- @fcn Yahoo Pipes into GReader. 50 news sites filtered to max 50 items/day–all on topic. in reply to fcn #
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- It's a sad day when you find out that your 3 year old can access anything in the house. Sadder when she maces herself with hairspray. #
- 5 sets of 15 pushups to start my day. Only 85 to go! Last 5 weren't as good as first 5. #30DayProject #
- What happens to your leftover money in your flex-spending account? http://su.pr/9xDs6q #
- Enter to Win iPod Touch from @DoughRoller http://tinyurl.com/y8rpyns #DRiPodTouch #
- Arrrgh! 3 year old covered in nail polish. And clothes. And carpet. And sister. #
- Crap. 5 sets of 5 pushups. #30dayproject #
- Woo! My son just got his first pin in a wrestling meet! #
- RT @Doughroller: Check out this site that gives your free credit report AND score without asking for a cc# or social… http://bit.ly/bRhlMz #
- Breaking news! Penicillin cures syphilis, not debt. https://liverealnow.net/KIzE #
- Win a $25 Amazon GC via @suburbandollar RT + Fllw to enter #sd1Yrgvwy Rules -> http://bit.ly/sd1Yrgvwy2 #
- This won't be coming to our house. RT @FMFblog: Wow! Check out the new Monopoly: http://tinyurl.com/ygf2say #
- @ChristianPF is giving away a Flip UltraHD Camcorder – RT to enter to win… http://su.pr/2ZvBZL #
AAA – Save Some Cash
- Image via Wikipedia
Have you ever driven off the road at 100 miles per hour into a grove of trees at midnight, only to have 2 cops and your father spend 2 hours looking for your car with high-powered spotlights? Let me tell you–from experience–that a free two will, in fact, make that night a little bit better.
Enter AAA.
At its most basic level, AAA is just a roadside assistance service. If your car breaks down, you lock your keys in, or run out of gas, you call AAA from the side of the road and they send a hero at any time of day or night. I’ve used the service to get a car pulled out of an impound lot and out of a ditch. They’ve helped move broken-down cars from my driveway to the mechanic.
We pay $85 per year for the basic service, which includes 5 miles of towing, up to 4 timers a year; lockout service; gas delivery; “stuck in a ditch” service; free maps, trip planning and trip interruption protection. Higher membership levels boost those services and include things like free passport photos, complimentary car rental when you use the tow service, concierge service and more.
I’ve been a member since I got my driver’s license at 16, and over the years, just the roadside assistance has paid for my lifetime of membership several times over.
But–as the man said–wait, there’s more!
They certify mechanics. Not for skill, but reputation. It’s harder to get screwed by a AAA mechanic.
Then there are the discounts.
Most chain hotels, some oil-change shops, and a lot of car-rental services have AAA discounts. Combined with the trip planning, the discounts can easily pay for themselves, if you travel even once a year.
There are also discounts at a ton of restaurants and attractions, sometimes adding up to savings of $50 or more. I don’t think I’ve ever had a year where AAA didn’t pay for itself, and I don’t even use the services efficiently.
For example:
- 10% off Target.com
- Discounts on Magellen GPS units
- Theater(stage and screen) discounts
- Discounts on minor league baseball and college football tickets
- Prescription savings plan
- $3 of at our local for-profit aquarium
- 10-30% discounts from Dell
- 5% off at UPS
- 20% off at Sirius Satellite Radio
- 10% off PODS(hoarders take notice!)
- 10% at Amtrak
- Up to $200 off at DirecTV
- A crapload more
I know I sound like a salespitch, but they didn’t pay for this post. I’m just a happy customer.
Do you use a roadside assistance or a discount-from-a-million-places membership?
Is It Time For a New Car?
So far this summer, we’ve sold a 1984 Cadillac, a 1994 Mercury Sable, and a 1976 Lincoln Continental.
That’s most of the vehicles we inherited in April.
Now, we’ve got a 2005 Chrysler Pacifica, a 2001 Ford F150, a 2009 Dodge Caliber, and a 1986 Honda Shadow.
According to Kelly Blue Book, the Caliber has a resale value of $10,065 and a trade-in value of $8470.
The F150 is worth $6,418/4,923.
The Pacifica is worth $7,738/$6,093.
The bike is worth about $1,500.
We own all of them, free and clear, right now.
With our current situation, the F150 and the Caliber aren’t working. We have 3 kids. The oldest is 12 and pushing 6 feet tall. He barely fits in the backseat of either and is forced to wedge himself against a car seat if we take either of these vehicles anywhere. Even the front seats don’t have a lot of leg room, and I’m not exactly short or small.
We are also a popular place to hang out and almost always have an extra kid or two on the weekends. Right now, that means we take two cars if we have to go somewhere.
