically, a lot of the debt I incurred in college was due to going out to eat and inhaling fast food on the way to class. College was a low time for me, and I medicated my loneliness and depression by eating deliouscly bad for your body and bad for  your wallet food.

Because Steve and I have both been traveling for work this month, our restaurant bill is going to be much higher than we usually allow. Thankfully a good portion of it will be refunded to us in one shape or another – expense checks, tax deductions. When that money ultimately comes back to us it is going straight to debt. By that I mean, as soon as that money is placed in our hands, we are going to immedeatly make a payment for that exact amount to CC PURPLE (that is the credit card that we are currently attacking) so we don’t get distracted and think that money should go to cheeseburgers and new shoes.

OK enough out of me, it’s your turn. Time to face the reality of your restaurant expenses.

How often do you eat out?

How much money do you spend each month eating out? (This includes take out, fast food and delivery)

Why do you eat out as often or as little as you do?

What is your eating out weakness? Fast food? Pizza? Fine dining? Wings? Pizza? The family friendly chain restaurant?

GIVEAWAY TIME

Because we all deserve a break and to splurge once in awhile,I want to give one of you the opportunity to have a nice meal out on me. I am giving away a $25.00 gift certificate to Bonefish Grill to one lucky reader. All I ask in return is that you tip your server well.

Back in January, Steve and I went out to eat at Bonefish Grill in Charlotte, NC. We were there on a business trip for Steve and decided to have our date for the month while we were out of town. Steve and I didn’t notice because we were so busy talking and enjoying the time out, but apparently it took 45 minutes for our food to cook. The manager felt that it was unacceptable for us to wait that long, and paid for our dinner. We told him that it wasn’t necessary and that we didn’t even notice the wait, but he refused to let us pay. We even had to talk him into charging us a penny so that we could leave a tip for the excellent server on the credit card because we don’t carry cash. As if paying for our dinner wasn’t enough, on the way out the door, the manager gave us an envelope with a $25.00 gift certificate in it for our next visit.

Since Steve and I already had our dinner paid for, we felt that we should pass our good fortune onto someone else.

Rules of giveaway.

1. To enter, answer one of the questions above in the comments section below.

2. Mom, Grandma, Auntie Jill, Husband, Brothers, Jai, Moanna… all family… you are welcome to share your stories, but will not be selected to win.

3. If your comment doesn’t show up right away, don’t panic, it will show up shortly.

4. On March 29, 2010 (Monday) at 10:00AM, I will close the comments and randomly select a winner.

5. The winner of the $25.00 gift certificate to Bonefish Grill will be announced on March 30, 2010 with another Me, Myself and Money post.

There is no getting around it. We spent more money in February than we made. OUCH. However, once you dig into a little bit, it’s not as bad as it first looks. It still stings, just not as bad.

In the month of February we made $5,400.83. However, we spent $6,349.72. To get right to the point, this means we are in the hole by $984.89 for the month of February.

Let’s take a look at the damage, shall we?

A few things to point out about the expenses…

CC stands for credit card. RSL-1 stands for Renee Student Loan 1. RSL-2 stands for Renee Student Loan 2 which is paid quarterly.

Living expenses include rent, utilities, cell phone and renters insurance.

First thing’s first, the biggest expense was to the Church. It was our tithing from December and January (plus a donation to Haiti) which is money we were holding in our tithing account. If you subtract that from the February spending total, it puts us back in the green. Not great news, but I think my hernia is gone.

The next thing you will notice is that our living expenses are less than $200.00. That’s because we paid most of our living expenses for February in January. Don’t worry, next month’s expenses will jump right back up.

The medical expenses are mostly for my medical drama in 2009. Don’t get me started again about medical costs . About $100.00 is for new medical and dietary adventures that we’ll get into later.

The fact that the gas and grocery bill for February is so high irks me, mostly because those are two of the expenses that we have the most day-to-day control of. In January we depleted our pantry of a lot of food, so that had to be restocked, and Steve had to buy groceries when he was in Miami for a week. We also had to start buying more expensive foods because of that dietary adventure I told you we’d get into later.

On the subject of gas and groceries, we use CC YELLOW to pay for our gas and groceries, and then we pay off that card each month, well most months. Starting in March the balance will be completely paid off, and we will continue to pay it off each month. Because of this, it looks like we are spending more money than we actually are. We track the gas and grocery purchases, and the CC YELLOW payments. I just realized this problem half way through February, and still haven’t come up with a solution. Well, I came up with the solution of simply not using CC YELLOW, but Steve shot that down. I really don’t have time to get into that now, but don’t you worry; it’s on my list of things to write about. The whole point of this was to say that the $600.00 we paid to CC YELLOW should be subtracted from the total expenses because it looks like we are paying for things twice. Does this make sense? I am so confused. All of this would be solved by not using CC YELLOW, but it would create new challenges.

This month we made about $300.00 outside of our normal income. We took that money and applied it directly to CC PURPLE. We paid  the $300.00 plus the minimum payment of about $150.00. Take that CC PURPLE! That was one of our financial victories of the month. Now if we can keep snowballing that credit card, it will be paid off in no time.

