Archive results for “March 2007f 2007”
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I am going to be quite busy the next few days, so I am not sure how much time I will be able to devote to writing on here. Thankfully, I received an interesting email from a reader sharing her story about her credit card raising her rates. She was nice and is letting me share it with all of you.
“We have always paid our debts on time. Due to my husband’s (last) illness, they got higher than we wanted BUT when viewing assets (mutual funds, house owned etc.) against the amount of debt we were still over $100,000 in plus territory. Supposedly upon a review of our credit report (I was told they do it once a month which is b.s.) we were over-extended so Chase raised our interest rate to 29.9% on $15,000 balance. I was floored. Got a very snotty customer service rep on the phone, was refused lower interest rate. Paid 1/2 off this account. Next month, called again. Again got another snotty rep and was refused. Paid I/2 of the 1/2. Called again. Refused. Paid it all off except $200, called and was refused. Over the past year we’ve dropped our total debt by 35%. Seems none of this counted the other day when I called again to ask for a lower interest rate, I was refused.
I am (get this!) a debt collector. I have collected on First USA/Chase credit cards. I have been told by more than several debtors that the reason why they quit paying was that the interest rate was raised to the point where they couldn’t pay. One thing I noticed (because we’re trained to look for this) was that these people owned their own houses. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I think it’s a “planned predatory” act.”
Have any of you had experiences like this with a credit card? Did your rates magically raise for no apparent reason?
Usually the saying goes, “Like father, like son.” But my little guy is turning out to be just like his momma when it comes to being frugal.
Last summer, I was tickled pink when there was a couch on the side of the road with a free sign. We needed a couch so my son and I picked up the couch and brought it home.
While we were out driving this weekend, I saw a couch on the side of the road.
“Oooh, a couch,” I proclaimed.
“Does it have a free sign on it?” my son asked. Then he said in a matter of fact way, “If it’s free that means it doesn’t cost any money.”
My husband and I couldn’t help but bust out laughing.
There’s no doubt he’s my son 
(NOTE: Well, it’s time to get back into the groove of things. I started compiling this list on Thursday and planned to finish it up on Friday and post it Friday but that didn’t happen. So, I finished it up today. I hope you find it useful.)
Some of the Best Free Things on the Net
I’m not talking about signing up for freebies. I’m talking about sites that you can use every day that can make your life a little better and they are the best price of all…FREE! Here are some sites I either use or plan to use.
Pandora.com – Pandora.com is your own personal jukebox on the web. You tell the site a name of an artist that you like to create a channel. The system will play music that is related to that artist to try to generate songs that you will enjoy. I have multiple channels varying from country to hard rock. If you’d like, you can even take those channels and make mixes out of them to shuffle up the music. I love having tunes going while I am working.
Blingo.com – Blingo.com is a search engine powered by Google that offers random prizes. You can win movie tickets up to a brand new Ford Escape (or $20,000 cash). All you need to do is use Blingo.com to search for things like you normally would. If you happen to search at the right time, you can win! If you decide to sign up and would like to be my friend, use this link (otherwise use the first link I gave). What that means is that if you win, I will win as well. Once you join, you can invite your friends and then if they win you can win. It doesn’t cost a dime to join, and you can win awesome prizes for what you often do anyway (search the internet).
Google Calendar – Google Calandar is a free service from Google that lets you set up a calendar that can you can open from any computer with a web connection and a supported browser. I recently learned about this site and it is perfect for me because I often am on different computers. I can easily pull up my calendar wherever I am and I can set up email reminders. Sometimes remembering when balance transfers expire is difficult and this will help me keep track of things 
Freecycle.org – Freecycle.org “It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns.” My area doesn’t have too many members as of yet but it’s slowly growing. I’ve given away some older exercise equipment and have received some craft items. And it’s all free!
MIT Courses – Massachusetts Institute of Technology has many online courses that you can take for free! You can’t earn a degree with the courses, but if you are looking to further your knowledge then this might be the right thing for you! Once I have some more free time, I’m interested in taking some of their writing courses.
If you’d like more free things, you may be interested in a great article that a reader sent me: 23 Surprising Things You Can Get for Free.
Enjoy!
A lot of you are probably wondering where I was yesterday since I usually post daily. I spent most of the day at the doctors taking a battery of tests and I have some very sad news to report…I miscarried.
Throughout all of the tests, I remained hopeful. The last test they did, the ultrasound, left me staring at the ceiling hoping beyond hope that perhaps the technician would declare, “Would you like to see the heartbeat?” and turn the monitor towards me. Just like how it was when we first had a glimpse of our son in my womb. It wasn’t meant to be.
The whole day yesterday felt so surreal. Walking from test to test I felt like I wasn’t even walking. I felt numb. When it was time to say goodbye to the doctor after he gave me the results of all the tests, he said that he was glad to have met me but he wished it was under better circumstances. I thanked him for fitting me in his schedule and giving me so much of his time and I started balling. I had been fighting it earlier because I wasn’t prepared to give up hope. The goodbye was it. There was no more hope to be had.
