Erasing Our Debt

I just saved $15 a month on my cable/internet bill. I called Time Warner up after I saw a special ad on TV running for the last few weeks. (Why do the cable or satellite companies run ads for themselves when you already have their product?)
I wanted to test their VRU and decided to press the buttons that would signify that I want to cancel my service. I immediately got through to an agent and told them I wanted that deal. She said would look my account and do anything she could to keep me from canceling. (I had no intention of canceling ... hehe).
So they said I could get that deal and it would save me $15 a month! Go Me!

Labels: saving money

With the addition of baby coming in October, I've been trying to decide what to do with my debt snowball. Should I continue to knock out as much debt as possible over the next 5-6 months or should I save up as much as possible for baby expenses? Let me see if I can't discuss some pros and cons of each and then hopefully get some input from the readers.

Debt Snowball
If I continue to put as much towards this as possible, my minimum payments will be less when baby gets here. This would almost force me to do a reverse snowball. Putting all I could towards my largest debt would help tremendously with reducing my largest minimum payment which is currently about $130.
If I didn't continue to put as much toward my debt, I may get behind on payments later down the road and it would take a lot longer to get rid of my debt.

Save up for Baby
If I save up for all the baby expenses that are due to come, I will not be pressured to use credit for anything later.
If I have too much saved up (is that possible?) I can then use the excess towards the credit cards.

Anyone else got any thoughts?

Labels: baby, debt, saving money

I've been an avid user of Outlook at work for about the past 3-4 years. I recently started using it at home after transferring over all my emails from Outlook Express.

Now I'm going to start using it to lower my credit card rates. Or at least attempt to.

Outlook has reminders you can set up called Tasks that you can set on a recurrence schedule. So I'm going to start calling my credit card companies every two weeks. Maybe one each day of the week. All I have to do is set up the tasks to remind me!

Labels: interest rates, outlook, saving money

Maybe I'm a bit crazy and maybe I'm not.

I've always been intrigued by numbers. Patterns with numbers, formulas, etc. Whatever profession I end up choosing will more than likely have something to do with numbers.

When I get my credit card statements and the total balance is something like $2,874.13. And the minimum payment is something like $50. I don't know why but I have to either make it $50.13 or will go one step further and make it $54.13 so that the balance would be $2,820.00. I just cannot stand having the cents at the end.

Also when tipping while dining out, if the bill is something like $16.37, my tip would end up being $3.63. I almost always have to have a dining out bill with a multiple of 5. Don't know why. It's just the way I am.

Does anyone else out there take it to these extremes?

Labels: credit card, numbers, OCD, saving money

I recently re-opened my online Blockbuster account. I had canceled it about 2 months ago because I thought I would be saving money. But that wasn't the case. I was paying about $16/month for the service-two movies at a time, unlimited rentals, and one free in-store rental a month. Basically it was 10-12 rentals a month for $16. $1.60 a movie compared to $4-5 for an in-store rental is a great way to save money. I didn't see it as that way when I canceled it as it was a hassle to go to the post office to mail them back. But then when I spent more than the $16 monthly fee in one trip to Blockbuster, I decided that I better reactivate my account.

Now Blockbuster has a great idea with their online rentals. Usually when you mail a movie back, depending on where you live, it would take 3-5 days to get a new movie. But now, when you are finished with an online rental, instead of sealing it up and dropping it in the mailbox, you can seal it up and take it to Blockbuster and get a free in-store rental. This is in addition to the free coupon rentals I already get. The movie you just returned also shows to be returned and the next movie in your queue is on its way reducing wait time to about 2 days. While you still have to wait, you already have another movie to watch in the meantime.

This works great if you're trying to save money by not going out all the time and you love movies and/or TV shows now on DVD. I am currently watching Season One of "Lost" as I never got caught up in it. $16/month for all the DVDs you want sure beats going to the movies where it will cost you $16 just for 2 tickets.

A slight side note here: Is Blockbuster the new Starbucks? Within one mile of my apartment, there are 3 Starbucks, two of which are right across the street from one another. Within a 2 mile radius of my apartment there are 3 Blockbusters. Granted they are all in different "neighborhoods", but that is ridiculous. And I thought Blockbuster was trying to cut costs. Some things..... I just don't understand.

Labels: blockbuster, saving money