- RT @ScottATaylor: Get a Daily Summary of Your Friends’ Twitter Activity [FREE INVITES] http://bit.ly/4v9o7b #
- Woo! Class is over and the girls are making me cookies. Life is good. #
- RT @susantiner: RT @LenPenzo Tip of the Day: Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night. #
- RT @ScottATaylor: Some of the United States’ most surprising statistics http://ff.im/-cPzMD #
- RT @glassyeyes: 39DollarGlasses extends/EXPANDS disc. to $20/pair for the REST OF THE YEAR! http://is.gd/5lvmLThis is big news! Please RT! #
- @LenPenzo @SusanTiner I couldn’t help it. That kicked over the giggle box. in reply to LenPenzo #
- RT @copyblogger: You’ll never get there, because “there” keeps moving. Appreciate where you’re at, right now. #
- Why am I expected to answer the phone, strictly because it’s ringing? #
- RT: @WellHeeledBlog: Carnival of Personal Finance #235: Cinderella Edition http://bit.ly/7p4GNe #
- 10 Things to do on a Cheap Vacation. https://liverealnow.net/aOEW #
- RT this for chance to win $250 @WiseBread http://bit.ly/4t0sDu #
- [Read more…] about Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-12-19
How to Cut Costs on Legal Fees
Occasionally, life goes truly pear-shaped and you’re forced to enter the legal system.
Even if you’re not embroiled in a tawdry, tabloid-fodder divorce, there are still legal issues that everyone needs to address, without exception.
The problem? Or rather, one of many, if you’re having legal problems?
Lawyers are expensive.
Before I go any further:
- If you are having criminal court issues, get a lawyer. Get the best possible lawyer. Really. The cost does not compare to a lifetime in jail, or even 10 years. If you’re facing jail, get the best dang attorney you can find.
- I am not only not an attorney, but I’ve never even played one on TV. I have driven past a law school a couple of times, but never stopped in. I do know several attorney, carry the business cards of a couple and have a couple on my speed dial, just in case. If any of them thought I was giving legal advice, I’d be in trouble. To reiterate: I am not an attorney. This is not legal advice.
- Don’t do a prenuptual agreement at home. A prenup will almost always be found unenforceable if both parties don’t have an attorney.
Where was I? Ah, yes. Lawyers are expensive, but there are ways to mitigate that.
There a couple of things you can handle yourself.
Small claims court, also known as conciliation court. Typical cases in conciliation court include cases involving sums under $7500(varies by state) that involve unpaid debts or wages, claims by tenants to get a security deposit, claims by landlords for property damage, or claims about possession or ownership of property. Fees and procedures vary by state, but generally cost less than $100 to file. The procedures for your state can be found by googling “small claims court” and the name of your state.
Small worker’s compensation cases can be handled yourself, if they don’t involve a demotion or termination related to the injury.
Apartment and car leases are usually simple and straightforward. Read them carefully, but you probably won’t need a lawyer.
You can probably handle your own estate planning and will writing with some decent software. I love Quicken Willmaker. It walked me through a detailed will that takes care of my kids, and gave me advice on financing their futures in the horrible event that I am tragically killed before my wonderousness can fully permeate the world. It also contains forms for promissory notes, bills of sale, health care directives and more. If you have extensive property, I’d still seek an attorney’s advice, but I’d bring the Willmaker will with me to save some time and money.
Purchase agreements. A few years ago, I sold a truck to a friend and accepted payments. I made a promissory note and payment schedule. When he quit paying or calling me, that paperwork was enough to get the state to accept the repossession when I took the truck back.
A simple no-fault divorce is actually pretty painless, on the scale of divorce pain. Again, the procedures vary heavily by state.
Other resources for finding legal information free or cheap include www.legalzoom.com and www.nolo.com.
Have you had to do any of your own legal work? How did it work out?
Why I Hate Payday Loans
I hate payday loans and payday lenders.
The way a way a payday loan works is that you go into a payday lender and you sign a check for the amount you want to borrow, plus their fee. They give you money that you don’t have to pay back until payday. It’s generally a two-week loan.
Now, this two week loan comes with a fee, so if you want to borrow $100, they’ll charge you a $25 fee, plus a percent of the total loan, so for that $100 loan, you’ll have to pay back $128.28.
That’s only 28% of actual interest; that’s not terrible. However, if you prorate that to figure the APR, which is what everyone means when they say “I’ve got a 7% interest rate”, it comes out to 737%. That’s nuts.
They are a very bad financial plan.
Those loans may save you from an overdraft fee, but they’ll cost almost as much as an overdraft fee, and the way they are rigged–with high fees, due on payday–you’re more likely to need another one soon. They are structured to keep you from ever getting out from under the payday loan cycle.
For those reasons, I consider payday loan companies to be slimy. Look at any of their sites. Almost none are upfront about the total cost of the loan.
So I don’t take their ads. When an advertiser contacts me, my rate sheet says very clealy that I will not take payday loan ads. The reason for that is–in my mind–when I accept an advertiser, I am–in some form–endorsing that company, or at least, I am agreeing that they are a legitimate business and I am helping them conduct that business.
In all of the time I’ve been taking ads, I’ve made exactly one exception to that rule. On the front page of that advertiser’s website, they had the prorated APR in bright, bold red letters. It was still a really bad deal, but with that level of disclosure, I felt comfortable that nobody would click through and sign up without knowing what they were getting into. That was a payday lender with integrity, as oxymoronic as that sounds.
Huh?
Am I the only one who just noticed that it’s Wednesday? The holiday week with the free day is completely screwing me up.
Just to make this a relevant post:
Spend less!
Save more!
Invest!
Wee!
Delayed Gratification, Take II
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.
Debanking
I’m overbanked.
The National Bank, Oamaru, built 1871: a prostyle Palladian portico on a neoclassical facade (Photo credit: Wikipedia)I’ve mentioned that before.
I won’t give up my herd of CapitalOne 360 accounts. I use those to track my savings goals, all 17 of them. I can’t drop my business accounts, my kids’ savings accounts, or the personal accounts that I actually use to spend money.
I do, however, need to simplify a bit.
Last month, I went through the hassle of transferring my 401k from two jobs ago and my IRA from my last job. Now, I’m down to just two retirement accounts. One is for my current job, and the other is a self-managed IRA with Sharebuilder.
Two down.
A few months ago, I went to yet another bank to close an account. My last job offered crappy health insurance, but balanced it out with an HSA. It complicated things, but the actual costs came to almost the same as the previous plan that didn’t have a high deductible. When I left, my HSA just sat there.
Last year, my oldest got braces, so I cleaned out the HSA ahead of time so we could pay up front and save 5% without paying interest.
Another one down.
That’s three accounts down out of 34.
Thirty-four?
Crap. That’s retirement accounts, business accounts, and personal accounts for two adults and three kids.
Bank 1 has the checking account we use, plus two savings accounts, one of which is where we store the rent money until we take a payday.
Bank 2 has a checking account, 16 savings accounts, and stock-trading account, a CD, and two IRAs for my wife and I.
Bank 3 has a checking account, and savings account for each of two businesses I own, a spare set of personal accounts, a savings account for each of the kids, and a checking account for my teenager.
Bank 4 holds nothing but my current 401k.
The only thing I can simplify without sacrificing my organizational jungle is to combine the personal accounts from bank 1 and 3. The problem is that Bank 1 has all of my bill pay information and there is still an account open for my mother-in-law’s estate. We keep that open just in case we find any other checks we need to cash. Bank 3 has my business accounts tied to my personal account and is the bank that my business partner uses, so that’s convenient to move money around.
I may be stuck.