I wiped my tears and went out to my son and husband in the waiting room. I had one more thing to go through, and that was to get a shot of RHOGAM since I am RH negative. All I wanted to do is go home, but the disorganization of our health system made a single shot take over 45 minutes to complete.
When I told my mom yesterday, she reminded me that everything happens for a reason. I know I often say that myself, but sometimes you forget when you are in the midst of something very sad happening in your life. It was nice to be reminded of that for I do find it comforting.
I retired early last night and I spent a good time thinking about what happened and why our beautiful gift was so suddenly taken away. I know in my heart there is a reason and given time I’m sure I will begin to feel better and heal after this loss.
J.D. over at Get Rich Slowly asked if I would write an article about my experience with obtaining a loan through Prosper.com. I decided to do it and J.D. posted it earlier this week.
If you are interested, you can take a peek here.
You also may want to spend some time reading some of his articles. There’s some good stuff over there.
Although we do have health insurance, there’s good news and not-so-good news about it when it comes to my pregnancy.
Good News: Overall, there is no deductible and we have to pay 30% for almost all services, up to the $2,500 out of pocket maximum. That’s not too bad, and quite frankly, that’s the best individual plan I could get with some sort of maternity benefit. It’s also with a trusted insurer that I have worked with before (Blue Cross Blue Shield). It will cover 70% of the delivery costs.
Not-so-good News: The plan does not cover prenatal or postnatal care. To me, this seems very odd because prenatal care is so important during pregnancy. With my son, near the end there were many tests and ultrasounds. I developed pregnancy induced hypertension and they wanted to monitor us closely. Add to that the fact that my son was almost two weeks late and I’m sure the costs were significant. I wish I kept all of the paperwork from our care, but I didn’t.
It would be nice if I can get an idea of what to expect for costs. This is my biggest problem with medical care. If you want to know the cost of something, you cannot get a straight answer. Even if you call to find out the cost of an office visit, they give you a run around answer about how many different things factor into a visit and they cannot possibly tell you the cost beforehand. Everything else I spend money on I can shop around wisely. Healthcare is a different story and it drives me crazy.
When I had my son, everything was covered 100% through my husband’s employer’s health insurance plan. I didn’t pay anything out of pocket. This time, I will need to be vigilant and apply some of the things I have learned:
- I will ask for detailed bills and go through them with a magnifying glass if needed to make sure the charges are correct.
- I will ask if there are ways to receive a discount (like pay in cash, perhaps).
- When it comes time to get prescriptions filled, I will shop around for the best price since prescription costs can vary wildly from pharmacy to pharmacy.
The last thing I want to do is to start putting medical costs on our credit cards. I will if I absolutely have to, but I won’t do it without a fight.
I can see it now…I’m 9 months pregnant and it looks like I am about to burst and I’m sitting there with the billing department arguing over a $10.00 overcharge. I’m laughing because I can see myself doing it! LOL.
I was contacted by a writer that is looking for some ideas from some frugal moms and dads. The following is a little announcement she sent me:
“A writer for a national magazine is looking for money-saving ideas from frugal moms (and dads). The article will feature ideas beyond “I clip coupons” or “I shop at consignment shops.” If you have any clever or unusual ways to save money that you’d like to share, send them along with your email. (Real names will be used, so you have to be willing to be quoted.) Any ideas are welcome–from creative, crafty or do-it-yourself ideas to environmentally “green” or tech-y ways to save money.”
If you are interested, please send your email to me at bloggingawaydebt [at] yahoo [dot] com and use the subject title of “FRUGAL IDEAS” and I will forward your email to the writer.
Also, another writer is still looking for people willing to share their story about bad experiences with credit cards.
Thanks!
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About This Site
My Debt
- Original Debt: $97,293.06
- Paid: $1,927.89
- Remaining: $95,365.17
- Emergency Fund: $1100
- Broken Down
- Line of Credit 2: $0.00
- Line of Credit 1: $0.00
- Credit Card 1: $0.00
- Credit Card 2: $245.00
- Credit Card 3: $405.00
- Credit Card 6: $1,785.00
- Credit Card 7: $2,381.17
- Consolidation Loan: $11,000.00
- Credit Card 10: $14,519.00
- Auto Loan 1: $16,093.00
- Credit Card 11: $23,873.00
- Auto Loan 2: $25,064.00
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- Free Money Finance
- From the Brink of Bankruptcy
- Generation X Finance
- GRACEful Retirement
- Grad Money Matters
- It’s Your Money
- Josephsangl.com
- Kick Debt’s Butt
- Lazy Man and Money
- Low Income Life
- Make Love Not Debt
- Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge
- Mighty Bargain Hunter
- Money, Matter and More Musings
- My 1st Million at 33
- No Credit Needed
- One Million and Beyond
- Personal Finance Advice
- pfblogs.org
