Search Results for “three-alternatives-to-a-budget/budget4/budget-lesson-part-1/slow-carb-diet-how-to-avoid-going-bat-crazy/quit-smoking-my-first-frugal-move-ever/what-happens-when-you-save/subscribe-by-email/5-steps-to-save/living-the-xbox-life-on-an-atari-income/contact-me/financial-pet-peeve-fees-to-receive-paper-bank-statements” — Page 104

Selling Your Car

: English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Park in Hidden Valley Campground (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When it’s time to replace your car, most people focus on the new car, instead of the old, but that is ignoring real money. Your old car–unless it has disintegrated–still has value. Sometimes, it’s just time to ask yourself, “When should I sell my car?”

When you’re looking to sell your car (like with We Will Buy Your Car), you generally have several options:

Tow & crush. If your car has been wrecked, doesn’t run, or is just old and beat up, you may be stuck with calling a junkyard and accepting $50 for them to pick up your car and crush it for scrap.
Trade it in. This is probably the least hassle, but–other than #1–doesn’t pay well. Dealerships are willing to pay something under what they will get at a wholesale auction, which is quite a bit less than the blue book value.
Sell it yourself. Now you’re thinking, “He’s going to buy my car! Oh, bother.” It can be a pain, but it’s also the best way to get a decent price for your wheels.

When you sell your car, there are a few things to keep in mind, much like when you sell something on Craigslist.

Don’t be alone. There are bad people in the world, but they don’t like witnesses. Bad things are much less likely to happen if you have company.
Know your price. Specifically, know three price: your dream price, the price that would make you happy, and the absolute lowest price you are willing to accept. Make sure you figure these numbers out ahead of time. Know what you are comfortable with before it comes time to close the deal.
Check IDs. The buyer is going to want to test-drive your car. That’s fine, but you want to make sure you know who is driving off in your car. “Officer, Sumdood took my car. He was wearing jeans.” That won’t get your car back.
Clean it up. Get the car detailed before you show it to a potential buyer. A sparkling-clean car will almost always bring in a few hundred extra dollars. It’s well worth the expense.

Following this plan should make the sale go as smoothly as possible and bring you the most possible money.

Readers, what have you done to dispose of an old car?

This is a sponsored post written to provide some insight into the world of used car retail.

The Happy Challenge

Life

Watch this video.

Done?

Great.

For the cheaters, the part I am most interested in is the bit about reprogramming your brain for happiness. Studies are showing that you can rewire yourself to be happier by doing happy things.

The science is sound. Good things trigger a dopamine reaction. Your body likes dopamine, so you start craving the things that make it happen, which all happen to be good things. As you suffer dopamine withdrawal, you become driven to do what it takes to get your fix.

The process is similar to heroin withdrawal, with no downside.

Hugging your kids(assuming you like them) triggers the reaction. So does sex, successes at work, and beating a video game.

The specific plan mentioned in the video is to write down three things that you are grateful for, once per day, for 21 days in a row. That will begin the self-reinforcing training that can get you hooked on being happy.

That’s a win. 75% of job success is predicted by your attitude. You are 31% more productive when you are happy. You’re also more fun to be around.

That’s a win.

Here’s my challenge:

For the next 21 days, do it. Write down 3 thing you are grateful for. What makes you happy? It’s okay if it’s hard. If it’s hard for you, you need it more than most.

Now, the truly hard part:

Fill out this form every day. Your answers can be as long or as short as you’d like, but there has to be 3 new things every day for 21 days. We’re going to train your brain to look for the positive, so you can’t give me 63 things on day 21. 3 things, 21 days.

On day 22, tell me how the previous 3 weeks have been.

When it’s over, I’ll hold a drawing for everyone who completed the challenge. Not everyone will see this immediately, so I’m going to run the challenge until May 15. That means you have until April 24th to get started.

3 answers per day means three prizes. I’ll give away a total of $250 to three lucky participants. That’s a $125 prize, a $75 prize, and a $50 prize, but you have to obey the rules. 3 things, 21 days in a row.

