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The no-pants guide to spending, saving, and thriving in the real world.

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Regret

Life

There comes a time when it’s too late to tell people how you feel.

There will come a day when the person you mean to talk to won’t be there.  Don’t wait for that day.

“There’s always tomorrow” isn’t always true.

Delayed Gratification, Take II

Finance, Life

English: Zach Galifianakis as Alan from "...
English: Zach Galifianakis as Alan from "The Hangover" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How much would you pay for a kiss from the world’s sexiest celebrity?

That was the focus of a recent study that I can’t find today.   There is no celebrity waiting in the wings to deliver the drool, and the study doesn’t name which celebrity it is.  That’s an exercise for the reader.

This was a study into how we value nice things.

The fascinating part of the study is that people would be willing to pay more to get the kiss in 3 days than they would to get the tongue slipped immediately.

Anticipation adds value.

Instant gratification actually causes us to devalue the object of our desire.

This goes well beyond “Will you respect me in the morning?”

The last time I talked about delayed gratification, it was in the context of my kids.   That still holds true.   Kids don’t value the things that are handed to them.

The surprising–and disturbing–bit is that adults don’t, either.  If I run out to the store to buy an iPad the first day I see one, I won’t care about it nearly as much as if I spend a week or two agonizing over the decision.

The delay alone adds to the perceived value.  The agony turns the perceived value into gold.

If I spend a month searching for the perfect car, the thrill of the successful hunt adds less value than the time it took to do the hunting.

Here’s my frugal tip for today:  Delay your purchases.  While it may not actually save you any money, you will feel like you got a much better deal if you wait a few days for something you really want.

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Credit Peril

Finance

When my mother-in-law died, we went through all of her accounts and paid off anything she owed.

The Discover card she’d carried since the 80s–a card that had my wife listed as an authorized user–had a balance of about $700.  We paid that off with the money in her savings account.  They cashed out the accumulated points as gift cards and closed the account.

A few months ago, we decided it was time to buy an SUV, to fit our family’s needs.   We financed it, to give us a chance to take advantage of a killer deal while waiting for the state to process the title transfer on an inherited car we have since sold.

Getting good terms was never a worry.  Both of us had scores bordering on 800.   Since our plan was to pay off the entire loan within a few months, we asked for whatever term came with the lowest interest rate.

Then the credit department came back and said that my wife’s credit was poor.  I chalked it up to a temporary blip caused by closing the oldest account on her credit report and financed without her.  No big deal.

Since we decided to rent our my mother-in-law’s house, we’ve discussed picking up more rental properties.   That’s a post for another time, but last week, we went to get pre-approved for a mortgage.    During the process, the mortgage officer asked me if my wife had any outstanding debt that could be ignored if we financed without her.

Weird.

A few days ago, we got the credit check letter from the bank.   Her credit score?  668.

What the heck?

I immediately pulled her free annual credit report from annualcreditreport.com, which is something I usually do 2-3 times per year, but had neglected for 2012.

There are currently two negatives on her report.

One is a 30 day late payment on a store card in 2007.   That’s not a 120 point hit.

The other is an $8 charge-off to Discover.  As an authorized user.  On an account that was paid.

Crap.

We called Discover to get them to correct the reporting and got told they don’t have it listed as a charge-off.   They did agree to send a letter to us saying that, but said they couldn’t fix anything with the credit bureaus.

Once we get that letter, it’s dispute time.

 

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Net Worth, April 2016

Finance

Net Worth

Last year wasn’t a good year for my net worth.  It came with a $7000 drop.

Q1 2016, however, was a great quarter.

In December, we had $13,271 in credit card debt.   At the time I took this screenshot, it was down to $3836.43.    As of this moment, it’s down to $2640.91.   If things go as expected this week, I should wake up on Friday to a paid-off credit card.  I had to raid some of our savings accounts to make it happen, but it’s happening.    Some of it was a tax refund, some of it was the fact that my mortgage payment went away in December.

That’s seven years of hard work, almost to the day.   Seven years ago, I was researching bankruptcy, and stumbled across Dave Ramsey.    Seven years ago, we were drowning in debt.

Next week, we’re free.   No more debt, hanging over our heads.   We’re free to take vacations.   We’re free to finally save for college, when my son is 16, and stand a chance of being able to pay for it for him.   We’re free to do…whatever we want to do.   Our monthly nut after the debt is paid–only in fall/winter/spring when my wife is working–is roughly 1/3 of our take-home pay.

That’s how hard we’ve cut to make sure we can pay our bills and make debt die.  We do have some things that would be considered extravagant.   We’re not savages.   But my car is 10 years old.  My wife’s is 7.   My motorcycles are 35 and 30; one of them was purchased before we cared about our debt.

Back to the net worth….

The biggest change came from our property values, which sucks.  That was $36,000 of the difference, which comes with the painful tax bump to go with it.   A large chunk of the savings increase was the money we set aside every month to cover the property tax bill, and that will go away next month.

Still, $641,000 dollars is a long way from nothing.   I’m pretty happy.

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