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Kudos to USAA January 8, 2007

Posted by Q in Frugal, Saving, Smart Money Moves.
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For saving me nearly 20% or more on my existing USAA car insurance policy!

Thats right.  Didn’t even need to call GEICO and get a hard pull on my credit report to boot either.  I just was nosey and looked at my auto policy for the next cycle and saw a $89 discount from what I was originally paying!!!  Basically I haven’t had an accident last year and they gave me a good driver discount.  On top of that they finally kicked in my new car discount.

So now my grand total for car insurance every six months is a tad over $400!  And think back in 2003 I was paying well over $1300 every six months and was turning 25 then.

Free Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 January 3, 2007

Posted by Q in Saving, Smart Money Moves, Technology.
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I accidently stumbled on this freebie tonight.  Microsoft is giving away Office Accounting Express for free.  I am currently downloading it now and not sure if there are any stipulations, but the site touted it being free.  If there is a stip, I will post it later when I discover them.

Here is the LINK, Enjoy!!!

Never again will I buy another textbook at school December 14, 2006

Posted by Q in Frugal, Saving, Smart Money Moves.
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Today I went to school to sell some books back to the bookstore.  Expecting to get at least a cool $250 bucks, I strut happily to the bookstore even though I have a backpack full of books.  When I unload the books I am told that some are not being taken back as they have new textbooks.  Well the correct term should have been most are not being taken back.

I damn near walked back out of the bookstore with every book I planned to sell back.  I was only able to offload 3 of them, and only got $86.  Not too bad, but terrible considering how much I paid for the books, and how many I am not stuck with as they are outdated.

While I was in there, I stole the ESNs from the books I will need for next Semester.  I will be buying used online from now on.

Turbo Tax 2006 fired up!! December 13, 2006

Posted by Q in Frugal, Smart Money Moves.
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Just got this installed today.  Slowly I will be adding all my numbers for 2006 into it.  By the time my W-2 come in I can just plug the numbers in, hit the print button and drop the returns in the mail.

Interactions with Juniper September 11, 2006

Posted by Q in Credit Related, Smart Money Moves.
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Twice within the last 10 days Juniper has declined my transactions when I used my card to buy electronics.  I will hyperlink this post later when my feeder posts my missing blog posts.  Anywho, I call them today and speak with a Juniper Drone (seemed like it anyway) and informed her of all of my transactions for the last week and to un watch my account, as they call it.  I then proceeded to inquire why I am not called when they deny (or refer as they called it) my transactions.  She proceeded to tell me they did call me on the 2nd of this month (bought a new celly then).  I told her no you didn’t I called you and spoke with so and so. (Yeah I remembered the guy’s name).  She then proceeded to show how shiny of a robot she was and said, “well we have it right here that we called you”  I said well I show only 1 call the whole day and that was me dialing into a server from work that morning.  I asked her for her email address and emailed her my entire call logs, inbound and outbound for the whole week.  She was like ” I don’t understand, it says it right here “  So to add more nukes to the burning fire I asked why she never called me yesterday on the referred transaction as she never mentioned an attempt being done that day.

Well it was obvious she got caught in a lie and I let it go.

Well one thing, I can appreciate Juniper and their security as if my card was stolen they could have prevented some liability on my part.   Keyword is could.  In actuality, if my card was stolen, I am not resposible for the unauthorized charges anyway.  Make matters worst, they only flagged electronic purchases as I was able to use the card for a hotel on the 3rd of this month.  So technically, Juniper is protecting their own pocketbooks and not mine.  So I could really give a damn. Make matters worst, I was embarrased as I was declined the transaction, lost potential flyer miles, and I had to bust their lie as I log and record all of my calls.

I did end up getting an inconvience credit to my account, and they didn’t decrease my credit line, so me and Juniper are still cool.  However they are not being carried in my wallet anymore.  My new USAA card has now assumed the duty.

Cancelling offers over the phone August 28, 2006

Posted by Q in Rants!, Saving, Smart Money Moves.
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Man, these are some persistant bastards.  I had to stoop to my lowest mode and lie and say I was unemployed just to get them off me.  And then they transfer you somewhere else for another offer for “discounts”.  So I have to lie again.  The second person I had to tell them no 4 times.  I can’t wait until I migrate my trunks so I can start recording this stuff, LOL.

End of Summer Financial Cleanup August 28, 2006

Posted by Q in Saving, Smart Money Moves.
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Ok, I must admit, even though it may seem I have my financial house in order, truth is I still have improvements that need be made. For starters there are some credit cards in my possession that have annual fees that I could use to get rid of. Well that won’t be happening until they are 3 years old. Reason for that is, even though I have been on record with the credit bureaus for just over 10 years, to this day I haven’t had a single good credit entry on my report for 3 years. This includes car loans. My closest is my old National City secured card which is 2 years and 4 months old. June next year it will definately be closed.

But for today I decided to take a look at my Quicken and see what expenses I could really get rid of, which I tend to catagorize as stupid spending:

1. An old free cash offer that I forgot to cancel before 30 days were up: I am usually pretty good with keeping up with these things, but this one seemed to slip through the crack of being unemployed. O well the other free money checks paid for it as I just cashed $53 worth of them on Friday.

2. Old worthless checking accounts that were accumulating fees: Just dumped all checking accounts but 2 of them today. I think all combined those accounts racked up year to date fees of roughly $300. Damn now thats a waste of money.

3. Phone service needed to be reviewed. Well this is actually a business topic, which I’ve never even brought up until today I believe. I buy my personal phone service through my own company. But since I brought it up; I am paying a package service which allows me a certain amount of minutes for a certain price. Well last week I discovered a better deal for the same price currently being payed. A WAY better deal. So I will be migrating all of my voice trunks over to this carrier over the next 48 hours.

There are others but I felt those were worth mentioning. I still have to do the Financial Challange that I was supposed to do earlier this year until I lost my old job. I can’t even find the post I made about it.

Well I am gonna jump back on this phone and finish cuttin these leeches off my wallet.