On top of that, my girls ride in a saddle club on borrowed horses. We are planning to buy a horse trailer and (shudder) lease a couple of ponies next summer.
So, our requirements are:
- Seat 7-8 people
- Full-sized 3rd row
- Towing capacity of at least 5000 pounds
- More than 20mpg highway
- Comfortable front seat
Based on our initial research, the Chevy Traverse meets our needs. Depending on the configuration, it seats 7 or 8 people with a full-sized 3rd row, has a 5200 pound towing capacity, and is rated for 24 mpg on the highway. Locally, there is a 2010 model with 50,000 miles for $19,000, which is dead-on with blue book. For another $1500, we can make it all wheel drive and 2011, which is below blue book. Consumer reports rates it pretty high, but Edmunds has some mixed reviews.
We should be able to sell the F150 and the Caliber for $12-13,000. That only leaves about $6,000 left, which we should have after the remodel on our rental property. I’m almost positive we’ll pull the trigger on a new car in the next month or two.
What do you think? Am I missing anything? Any experience with a Traverse? Have a better idea for something that meets our needs? Please leave a comment and help me out.
How Cheap Can a Disney Vacation Be?
Earlier this month, I took my family to Disney World. That’s me, my wife, and my three kids (ages 8, 9, 16). Disney is one of the most expensive vacations you can take in the U.S.
We went from one Saturday to the next, in the beginning of August. August is just after peak season, so prices and crowds were down a bit from early summer. During the school year is out of the question because my wife is a school bus driver at an understaffed company. It was a bit hotter, but the price and family availability balanced out the heat nicely.
We stayed in a 1 bedroom resort on Disney property. It was a bit more expensive, but the room slept all five of us, my wife and I had a separate bedroom, and it was equipped with a full kitchen and laundry.
This wasn’t cheap.
We spent:
- $1595.96 on airfare and car rental, as a package
- $75 on upgrading the seats on our flight one way, because those were the only seats available next to each other.
- $131.11 upgrading our rental car during pickup. The third row seating was nice, both for our day trip to Cocoa Beach and for our grocery run with five suitcases.
- $4396.21 for the hotel, 4 days of Disney parks, and the included Magic Bands. Magic Bands are the awesomest way to handle hotel rooms, resort tickets, and food. You don’t need to carry a wallet in Disney World.
- $715.26 on things charged to our Magic Bands, including miscellaneous coffee, snack, and water purchases in the park, a few small souvenirs, approximately $380 at in-park restaurants, and a couple of gifts for the people who took care of our pets while we were gone.
- $15 for parking at the Cocoa Beach Pier
- $152.28 for lunch at the restaurant on the pier
- Roughly $350 on groceries and one fast food drive through meal one night
- $118.31 at the horrible Wolfgang Puck Express restaurant at the Disney Springs shopping center
- $31.59 on gas for the rental car.
- $47.35 for a movie to kill time between hotel checkout and airport check-in
- Total: $7628.07
We saved:
- $1404.14 by using signup bonus miles from two Chase Sapphire cards, bringing the flight plus rental to $188.82 plus upgrades.
- $1870.16 by using Capital One Venture card rewards. A bonus reward on one card, and regular miles on another.
- Total: $3274.30
Grand Total: $4353.77
We had about $2000 of that saved before we bought the tickets and $2000 more budgeted to pay the remaining bill quickly. $4350 spent on a trip with a $4000 budget isn’t too bad.
We opened the rewards cards more than a year ago to make sure we’d hit the sign-up bonus qualifications in time.
A few Disney tips:
- Your first day in the park, find a Disney Vacation Club booth. Go to a timeshare sales pitch. For real. It’s a low-pressure pitch that’s over in 45 minutes if you’re not interested (and you won’t be. Timeshares–especially at retail price–are stupid. Don’t sign up.) that will net you three tap-and-go fast passes and a $100 gift card. The fast passes alone saved us about 3 hours of lines.
- Install the Disney app. You can get directions to rides and manage fast passes and dinner reservations.
- Subscribe to Touring Plans. It costs $10 if you have a coupon, and there’s always a coupon. You can plan out your day at each park, including fast passes and breaks. It will give you wait times and walking times and suggest what is possibly the most efficient way to see everything you want to see. We saw 90% of everything everyone was interested in without running around. You really can do all of each of the parks in 4 days.
- Take breaks. We got there early, then left a bit after lunch time to head back to the hotel for food, rest, and swimming. We came back shortly before dinner and spent the evening. That skipped the hottest, busiest part of the day and helped avoid small children getting crabby. Take breaks.
- Go to each of the parks on their least busy day. It’s easiest to see it all if you plan to be there when fewer other people are competing for line space.
- Don’t waste your fast passes on rides with short lines. We made it through the Pirates of the Caribbean line in 10 minutes. That would have been wasteful.
