PROGRESSIVE!

Our auto insurance at USAA was running us at about $1250/6 months.

I did an online quote at Progressive and they quoted me $680 (this is the pay the whole premium up front price).

When I was filling out the application, I really didn’t know the dates of the offenses in our driving record. I didn’t think it really mattered, since I knew that they checked everything anyway, so I guesstimated these offenses:

ME:
sept 2006 - careless/improper driving

oct 2006 - at fault accident

MR.99K:

jan 2006 - license or credentials violation
– I couldn’t remember when exactly he got pulled over for not having his new registration sticker over, so I really stabbed in the dark on this one.

I submitted the application and the rate changed to $830. Still quite a bit of savings from USAA, so I went ahead, paid the premium, and waited.

I was still afraid that the premium would change, but a few days later, they sent me a bunch of online documents (declarations, policy, notices, etc.) I looked all over but could not see any sign of a change in the premium, which made me happy. I started opening up all the documents and looking through them when I found our driving history, a combination of what I had entered, and what they had gotten off of the various insurance reporting reports.

Progressive uses driving and claims history to determine your premium. Driving and claims history may include events such as motor vehicle violations, at-fault accidents, not-at-fault accidents and comprehensive claims. We obtain driving and claims history from one or more of the following sources:

• Your application (APP)
• Progressive claims history
• Motor Vehicle Reports - provided by state agencies (MVR)
• Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange - provided by ChoicePoint, Inc (CLUE)

Here is the driving history they listed:

Now, are you seeing what I am seeing? Some of these, the only “source” for them, is my own application! So basically, they’re taking me at my word.

I put this aside for the moment, and gave USAA a call to see if they could match our new rate.

They couldn’t. So, I asked them what they have on file for our driving record as. They had nothing at all for Mr. 99k, and only items #1 and #3 for me.

I decided to call Progressive. I explained to the nice man that when I was filling out the application, I was pretty much guessing at the dates, and therefore, I was pretty sure that #1 and #2 on my history were actually the same event. I also explained that while I knew Mr. 99k had a ticket for not having the registration in the car, it might have been further in the past than 2006 and that USAA had no record of it.

He very nicely removed both those items and informed me that our premium would be lowered to $633!!! We will be getting a $200 refund on our card for the difference.

Out of curiosity, I asked him what would have happened if I HADN’T called. Would these (mythical! fictitious!) violations have become part of my insurance records, to hound me until they fall off? He confirmed that yes, they would have.

Zounds! People, don’t be like I was, assuming that they’ll correct whatever violations you enter after they check your report. Not only are you missing out on money, you may be ADDING to your driving history in the process.

The next time I shop around for insurance, I am not going to enter anything into the driving history. I’ll just let them pull it up on their own and adjust the rate accordingly. That way, I know I’m not inadvertantly adding violations to my insurance record!

For the record, I think the drastic lowering of our rate is because of the car my husband drives. It’s… how shall we say… sporty. Speedy sporty. Complete with massive spoiler. the USAA guy and I guessed that perhaps progressive isn’t clued into the fact that this speedster isn’t just your run of the mill 4-door sedan. With progressive, my nearly 10-year old SUV had a higher premium than his 2006 turbo charged bullet! USAA probably has better actuary numbers than progressive, giving the true cost of insuring this car, so until progressive’s numbers catch up, we are in LUCK! It’s ironic though, because even if the numbers on this car show that it has more claims over time… my husband has never been in an accident and has maybe.. MAYBE gotten ONE speeding ticket in his life. (That I should be so lucky.)

-99k

We’ve got trouble! Right here in River City! Trouble with a capital “T”, and that rhymes with.. OK, I’ll stop already. NOT because I’d have to roll out 76 trombones, but because… I don’t remember any more of the words.

Trouble you say? What sort of trouble?

TROUBLE #1

Well, it’s a budget buster that is going to screw up everything. Not just everything THIS month, or even NEXT month, but for the rest of the year, perhaps even my entire plan to pay all this debt off by december of 2010.