What else is there to point out? Oh yeah, we hired someone to clean our house biweekly. At first it was hard for me to give into the idea of a “cleaning lady,” but after throwing myself on the couch on a regular basis because I couldn’t I keep up with Moanna, Steve, a demanding job, housework etc., I surrendered. It’s still hard for me to pay someone to do things that I can do for myself, but I feel no shame. My fits on the couch are for completely different reasons now.

The practice of tracking every penny and dollar we make and spend is still new. This adventure has been a real wake up call, and by tracking our spending throughout the month and studying our finances on a regular basis have more control over our money. We can see where it is going, and what we need to do to refocus and stay on track to accomplish our financial goals. February at first glance made me panic. Once I studied the spending, I realized that the overage was reasonable and anticipated.

Every where you look there is something in the news about the health care system. I don’t want to get all political here because golly forbid some whisper a word about “change” and the entire country is in an uproar. If you want to go there, the comment section is all yours to go left, right, red, blue, donkey, elephant.

All I’m going to say is that health care is way too expensive, and it thoroughly plucks my nerves that you are required by law to have car insurance (or pay a huge wavier fee), but for many people it’s impossible or criminally expensive to get health coverage . If someone can begin to make sense out of this, I would love to hear from you because I just don’t get it! It also makes my skin crawl that if you make little or no money, your pregnancy is covered by the government, however, if you are working to support your family but do not qualify for insurance or you’ve not had insurance long enough to cover a pregnancy you’re up a creek without a paddle or canoe. You are screwed.

Slowly step down and walk away from your soapbox Renee. This is not supposed to be about politics. This is supposed to be about medical bills and finances.

Last fall, I went through some serious medical stuff complete with emergency surgery. We’re talking expensive stuff. Thankfully, we are blessed with insurance that pays for 80%. That aside, we still owe a crap ton (remember, we learned that tern the other week) of money. I’d say the whole shindig (labs, doctor visits, ambulance transport, surgery, hospital stay) is going to set us back upwards of 2k. For some of you that may seem like nothing for good medical care, but when you are on a tight budget 2k stings.

Here is the other kicker. The medical field is quick to send your tail to collections. They have no patience.

Get this, the first bill I received from the hospital was a letter saying that my account was 90 days past due, and that I had 21 days to pay off the balance in full before they sent the bill to collections. HA-HA-HA! First, the letter was dated February 1, and I didn’t receive the thing until February 16. Second, I don’t know what I’m paying for because I’ve not seen the itemized bill. Third, how can this be 90 days past due when this is the first bill you’ve bothered to send me. Forth, I don’t have the $1,500 plus you want in full. I can’t give you money I don’t have.

After I stewed, no fumed, for a day or two, I called the hospital in a calm tone, firm, but calm. The poor woman on the phone had no idea what she was in for when she answered my call. I was nice to her, but I did force her to spend a good half an hour on the phone with me. I told her that I was not at all happy that the first bill I received was a final notice. There was also no way on Earth that I could pay for this thing in full, and I was absolutely not paying a dime until I had an itemized bill in front of me to confirm that the charges were accurate.

The lady was understanding. She read me the entire bill line-by-line and is mailing me a hard copy. We talked about payment options, and she removed the 21 day ultimatum giving me a month to make the first payment after I receive the hard copy.

Now that I have bought myself some time, I am planning my next move (it feels like I’m playing chess with these people). When the itemized bill comes, I’m going to review it line-by-line. Anything is appears to be inaccurate will be fought. Once I am confident the charges are accurate, it’s time to negotiate.

Did you know you could do that? Your insurance company negotiates with the hospital before they pay up. You can do the same. A hospital would much rather cut you a deal and get a large chunk of money up front than to wait each month on the tiny payments you’re going to make over the next two years. It costs the hospital a lot of time and money to deal with your pesky payments.

Now this is just one example of the many medical bills I’ve been playing hardball with over the past few months. A few went to collections before I had time to blink. I’m telling you they are sneaky little buggers. We’re seeing to it that nothing touches my credit. It takes a lot of time and organization to keep it all straight, but it’s necessary.

There is one bill in particular that I really don’t want to pay. I have never been treated with such disrespect by doctors and nurses before in my life. They do not deserve a single cent for the lack of care I was given. I’m not going to get into that whole saga here, but I’m going to have myself a chit-chat with this particular facility before I hand over a check.

I’m not telling you to not pay your medical bills. I don’t need your hate mail telling me that I hate hospitals or that I am trying to cheat the medical folks out of money they deserve. That is not what I’m doing. During a very scary time in my life, I received excellent care by excellent doctors in excellent facilities (with one exception), and I am happy to pay them what they deserve. What I am telling you is that it is important to be vigilant when it comes to medical expenses. It is important to review your bills carefully. Hospitals make mistakes all the time, and if you do not catch and correct them, you will pay for them. You have the right to negotiate your medical bills, after all, that is what your insurance company did. You also have the right to be given proper medical attention in a respectful and manner. Don’t let people walk on you, especially when you’re feeling crappy to begin with.

Alright Politician, the floor is yours. Speak your peace.