More PCF Loan Stuff and Stray Thoughts

On Tuesday we signed the loan paperwork and yesterday the money was in the account. It's always seems a little daunting to suddenly see an extra $20,000 in your bank. If only we didn't have to worry about paying it back.

I put through payments for the outstanding balances on the Amex and on the Visa cards. There will probably be interest charges still showing up on next months bills.

I'm wondering about the American Express card. It's a Costco membership card we got when we joined Costco. It doesn't have a fee and does pay out something like a 2% or 2.5% cash bonus once a year. I don't think we need more than one credit card though. The Visa rate is 19.99% (can you tell that I missed a couple of payments?), but the Amex rate is 26.9%!

The big thing is that we really don't shop at Costco much. I bought our better computer there last year before Christmas and Mrs. Brian bought her last pair of glasses there this summer. I think that their prices on glasses are really good. and both our vision plans only cover the first $200 for vision care. However, I really don't like shopping for groceries there because it's so hard to get out without paying $200! You save so much that it kills you! So Costco does charge a membership fee, even if the Amex is free.

I think that I will cancel the Amex and the Costco membership when we pay off the outstanding interest on the card. Any thoughts from anyone reading this?

As well as making online payments on the two credit cards, I dropped by the TD bank and deposited a cheque for $17,000 to or TD chequing account. Apparently, it won't clear until the 25th! Ouch! When it does clear we'll pay of the old consolidation loan and throw the rest at the line of credit.

We both put requests through our workplaces to change our direct deposits over to the PCF accounts as well as changing the car insurance P.A.C. over. I have to get the info for each of our life insurance policies to change their P.A.C.'s as well.

While I was at the TD I closed out our Companion Savings account. It's sat empty for more years than I care to remember, always waiting for that saving program we were going to start. Last year I started putting $40 a pay in to save for something (can't remember what now), but we never got too far with it. We'd get $100 or $200 in there and would end up using it to pay bills with.

Finally, back in October I started using it for our Freedom Account. I heard about the concept on one of the person finance blogs I was reading. The concept is promoted by Mary Hunt who wrote Debt Proof Living. Essentially, you divide any annual expenses by 12 and deposit that much each month. We had Car Maintenance, CAA, Driver Licenses, Club Memberships, pre payment for vacation. Rental Insurance at the start and have since added Cat Expenses, Health, Deductables and "the Movie Project". When you need to pay for whatever, you've already saved the money for it. Therefore less stress and worry about paying for those bills you weren't expecting. That's a bit of an oxymoron, but you understand what I mean. There's probably some reoccurring bill I've forgotten, but I set up a miscellaneous category for those!

Anyhow, I cleared out the money and closed the account. When the teller asked why I wanted to close the account I told him; "I'm moving my account to President's Choice". He didn't really seem to care.