This year, we took all our 1099s and K-1s and Int-Divs and W-2s and THX1138s and 402SUCKITs* and all the other tax forms we could find, shoved them in a file and marched them to a real live official CPA, who then did our taxes for us and broke the news that we owed. $3600 worth.

So here it is, the end of June, and I thought, “Hmm. Perhaps we should check our withholding to make sure we don’t have to go through that again, eh?”

So I gathered up our most recent paystubs, estimated what we’d pay in mortgage interest, property taxes, daycare costs, and heaven knows what else and sent them over to the previously mentioned CPA.

He called back later to give me the bad news. We need to withhold an extra $350 dollars each.

$350 x 4 paychecks a month = $1,400 LESS to work with in our budget each month.

We still need to firm up these numbers. I forgot some mortgage interest, dug up the points we paid on the re-fi and resent to the CPA. But even if it comes down, we definitely looking at at LEAST $1,000 less a month. Which is, ironically, the exact same amount we pledged to throw at our debt each month.

*Some tax forms described may in fact, be made up. They may also, be a nerdy George Lucas reference in there somewhere. I am sorry, I’m married to a geek.

TROUBLE #2

Mr. 99k noticed we had some water accumulating underneath our furnace/blower unit in the basement. Maybe it noticed that we had gotten a new heatpump and felt neglected. Or maybe it was all the gook stuck in the pipe trap that clogged it and caused it to spew water everywhere. Yes, you’re right, probably more of the latter than the former. $180 later, we have a new trap with a handy dandy brushee thingee to clean out the gook periodically. Yay. Did I mention we’re already over budget this month?

SEMI-TROUBLE #3

Our auto insurance is in the $1250/6 months range for a 1999 SUV, and a 2006 4-door sporty zippy go-really-fast car. I am continually annoyed at this number, especially since it went up for some mysterious reason last fall and all they could tell me was they redid the rates in our area. Since we’re now about 2 years away from our latest moving violations transgressions, I did a check on Progressive. The rate came out to about $830/6 months. Yay! I’m not quite counting our chickens before they’ve hatched yet, because I know they sometimes let you buy your policy and then check out everything about you (your credit score, your driving history, the super secret insurance files, the color of underwear you’re wearing, etc.) and change the rate on you. If it does give us a better deal, I’ll be so ecstatic. The status when I log in to my Progressive account is “policy is being processed,” So I’m in wait and see mode.

Assuming our premium doesn’t change, we’ll be saving money in the long run, HOWEVER, they like you to pay your entire premium up front. Which is $830 we don’t have. So if all this goes through fine, we’ll be taking some money out of emergency savings/debt savings to pay the upfront 6 month premium. Going forward, we’ll make a savings category in our budget for the next 6 month premium, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that we’ll be budget busted over this right now. I still think it’s a worthwhile move to make, however.

TROUBLE #4

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the new 3rd generation i-phone comes out in just 14 SHORT DAYS.

Temptation! Thy name is I-PHONE!!

I’m not an apple-phile, but my husband kind of is. He’s wanted one of these things since they first came out. Unfortunately for him, we were still in a 2 year contract with Verizon (Apple has an exclusive contract with Cingular for the i-phone for I think another year). Back then, I was unimpressed. My husband also just HAD TO HAVE the new Treo 600w. Once he had it? It decided not to ring most of time. Who was the one who called him the most? Me. Six months later, I hate the thing because he never answered it, and he hated the thing because his wife kept hollering at him for not answering his phone. So, I’m sorry if I’m not terribly excited at the prospect for throwing another $600 at a new gadget that in my mind, we won’t even want in 6 months.

But that was THEN. This is NOW. And the IPHONE! Well, it’s so pretty and shiny! I wanted one too!

So when Apple had their big developer meeting a few weeks ago, I said to Mr. 99k, “If the new i-phone is $200 or under, I think we should get a couple!”

