Tag Archives: money

Credit & Identity Monitoring

23 Wednesday Mar 2011

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Really, what’s the point, right?  I mean, you can do all this stuff yourself, for free.  Well, here’s the point – I’ve been using Identity Guard for over a year now and wouldn’t do without it.  I love the “No News is Good News” updates, the FICO score dashboard, the account change alerts and the “dispute an entry” quicklinks.  Frankly, it’s been a huge stress reducer and I’m not even fully using all the features (though I plan to be doing so as the year progresses).  For $14.95 per month it includes credit monitoring, credit card vaulting, password vaulting, online (and mobile) lockbox for key documents (as in less paper) and information as well as several computer security and identity theft features.  The site is easy to use and it is essentially “one stop shopping” for critical personal information services.

I did review and compare several services and Identity Guard ranked consistently at or near the top, I can’t speak personally to other services, but there are several sites that compare credit monitoring companies and plans.  To be fair, this article from Smart Money disagrees with me and makes several free suggestions – $30 to lock all your credit reports so no one can pull them (this also affects any credit checks that you require, though), use the free annual credit reports and file disputes with the companies yourself, etc.  All true – this is not a necessity and may not be worth the expense to you.  For me, it keeps an area of my life managed with little to no effort on my part and provides paperless peace of mind.

Citibank is Evil & Other Tales of Usury

17 Tuesday Nov 2009

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Cardmember since 1993 – actually earlier than that but my original card was a Chase card that got sucked into Citi.  I’m employed, have a good credit and payment history, generallly carry a balance and use the card for larger purchases.  I’ve not missed payments or even come close to exceeding my limit – pretty much a textbook consumer credit customer.  Last year my interest on the card was 9.99%.  In October that “special rate” went to 15.99% (no negative trigger on my part at all – and remember, I’ve had the card for SIXTEEN years).  Today I get a letter stating that, starting on November 30th (yup, less than 2 weeks away), my new improved rate will be 19.99%.  Again, no negative trigger on my part, just “current economic conditions” – those being that the legislation to stop EXACTLY this type of action goes into effect in February.  It’s an end run by a company that, had they been allowed to fail after engaging in bad business practices would not still be engaging in bad business practices – a company that engaged in GOOD practices would have filled that slot.
 
So, what’s my choice according to the moneylenders at the temple?  Accept a DOUBLING of my interest rate on my existing balance to keep my card or take my lower (but newly higher) rate of 15.99% and have the card closed on me, damaging my FICO.  Or, I can go tomorrow, get a nice card with a transfer option, keep my Citi account, charge that $15.99 monthly gaming charge to it and keep a balance of around $5.00 so the card stays active and used and consumes Citi resources.  I’ll have to figure out exactly what the numbers need to be to keep the vampires at bay with respect to transaction fees, inactivity adjustments and all the other screw the consumer terms Citi so loves.
 
This isn’t choosing to do business with one company or another – this is a company that TOOK TAXPAYER MONEY making an end run around a law and doing it in a manner that negatively (in terms of the FICO credit score hit of a closed account) affects consumers who have done NOTHING negative to trigger a punitive response.
 
Pathetic.  Oh and I’m not one of those folks who will tell you they were perfect for 13 years either – but I was close.  I paid online last Thanksgiving and wound up being late by 4 hours because Citi changed my payment due date without warning; a previous shady practice.  That’s when they lowered me the 9.99% rate after they apologized and dropped all fees – apparently, however, a year of timely payments earns a higher rate…

The Year of Living Frugally – Utilities (Gas)

29 Thursday Oct 2009

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The wonderful world of natural gas.  Seriously – I love the stuff.  Gas radiators, gas stove, gas water heater – tankless.  Yes, the water heater was more expensive than a traditional one.  Love it.  Love it even more when my EPP (Equal Payment Plan) drops $77/mo.  A warm winter, a new tankless waterheater and a bit of added weatherstripping (with a whole lot to go, believe me…) savings with no effort.  I do attribute a good deal of it to the drop in the cost of natural gas, but I also strongly endorse the Rinnai tankless water heater.
 
Utilities (Gas) was July:
July Savings Total – $924/year
Cumulative Savings Total – $7926/year ($451 ahead of $500/mo goal)
Remaing Savings Towards Goal – ($1926)

The Year of Living Frugally – More Telecom & Cable

29 Thursday Oct 2009

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If you remember, there was a bit of a fustercluck with DirecTV – even though I’d had service previously, I was deemed by the installers as requiring a $200 pole.  So, after a day of calling, comparing and other annoyances, we ditched the DirecTV plan and suffered on.  We looked at dropping to a lower service tier with TWC, but they require HD for DVR apparently, which was simply not helpful as we didn’t want to go the TiVO route.  Sooooo….
 
Let’s talk bundles.  I intensely dislike Windstream Wireless but the $100 TWC bill was making my nose bleed.  As a grandfathered CTC customer, I was getting 6Mbps DSL and phone for $75.00, but no long distance.  Total telecom (excluding cellphones) at $175.00/mo.  Windstream’s phone, DSL and TV bundle comes in at $110/mo for the first year, $125/mo for the second with a 2 year committment.   This gives the identical savings for DirectTV reported earlier in the year ($780 first year, $600 second year) and adds unlimited long distance (and I admit to liking land lines).
 
Here’s hoping the service doesn’t suck – I have to give Windstream credit as the service hasn’t been nearly as bad in the last 6 months.  No financial gain (though we are already ahead) but we picked up unlimited long distance on a land line so it’s all good.
 
Cable and Internet were slated for May, so technically…
May Savings Total – $780/year
Cumulative Savings Total – $7002/year ($374 ahead of $500/mo goal)
Remaing Savings Towards Goal – ($1002)

The Year of Living Frugally – Smoking

11 Friday Sep 2009

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Yes, we were avoiding the elephant in the room, but decided that our August vacation was the end of smoking – it’s now been a month so we are counting it as official.  I’d love to say there was some special method, but we basically picked up a couple of boxes of Chantix with the intention of using it to curb the craving.  After a week taking it, we had no interest in smoking and once we got back from vacation, we dropped that too.  I suppose I should subtract the wasted $100 prescription from the total, but I think it is more than offset by the additional state and federal cigarette taxes we’re now avoiding.
 
August Savings Total – $4992/year (2 cartons per week at $48/carton)
Cumulative Savings Total – $7002/year ($374 ahead of $500/mo goal)
Remaing Savings Towards Goal – ($1002)
 
Goal met with months to spare, LOL!  That said, car insurance is next and our newest goal is to reduce our monthly grocery bill to $500/month.  I also need to go back and blog the missed months as well as a summary.