Be happy. I dare you.

Net Worth Update

Misc

Now that my taxes are done and paid for, I thought it would be nice to update my net worth.

In January, I had:

Assets

House: $252,900
Cars: $20,789
Checking accounts: $3,220
Savings accounts: $6,254
CDs: $1,105
IRAs: $12,001
Investment Accounts: $1,155
Total: $297,424

Liabilities

Mortgage: $29,982
Credit card: $18,725
Total: $48,707

Overall: $249,717.00

Here is my current status:

Assets

House: $240,100 (-12,800) Estimated market value according to the county tax assessor. This will be going down in a few months when the estimates are finalized for the year. I don’t care much about this number. We’re not moving any time soon, so the lower the value, the lower the tax assessment.
Cars: $15,857 (-4,932) Kelly Blue Book suggested retail value for both of our vehicles and my motorcycle.
Checking accounts: $4,817 (+1,597) I have accounts spread across three banks. I don’t keep much operating cash here, so this fluctuates based on how far away my next paycheck is.
Savings accounts: $6,418 (+164) I have savings accounts spread across a few banks. This does not include my kids’ accounts, even though they are in my name. This includes every savings goal I have at the moment. I swept a chunk of this into an IRA to lower my tax bill, which is also why my IRA balance is up as much as it is.
CDs: $1,107 (+2) I consider this a part of my emergency fund.
IRAs: $16,398 (+4,397) I have finally started to contribute automatically. It’s only $200 at the moment, but it’s something.
Investment Accounts: $308 (-847) I pulled most of this out and threw it at a credit card.
Total: $285,005 (-12,419)

Liabilities

Mortgage: $28,162 (-1,820)
Credit card: $16,038 (-2,687) This is the current target of my debt snowball. This has actually grown a bit over the last week. I did a balance transfer that cost $400, but it gives me 0% for a year, versus the 9% I was paying. That will pay for itself in 3 months, while simplifying my payments a bit and saving me almost a thousand dollars in payments this year.
Total: $44,200 (-4,507)

Overall: $240,805 (-8,912)

Well, I lost some net worth over the last quarter, but it’s still a good report. If I disregard the change in value of my house and cars–two thing I have no control over–my overall total would have gone up almost $9,000.

All in all, it’s been a good year for me, so far, though paying off that credit card by fall is going to be a challenge.

Transparency

Business

A friend–let’s call him me–recently had a bit of a hangup with a business relationship.

On a long-term project, there were some unavoidable setbacks. My friend decided to work through them, hoping to get everything back up to speed…before the customer noticed.

It’s a funny thing, but customers like to look at status reports on long-term projects. A couple of months after the biggest problem, the customer called my friend wanting an in-person status update. They told him to be prepared for an uncomfortable conversation.

Crap.

Now, the setbacks were truly unavoidable. Things came up that were entirely outside the realm of my friend’s control, but he had to deal with them anyway. When the problems were laid out in front of the customer, it went from uncomfortable to a discussion on how to expand the business relationship.

Transparency for the win.

Bad things happen. Anybody who doubts this is clearly not equipped to deal in the adult (that’s adult in the “grown-up” sense, not adult in the “porn” sense) world. Companies know that bad things can happen to derail a project. They are going to be more interested in how you get the project back on track than anything else.

When things go wrong, be open about it. Your customers/family/friends/one-night-stands will appreciate not having to wonder what’s going on.

Mortgage Race, Part 2

Finance

As I mentioned last month, Crystal and I are in a race to pay off our mortgages. The loser(henceforth known as “Crystal”) has to visit the winner. Now, since–judging by the temperature–Crystal lives in Hell, I think it would be good for her to visit in the winter. There something about the idea of going ice fishing, staring at a hole in the ice while sitting on a 5 gallon bucket, cursing the day I was born.