People! When these things FIRST came out the cheapest one was $600! Sure, they lowered it a few months later to $400, but I thought I was on pretty safe ground with a statement like that! I never DREAMED they’d actually come in at around $200 bucks! Right at the end of Steve Jobs’ keynote speech, he dropped the $199 bomb. I was ecstatic, and totally bummed at the same time. I backpedaled with Mr. 99k, but honestly, I totally want an i-phone. Would THAT be the fiscally responsible thing to do? Hell to the no. Do I still want one? Hell to the YES!

Well, I WAS on the fence, leaning toward NOT getting some (because even if we cough up the $400 for 2 iphones, the monthly phone bill would be an extra $60/month which is just too much. TOO MUCH!)

And then… we have TROUBLE #5

My cell phone died. Now I need a new phone, our contract with Verizon is up, and oh, gee, look! The new (cheap(er)) iphone is out in 2 weeks!

I know it really isn’t smart, but I really want an iphone. If we can cut some other things out of our budget to make room for the additional $60/month the phone bill is going to run us..

Except that with the extra withholdings are going to kill our budget ANYWAY…

Yeah. This sucks.

Trouble. Right here in River City.

- 99k

So this is month 2 of having our amex blue cash, and I thought it would be interesting to track our cash back each month.

At our statement closing last month (May), we spent a total of $2,993. They don’t really tell you which transactions go toward the bonus categories (gas, groceries, drugstores) and which don’t, but they do have a “cash tracker” that shows your percentages in each category, bonus (1%) or regular (.5%). In May we had spent 23% in the 1% cash back bonus categories, and 77% on the .5% categories. This amounted in total cash back accrued in May at $18.38

June went roughly the same way, with our statement balance (statement closed yesterday) at $2,993 and year to date cash back earned at $38.48. It also shows that our percentage of spending went to 30% in the bonus categories and 70% for everything else. (I wish it would show you with each transaction!)

So we seem to be earning about $20 a month, and that is at the lower percentage cash back. We will start earning 5% on the bonus categories and 1% on everything else once we cross over $6500 in spending. I don’t know if it will switch over right when we hit the $6500 mark (which will be in about $600 more bucks, so not long) or if it will wait until after the statement closes.

Another thing I wonder is those bonus categories. The gas I’m not worried about, and neither for the drugstore, but the grocery store is a little baffling. First of all, we used to do all our grocery shopping at the Super Target near our home. There is a Safeway that is really close, but they tend to be a bit expensive. So big grocer trips = Target, stuff you need for dinner that night/picking up milk on the way home = Safeway. Well, in the transaction, Safeway has a little “GROCERY” in there in one of the fields. However, Target came up as “DISCOUNT STORE” which made me think.. Hmmm, probably not getting the bonus category there.

So this month, I tried to keep our grocery shopping at actual grocery stores. I hit Shopper’s Food Warehouse (which is good because their prices are even better than Target’s, but they’re kind of a ways away) and also Harris Teeter (not sure on these prices yet). Neither Shopper’s nor Harris Teeter had anything in their transactions to designate them as ‘grocery’.

Now my understanding is that text in the transaction is actually put there by the STORE, not by amex, so it could be that that has nothing to do with what category they fit in, but it makes me nervous all the same.

I probably shouldn’t worry because in May 23% of our spending was in bonus, and in June that went up to 30%. Could that only be because gas got so much more expensive? Or is it because the money that was going to Super Target went to stores now designated as ‘grocery’? Or maybe both?? I may give amex a call to make sure Harris Teeter and Shoppers are ‘grocery’, and see if the 5% kicks in when we tick over $6500, or at the next statement.

Also can’t wait to see what our new high yield checking account gives us back in interest - I’ll post that when I have it available.

-99k

Can you tell it’s June?

January started this blog off hot with timely posts and weekly updates on how things are going, how the budget is working, “it’s hard but we’ll get there”, la la la, tra la laaaaaa!

Well, it’s mid-year now and you can tell by the cobwebs scattered all over this place, don’t you think? It’s time to get more focused and I’m not just talking about blogging!

The budget this month isn’t going all that well. And I have to point at myself and say it’s all my fault. I have been buying things that aren’t in the budget. There! I said it! It is ALL MY FAULT.

Now, time for the excuses!! (New! Improved, Excuses!)

