Long Time No See

Wow, it's been a while and I've been pretty invisible. Becoming a famous blogger isn't easy, is it?

2009 has been a tough year for my family; my dad died, my wife's mother died and my brother in law is pretty sick. Also a very good friend died, followed a week later by her mother. Now her sister is fighting breast cancer.

So I'm really happy to see the ass end of 2009. I have not paid too much attention here and I apologize, especially to you Ron, who always asked when was I going to post something again. Well, here it is.

With all our troubles our financial plan has been steadily working away. We've gotten a little lax with the extra money in our budget, but the basics of the budget has been sound. I started keeping track of our net worth two years ago at www.networthiq.com. I got caught up with my bookkeeping and did my first update at networthiq since May of this year. We have improved our net worth in the last two years by almost $44,000.00. That's amazing. When I think of the years that I did not have a plan for my money and the way it dribbled away, I could kick myself. But, there is no fixing the past there is only going forward.

Within the next week or two we will be paying off our car loan (the Santa Fe continues to rock! I love that car!). Then the funds previously going to the car loan with be added to the amount attacking the Consolidation loan. My guesstimate is just over a year and a half to knock out that.

As well, we are going to be increasing the amount of our emergency fund. We originally set the max at $1,000. I was listening to Dave Ramsey a lot back then and liked the idea of the mini emergency fund. I feel that we are better off now and would like to start building up to a 6 month emergency fund. Just ballparking that would be almost $24,000, so we won't be getting there real quick. The plan is to start adding $40 a pay to the Emergency Fund, that will add a $1,000 to the fund this year. Next year we'll probably double that which will give us $4,000 in the EF in two years. We'll look into that further then.

Our Operational Savings is working really well, those annual expenses that used to force us the scrabble to pay them are no problem now. It's great watching the money for the Morocco trip piling up. Travel abroad used to be a fantasy. This November it will be a reality.

Thanks For the Comments!

I just want to thank Sandra, Lulugal11 and Jerry for their comments.  Thanks!  That should get me motivated to get posting more here!

Progress on the Car Loan

Well it's really nice seeing the progress bar on the car loan moving.  We are getting pretty close to to having the car half paid off.  The last couple of weeks at work had quite a bit of OT so we had a bigger that usual extra payment on the loan.

We are making an extra payment every two weeks as we get paid.  The current plan is to roll any income tax returns into the car loan payments too.

Bookstores are my crack.

We stopped on our way to  a Christmas get together tonight so I could buy a Secret Santa gift for a coworker.  One of the items on his list was Science Fiction.  I' m big fan of Science Fiction and decided to buy a book by one of my favourite authors right now (Richard Morgan), because I think he'll really enjoy it too.  So I'm wandering through the SF/F section of Chapters and I keep seeing books that I really want to read.

Now I've got $20 in my pocket of mad money.  I can spend it any way I want.  So after half an hour I've got 3 books in my hands.  One for the gift and two for me.  Oh, and I've got the author and title for 3 other books that I will look for at the library.  And I start thinking...

One of the books is by Neal Asher who is a great writer and I love his stuff.  Try to buy all of his books, but the other one... good author, enjoy his stuff, but is it worth the money?  Will I be stoked about buying the book after I finish reading it?  Probably not, so after dithering, I put it back on the shelf.  Then I put the other book back too, it's a lot easier after putting the first book back.

I'll see about getting these two books from the library as well.  I'll enjoy reading them just as much as if I had bought them, and I'll still have the $20.  If I can't find them at the library, I'll check the local used book stores for the Neal Asher book.  

Bookstores are a weakness for me.  I used to go in once every few months and spend $50 - $ 100.  I didn't do it too often and I deserved it, right?  

These days, I try to stay out of bookstores.  If I go in, I try hard not to give in to spending money.  

Paying off our debts means making choices every day and choosing not to spend money.

Good luck with your choices!

Changes

Wow, it has been a while since I have updated this blog.

I think that was mostly because I didn't really have much new to say.  Everything kept ticking over and paycheque by paycheque we were reducing our debts.  

Along the way we learned that our Chevy Venture minivan had a major frame rust problem.  Our mechanic said that we had maybe a year.  At that point we stopped putting our extra Snowball savings against the debts and began to stock pile a car purchase fund.  We didn't expect to save enough to buy a car, but we wanted to have a good chunk for a down payment.  The side effect of this was that we were only making the minimum payments on the debts so the debt repayment slowed down a lot.

Well, last month we had stepped up the search for a replacement car.  We stopped by a local Hyundai dealership on a Sunday to look at some of the vehicles on the lot.  We had rented a Sonata a couple of years back and liked it.  Recently, we had rented an Accent for a visit to Kingston.  Also a nice experience, although my right leg was a little sore.  By the end of the weekend I found the controls to lower the seat for a more comfortable ride.  

We wanted to look at the Elantras and see what kind of sticker prices the dealership had.  Almost the minute we got there Mrs. B. saw the Santa Fe S.U.V.'s.  She really liked the look and size, and the prices were very close to the Elantra prices.  I guess people are getting out of S.U.V.'s.  