Today, she threw down the gauntlet again. She has apparently decided that, since her prerequisites are met, she’s going to win. Sure, she’s closed on her house and built her savings back up to $20000, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve sent a small army of arson-ninjas to keep her from getting ahead. They are so small, they can only carry tiny matches and single drops of gasoline, so the damage they can do is tiny, but it will add up. Just a word of advice: if you hire an army of arson-ninjas, go for the upsell and get ninjas that are at least 2 feet tall. Anything less is just inefficient.

When I announced the race last month, my mortgage balance was $26,266.40. Today, it is $25,382.53. In three days, there will be another $880 applied to the principal.

In February, our renters will move in and we’ll conservatively have another $650 to pay. When that starts, our balance should be around $23,000. Adding a portion of the rent payment should mean we pay off the house in May 2014. However, when I bring in our side hustle money, that will bring us back to September 2013.

Crystal’s projected payoff is July 2013, so I’ll have to hustle.

Comcast: A National Treasure

Finance, Life

This week, we upgraded our cable TV package. We were on their most basic 15-channel plan, now we’re on Digital Economy, giving my wife the extra channels she’s been suffering without for the last few years.

Image representing Comcast as depicted in Crun... — Image via CrunchBase

Our Tivo died last week. I love my Tivo, and we saw its death coming, so we ordered a replacement. We accidentally ordered the wrong one. We got the one that can’t take a signal straight off of the cable. It needs a cablecard.

Crap.

We could send it back and miss out on the Tivo for another week, or we could upgrade our cable package.

Hmm….

We looked at Comcast’s site to see what was available. Boost Plus–a internet + TV package–was available for $69.99/month for a year. That’s $6 more than we were paying, for about 30 more channels and it came with 2 years of free HBO. Yay!

Call Comcast.

The rep couldn’t find the offer, but there’s another one for $79.99 with no HBO, would we like that?

No, and we need to call the online offer number, since you can’t just transfer me. WTF?

So I ordered from the website directly, because I was getting sick of people already. I love e-commerce, just for that reason.

The last step of the process? A 30 minute online chat with a rep to schedule a tech. Grr.

After “Hello”, the first thing the rep said was, “Based on our conversation, the best thing to suit your needs is…” A freaking upsell to open the conversation. Buddy, you don’t know my needs. You’re here to run a calendar. I hate people.

No, I don’t want Triple Play. Your phone service isn’t cheaper than I’m paying now.

No, I don’t want a zillion channels. I have Netflix and a Roku.

No, I will not pay modem rental. I bought my own for $50 instead of paying you $7/month for it.

No, I don’t want equipment protection. The box will be on my dresser, out of reach. If it breaks on its own, I’ll return it.

Yes, I do want the deal to last the entire year–per the ad–instead of the 6 months you’re trying to change it to.

Great! Now my choices are a) pay $10 to have the new cable box shipped, b) pay $30 for a tech to come over and plug in 2 cables, c) drive to the cable office and pick up the box. I’ll take the 15 minute drive and combine it with lunch with my wife, thanks. I have to go there for the cablecard, anyway, since that’s not something you ship.

Wait a second! Going to the store means we’re going to cancel everything we’ve just done? And the store doesn’t have access to this deal, either? Nevermind, I’ll take the shipping charges.

WTF?

So, it’s off to the store to get my card, but not the box that will ship from that store. After a 30 minute wait, the wonderful(no sarcasm) lady behind the counter was happy to give me a card. Unfortunately, the rep from the previous night had entered the wrong deal, with a note on the account mentioning the correct one. Because that’s how computers and automated billing systems work. His plan left an error on the account that prevented anything new from being added, like my cablecard.

Grr.

Double guh-errr.

Let’s cancel everything from the previous night. There’s a better deal.

We got the same package for $49.99/month for a year, then $69.99/month for another year, with HBO for $5/month. I got to leave with my card and my box. Wee! I love you, lady!

Comcast, seriously, WTF?

Now, if I could just get Tivo to recognize the channel lineup for Digital Economy.