It’s hard sticking to a budget! Whine, whimper moan! We wanted/needed (ok, more on the wanted side) some new pool toys once summer hit hard, both kids needed new shoes for the summer. Did I need to buy 2 pairs of sandals for my daughter? No, no, probably not. However, I’m not going to feel guilty - You wouldn’t either if you’ve had to hunt all over the house for that ONE pair of sandals, wishing that there was another pair to use as a backup!

Of course, now I just hunt all over the house for both pairs instead of one. Ahem.

Another over budget item — my own personal fun money. I was futzing around with the new Quicken 2008 (another purchase that was not budgeted for) and neglected to keep close tabs on my own ‘fun money’ category and damn it all if i’m not over by like $40. It was that night out with girlfriends. Drinks, movie, popcorn, more drinks after — it really added up, and I didn’t even notice.

Other overspent categories:

Gifts: Should have allotted more for Father’s day and various birthday parties the kids get invited to.

Dining out: We’ve done more fast food than we should, add that to more spent at dinner for Father day.. doh.

Kid’s activities: This one just creeps up on you. I tend to lump all kid stuff in here, so the DVD of the kids at their closing program was in here, as well as the swimming lessons, as well as the sunscreen fee at the kid’s school… some things we can budget for (swimming lessons) but other things just crop up unexpectedly.

GAS: Uhh… HELLO! Gas prices are insane. I budgeted a LOT for gas this month, and technically we haven’t overspent this category yet, but I’m not sure we’re going to make it. I think in January, I budgeted $400 for gas. In May, we spent closer to $600. In June, we’re shooting towards $700, easy. YEOUCH. I want a hybrid.

Even with the overspending, we’re having a fantastic month debt-wise.

We’ve had a lot of reimbursements from our FSAs (and I earmark all FSA money to go toward debt).

I got paid for a freelance gig I had in april-may.

We received our tax stimulus check.

However, with the overspending, I’ve been kind of wary of just paying the minimums and letting the extra sit in our HY checking, earning interest, waiting for the day our 0% interest rates run out to pay everything. It’s too EASY to just fiddle our budget around, take some AWAY from the debt category and put some INTO the overspent categories to make it all nice and neat, to the detriment of our debt paydown!!

I had this uneasiness right from the beginning of June, probably because July was so crazy with the spending (even thought it was budgeted for). So, because of the butterflies in my stomach, and my DETERMINATION that we don’t steal from peter to pay paul … When money came in, I deposited it, and then promptly made a credit card payment for the same amount. If the money is GONE, you can’t borrow from it, right?

I think I am feeling a little less uneasy now. The thought of the stimulus check sitting in our checking earning interest doesn’t give me butterflies anymore, so I will probably let it sit there instead of rushing it off to the debt paydown plan. However, I reserve the right to rush it off to the nearest credit card debt if the butterflies start to form again.

So, even though I didn’t let some of the debt money sit around earning interest, we have a good bit of our income sitting there, as we now use our amex blue cash card for everything. Last month we earned about $15 in interest, and we didn’t fund the account until mid month, so we should at least break $20 at the end of June.

Well, that’s a long update - long in words, and long overdue. Time to get the motivation back and keep at it! Blogging, budgeting, EVERYTHING!

As always… please comment! It makes me feel like I’m not talking to an empty room. *Tap tap tap* Hello? Anyone out there?

-99k

I am happy to report some progress in May! Not spectacular progress, but normal progress! Seeing how we had our setbacks in April, I’m happy with just normal progress!

JUST THE CREDIT CARDS PLEASE!

At the begining of May, we had $26,635 in credit card debt.

In May:

we paid $1,035 paid on our credit cards
we paid $0 in interest (HOO-YA!)
for $25,600 credit card debt remaining.

THE ENTIRE PICTURE

We lowered our debt by $2,378 for a total of $89.7K.

We are OUT of the $90,000’s range people! WAHOO!

Next month is going to be a good one, as we have our tax stimulus check and I am getting paid for a side job, all of which is earmarked to go toward debt.