Everyday Randomness

Human Error Does Still Happen

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My sister in law wrote a blog post today that reminded me exactly why it’s so important to keep an eye on our bank accounts.

My mother in law found out her account was $300 overdrawn, and it wasn’t because she spent more than she had or because her identity was stolen.  It was a simple human error when a cashier typed in the atm card number wrong.  If she hadn’t checked her account, the bank would probably have never seen the error.
I have two bank accounts, a savings account and a checking account, and I keep a very watchful eye over them.

I login to my savings account at least once every couple days even if I haven’t made any transactions, and even though I mainly only deposit larger amounts of cash when I’m paying bills, I login to my checking account daily.

This just goes to show just because we use computers for almost everything these days, human error can still screw you up!

Dealing With Identity Theft

It’s been a few months since I had a potential identity theft crisis on my hands, but I have to admit once it was over I really did stop thinking about it. The thought crept back up in my mind the other day when I requested my credit score. I kept thinking what if something pops up on here that shouldn’t be there. What if that woman really did get information that could hurt me.

Thankfully my credit report came back looking even better than I expected, and I didn’t have anything suspicious on it, but it would have happened. It really does make me wonder if I should start using a service like lifelock.

One scare certainly is enough, but I dealt with two scares in such a short time. I can’t believe I’ve let myself slack off as much as I have. At least I know if we were using lifelock I could be certain that my identity is perfectly safe, and I could slack off without having to kick myself for not paying attention. I might just have to have a talk with Hubby to see what he thinks about signing up for the service.

How You Can Win $1,000

I totaly need to tell my dad about the Fingad.com contest I just heard about. I’ll show him how he can Win $1000 with FinGad, and it looks like it could be pretty fun for someone like him. He, as he says, “plays” in the stock market and he loves virtual investment type games.

Fingad.com is a new website where investors can get together with other investors to discuss investment strategies. The contest involves investing in a virtual market. The person who can pick the best stocks and earn the best return with their virtual money will win $1000.

It’s definitely something my dad would enjoy doing, and I might even have fun with it if I could figure out stocks, but when it comes to the stock market I’m clueless. I’ve contemplated investing before, but I always chicken out because I’m afraid I’ll choose the worst stocks ever.

Anyway, if you’re interested in the contest, don’t forget to Fingad Contest Rules before you enter.

The Savings Are Growing

I’m so excited!

Why?

I set a goal for myself at the beginning of April.  My goal was to save a total of $1500 by May 16th.  Why?  Well a good portion of that is going to pay off a few medical bills.  Another good chunk is going towards my down payment on my 250r.  I had already put down a deposit of $400 to have one ordered, but the dealership kind of screwed me on that, so I got my deposit back, and I’m going elsewhere to buy it.

Why May 16th?  That’s the day we’re supposed to get our Tax Relief money deposited…or around that date, so it’s a good date to shoot for.

I’m happy to announce that today, April 17th marks the day I have officially saved $1381.51.  So that means what?  I will have not only met my goal of $1500 by May 16th, but I will have exceeded it!

What’s scary is the fact that I have saved at least half of that amount just by keeping up with our change.  Hubby and I both have baskets on our desks where we drop our change, but he doesn’t always use his like he should.  I’ll find change all over the kitchen counter, the bathroom counter, the washer, the dresser, or where ever he decides to empty out the pockets of his jeans.

I can clean at least $30 of change out of the Blazer’s console in just 1 week, and that’s just counting the quarters.  I leave the rest of the change for times when I really need it.  Trust me, it’s a lifesaver during those times when Hubby accidentally walks out of the house without his wallet, but he doesn’t realize it until he’s already pumped $20 in gas!

The other ways I’m saving?  After paying bills each week I’ve been sending whatever I have left out of my own earnings straight to my savings account.  Hubby doesn’t have access to the savings account, and that’s simply because he burns whatever money he touches.  On Friday’s he cashes his paycheck and hands the cash over to me.  I then figure out what I need for bills, and overnight deposit that amount.  Whatever we have left I budget out what we need for other expenses throughout the week, and if we have a good bit left I’ve been throwing that in my savings.  He admitted he doesn’t even realize the cash is gone.

This has yet again reaffirmed to him that me handling our family finances is best, and he was so happy tonight when I told him how much we’ve saved up in less than a month.  Man am I happy right now!

Taxes Are Paid

A big weight has just been lifted off my shoulders. I deposited the money a few days ago to pay our taxes, and the cash finally cleared today. As soon as I called Telebank and found that out I was off to pay the taxes. I wanted to get them out of my hands as quickly as possible.

I called the IRS earlier today and was given the 2 websites to pay depending on which form of payment I’d be using. I headed off to the debit card payment site and spent 20 minutes trying to get our payment to go through. I started with my debit card, and of course it didn’t work. I moved onto hubby’s and that didn’t work either.

Sometimes I don’t even know why I bother trying our debit cards for our checking account. My card has maybe worked twice. Hubby’s seems to work on the days the bank is open, but God forbid we try to use it on a weekend, in the evening, or on a bank holiday! Stupid hometown bank!

I’ve called the bank, I’ve gone up to the bank, I’ve talked to the managers, and they always tell me the same thing. There’s nothing wrong with the cards and there’s no hold on either of our cards. We had new cards issued, and those didn’t work either.

Times like this I’m really glad I have my Paypal debit card. I should have done that in the first place so I would get cash back for the transaction, but I wasn’t even thinking. I went ahead and transferred all my cash from Paypal to my savings account so it would pull the cash from my checking account, then I tried the transaction again.

Nope, didn’t work. At least this time it told me that Paypal cards have be go through as a credit card, not debit card. I had to go to the other site and try it all over again, but that meant instead of paying the $2.95 fee to pay with debit card I had to pay the $14.95 credit card fee.

Oh well, at least I got the taxes paid, and I’m not sitting here wondering if it got lost in the mail or not.

By the way, if you’re needing to pay your taxes online here’s the link to find all the information you need.