Monthly Archives: October 2021

Life Happens. Roll With It.

Leave a reply

I feel like I’ve been playing life by ear a lot lately.  Sometimes things just don’t go according to plan and you just have to roll with it and do the best you can.  I’ve been away from the office quite a lot lately helping my elderly parents manage a medical situation.  Because of that I’ve found myself working from my parents’ living room at weird hours and using all the technologies that I learned during the peak of the pandemic.  I’m just rolling with it and making life happen.  I did a Zoom presentation for prospective students last week and experienced some technical difficulty that stopped me from being able to share my PowerPoint slides.  And I just went with it to make it a less visual and more verbal presentation.  I credit my experience in community theater with making me able to think on my feet and continue on as if everything is normal.  It’s a good skill for everyone to have.

But there is one area of life where I never want to play it by ear.  That’s with managing my money.  It’s always best to have a plan when it comes to money.  Know how much is coming in.  Know how much is going out.  Know what you are spending it on.  Build a spending plan.  Build a savings plan.  Build an emergency fund.  Save toward specific goals.  Have a plan for paying down debt.  Know what dates your bills are due so they can always be paid on time.  Know what credit card to use at what store to earn the best rewards.  It feels like I have a million plans that are all tied to my money!

Does all of this planning mean I’m never caught off-guard?  Nope.  Everybody experiences money surprises.  The unexpected car repair.  The computer replacement that comes ahead of schedule.  The January heating bill.  Even the skyrocketing prices of gasoline and groceries.  Life is full of money surprises.  The key to being able to handle them is to have a contingency plan for money surprises.  For some that means an emergency fund.  For others that means leaning on a credit card.  For some it means calling the Bank of Mom and Dad.  Some may need to increase a student loan.  Some folks may need to sell some belongings to raise funds.  It may be some combination of these and other things.  The important thing is to know what your contingency plan is….before you need it.

Life happens.  Sometimes you have to roll with it.  Do you know what your money contingency plan is?  If not, it’s time to think about it.

Chasing Rewards

Leave a reply

I have a lot of credit cards.  I use a lot of credit cards.  And I just applied for another credit card.  For a lot of people this is a recipe for disaster.  But for me it’s a money-saving technique.  Which I know sounds crazy.  But there is a method to my madness.

I am a credit card reward chaser.  I use the cards for convenience and for rewards.  And I pay them off in full every month to avoid paying interest.  Not everybody has this kind of control.  And if that’s you, just stop reading now.  But if you have the self-control to know that you will be able to pay the balance in full every month, keep reading.  Rewards are awesome!  And I have a system of using certain cards for certain things to leverage those rewards to my advantage.

I have a few cards that I keep for single purposes.  My Sheetz Visa, when combined with the My Sheetz card saves me 8 cents per gallon when I fill my gas tank at the gas station/convenience store that is pervasive throughout central Pennsylvania (and several other states).  So when I’m not in the neighborhood of the Bellefonte Rutters that seems to undercut everyone in the area on the price of gas, I use my Sheetz Visa.  And that’s the only thing I use it for.

I have another Visa that is tied to my favorite hotel chain.  I actually pay an annual fee for that card, but in exchange for that I get a certificate good for one night that year in the hotel chain.  I always come out ahead on that deal as I chase my favorite bluegrass bands around the east coast.  And I only ever use that card for hotel stays (where I earn extra rewards for more free nights) and for travel and meal expenses for business travel (to keep that all separate from my personal life expenses).  This card has been sitting very quietly for the time that the pandemic has raged through the world, but it’s ready to come back out sometime in the future.

I have yet another Visa tied to my favorite online retailer.  This card gives me 5% in store credit on every purchase I make.  Especially since the pandemic started, online shopping is a go-to for me, so this credit adds up pretty quickly.  It just makes sense for me.

And I just applied for a card branded by my cell phone provider.  This one is going to reduce my cell phone bill by $10 per line per month by tying my auto-billing to it.  And it’s also going to give me cell bill credit for using it in other places—the big one is 4% back on groceries.  That adds up quickly!

And of course, for all other purchases I have my go-to card which is a 2% cash back card I have through my credit union.  It’s a lot of cards.  With a lot of different purposes.  And I pay them all off in full every month.  The rewards are significant—by using my assorted cards for just about everything I buy, it adds up to quite a bit of money. BUT I PAY THEM ALL OFF IN FULL EVERY MONTH!  That’s the only way this works.  Otherwise you lose all of the benefit to interest.

Do you chase rewards?  If you are the kind of person who has the control to use credit cards for convenience rather than for credit, maybe you should.

 

Getting What You Pay For

Leave a reply

One of my common sayings is, “You get what you pay for.”  But sometimes you don’t actually get what you pay for, and that’s when you need to advocate for yourself.

People think about warranties when it comes to a new car (ok…not me…my last brand new car was purchased in 2002…but that’s a conversation for another day).  But a lot of people don’t think about warranties for smaller purchases.  But we all should.  For example, when I bought my camping cot, it failed after 11 months.  It wasn’t a terribly expensive purchase…only about $50.  But it lasted less than a year.  I looked into the warranty and found that it was covered for a full year.  I contacted the company and they sent me a new cot free of charge.  I bought my husband a tablet computer for Christmas this past year.  And when the display started failing, I looked into the warranty on that.  It was a year long warranty.  We had to send the tablet off for repair.  But at no additional charge to us, we have a fully functional tablet again thanks to the warranty.  Warranty coverage is not something I typically look into before I make a purchase.  But I probably should.  And it’s absolutely something I’m happy to take advantage of if something I own fails during its warranty period.

This past Saturday I was visiting my parents and my dad was complaining about how their internet connection at their house was really slow and disconnects a lot.  I checked in with a friend of mine down the street from them who uses the same company and learned that her connection is strong and fast.  So I sat down with my dad and the cable company on speakerphone.  I talked with the customer service rep through all of the various testing and modem resetting.  And the end result is that a technician will be visiting my parents tomorrow to fix their connection.  And why?  Because my folks were NOT getting what they have been paying for.  And I advocated for them so it would be fixed.

You get what you pay for.  Except when you don’t.  And that’s when you need to fight for what you deserve.  So you can actually get what you pay for.