I did some research and we went back and did a test drive of both the Santa Fe and Elantra.  The test drives went well for both vehicle, but Mrs. B. felt that the Santa Fe would be better suited to the travelling we do for the S.C.A. because of the additional storage space.

I mentioned to some friends that we were looking at buy a Santa Fe and one friend said that a coworker was selling his.  He and his wife had had a child  and wanted to move up to a larger vehicle.  Their Santa Fe was a 2006 and while they were asking for more than the 2004 we had looked at (at the dealership), it was doable.

We made them an offer.  Less than what they wanted to get, but more than we wanted to pay.  The husband said that he would have to talk to his wife about it and would let us know.

That night, the minivan started to have electical problems.  Seemed to be an intermittent short in the electrical system.  That was it.  I had it towed to a wreckers.  We were not spending another dime on it.

The next day M. emailed and accepted our offer for the Santa Fe.  

So we are now the happy owners of a new to us vehicle.  As you can see by the new side bars, with the money we had saved up, we are now at having paid off 43% of the car loan.  Our plan is to have the car paid off by August!

Marble Slab Creamery

This is a comment I left at the Marble Slab Creamery website after a visit to their Kitchener store tonight.

I had a coupon for a second cone free and took my wife as a treat for her. We had never been to one of your stores before and anticipated the experience.

When we arrived we showed our coupon and were told by the first employee to just show it at the cash register. My wife ordered a regular sized waffle cone dipped with dark chocolate. I was slower to order as I had asked to taste a flavour.

At this time the first employee did NOT inform us that the cost of the dipped cones were not covered by the two for one coupon.

I then ordered a "Big Dipper" (from a different server) in a dipped rolled cone. I asked for Praline ice cream without any "mixin".

At the cash register, I was handed my ice cream cone and gave the second server the coupon. She then told us the price was $10.00. Both my wife and I questioned her as this price was more that we expected. At this time, we were told that the coupon did not cover the additional cost of the dipped cones.

The server kept pointing in the direction of the menu board and saying that the dipped cones were extra and didn't we see it on the board. I feel that this was a disingenuous promotional technique and expressed my opinion to the server.

I was displeased, but attempted to dispute this additional charge in a civil manner. The server continued to reiterate that dipped cones were extra. I felt that it was not worth the aggravation of disputing the charge and went to pay her. At this point, I became aware that my ice cream was running down the sides of the cone and all over my hand. I had my wife pay as I tried to clean the mess up.

As we were leaving, I saw the server speaking to another server and rolling her eyes at us.

I came back and asked to speak to the manager.

After about a 3 - 5 minute wait, with ice cream continuing to drip off the cone and onto my hand and the floor, the manager appeared. I explained my concerns. The manager reiterated the server's explanation that the dipped cone not covered by the coupon. She told us continually that this was "head office" policy.

I then complained about the softness of the ice cream and the fact that it had begun to drip, no, flow onto my hand almost as soon as it was placed into my hand.

The manager explained that the Praline flavour was softer than other flavours. I asked for a replacement cone with a harder ice cream and she agreed.

Upon receiving the replacement cone, I asked my wife if she had gotten the receipt for our budgeting. She said no I asked the manager for our receipt. The manager was unable to find the receipt and rang our purchase in again to generate a new receipt. She got a price of $9.55. She tried a couple of times more to duplicate the original charge of $10. She even when back into the back to ask the server how she had gotten a price of $10.

Eventually, she refunded us the $ 0.45 that we were originally overcharged and gave us the receipt. I then asked about the sign next to the cash register that said that if you were not given your receipt immediately after you purchase was rung in, you would be given a free ice cream (or your ice cream free, I'm not sure of the exact wording).

The manager said that the policy did not apply because the server had been upset.

My wife and I were extremely unhappy with our experiences with your store. In fact, we both ended up throwing our half eaten cones in the garbage because the experience had left such a bad taste in our mouths.

We are unlikely to ever return to your stores, or recommend the experience to any of our friends.

A happy moment that I wanted to give my wife as we work together to pay our bills and get out of debt is ashes in my mouth.

CAA Resolution

After weeks of chasing around with J.A. Towing, I finally got back in touch with CAA. In speaking to the rep I learned that the tow truck driver had quit one week after damaging my van. Huhhh...

So all the time J.A. Towing was telling me that they had to speak to the driver, they already knew that the driver had quit. Colour me less than impressed.

The CAA rep asked what I was looking for. I wasn't interested in repairing the body damage, Wayne, my mechanic, has said that the van won't last out the year, and I see no reason to repair the body work if the van will be junked within the year.

I asked for tangible proof that CAA accepted responsibility for the damage that their agent had caused. When pressed for a hard figure I asked for my mimbership account to be credited for $250. I probably could of fought for more, but I didn't think it would be worth my time and effort. As it is, the credit pays for my and my wifes membership for the next two years at a time when I was very displeased with the company and thinking of dropping my membership.

The cost to CAA is minimal. The rep admitted that $250 was the amount she was allowed for an out of hand settlement and giving that as a credit means it would cost the company even less.

However, it was worth it to me for the peace of mind and being able to move forward and lead this incident behind me.

Does anyone have any recommendations about Mazda 6 station wagons? I'm shopping for a new car...