- Try to book all of your fast passes in the morning, so you can schedule new ones for later in the day. You can’t add new ones while you have pending ones on your account.
- Use the timeshare fast passes at Magic Kingdom. They don’t have to be scheduled and must be used on a moving ride. Magic Kingdom is the heaviest concentration of moving rides, and they have the longest lines.
- Have fun. For real, don’t forget to have fun. If people are getting crabby, pack up and head to the hotel for a few hours. The only park that makes this a pain is Magic Kingdom, since they hide the park a mile away from the parking. Don’t force the park experience, just let go and let things happen. Says the guy who brought an optimized agenda to each park
This was a good time for us. I’m glad we waited. We’re in the short window where the girls will remember the trip and the boy hasn’t moved out and gotten a busy life of his own.
Credit Card Pitfalls You Have To Avoid
The idea of a credit card is appealing. You don’t have to have the money to pay for things; you can just use the card. It creates instant gratification and you start to get used to the idea of getting what you want when you want it. Unfortunately, this can be a disaster waiting to happen.
If you get in over your head and begin to negatively affect your credit rating, it is not the end of the world. By looking at things like bad credit credit cards at Money Supermarket you can start to make things right again. Watch out for these pitfalls that could cause you to stumble into a bad credit card situation.
Enticing Rewards
You see the commercial or advertisement online and reward credit cards make it seem like you will be drowning in points that can be redeemed for airline miles or gift cards. Initially, you may think that this is a great reason to sign up for a card. Then, you begin to use the card often in order to earn points.
The problem comes when you start spending just to get the rewards and you can’t or don’t make payments to return to a zero balance every month. You may end up with a hefty annual fee on top of everything else. Don’t let the temptation of getting a reward create a problem with your credit score.
Maxing Out the Credit Card
When someone hands you $5,000, you will be tempted to spend it. Why not enjoy the new money? The problem is that a $5,000 credit card balance needs to be paid back. Don’t fall into the trap of spending the entire line of credit immediately.
If you do run into some financial difficulty or you really need a credit card for something, you will have nothing left to use. If you go over the limit, you can be sure that there will be some fees that come along with it. Use it wisely. Charge something and pay it off.
Skipping a Payment or Paying Late
Once you have a credit card, everything is going to affect your credit score. If you miss a payment or pay late, you can be sure that this is going to show up against you. Aside from the damage to your credit score, most credit cards come with a substantial penalty in the form of a late fee that gets tacked onto the next payment.
Always pay on time. Pay in early if possible. Keeping up to date with your credit card will show up positively on your credit rating.
When Problems Arise
Even if you do your best to avoid these pitfalls, sometimes financial problems can be unavoidable. An unexpected emergency requires you to max out the card. You run into a problem at work and lose your main source of income.
If you see that your credit is starting to decline, it is always possible to build that score back up. Start over using bad credit credit cards to make a positive impact on your credit score. With this scenario, you get an opportunity to once again avoid these pitfalls and improve your credit.
Refinancing Your Existing Loan to Purchase An Investment Property
Many people are looking at the housing market slump right now as an investment opportunity. Here are a few of the things that you need to know before getting a new home loan or refinancing your existing loan in order to make that happen.
Amount You Want to Borrow
A lot of borrowers go shopping for real estate and have exactly no idea how much money they can borrow. One of the first questions that you need to ask before going real estate hunting is how much can I borrow. You can ask a bank, lender, or financial institution to give you a ballpark figure of the amount of loan that you would qualify for. This will make it easier for you to narrow down exactly what type of property you can afford and what areas you can concentrate on.
Amount of Interest You Will Pay
Too many people are overly concerned with the purchase price of the home that they are buying. They fail to find out how much interest they will have to pay back to the bank in order to make their home ownership dreams come true. This is where a home loan calculator can be really useful. You can find out exactly how much interest you will repay over a 10, 20, or 30 year loan time period. You can also change the interest rate and down payment amount on those calculators to see if you can secure a lower monthly payment.
Credit Score Needed to Qualify
It doesn’t matter if you are buying a home for the first time or refinancing an existing loan. Your credit score matters. You need to start doing some research now if you want to secure a loan with a really low interest rate. This involves taking the time to see what credit scores traditional lenders are looking for and doing the work necessary to qualify for this loan. Your credit score will make a big difference in determining if an investment property purchase is a profitable endeavor or one that winds up costing you money. It will depend heavily on what kind of loan your credit score allowed you to negotiate.
Make the Choice
Once you know how much you will need and exactly how much you will be paying out over the life of another mortgage, you can decide whether you want to refinance your current home loan to get another one. Adding on another huge debt to an existing one is a big risk. Make sure to think it through fully before jumping in.
