Greetings! I hope all you happy goblins out there have a great Halloween today. We’ve got major festivities at work and free lunch! I expect to be sugar high later, so let me update you now.

I did great with the challenge by eating leftovers and really cheap lunches. I did raid my home piggy bank because a side trip to the bank just wasn’t happening.

However, ultimately, the challenge was a failure. A friend of mine I hadn’t seen in about 3 years came into town for dinner. I dragged boyfriend out of the house and we all ate at Granville Moore’s. I figured since it’s a newer restaurant, my out of town friend could rave to his friends that they have to check it out when they visit DC. It’ll make him look hip and cool to the restaurant scene. Of course, I foisted the signature Moules Fromage Bleu on him as well and he was really thrilled with the witbiere selection. (Little did I know that weissbier is his thing. I usually see him drinking cheap Coronas while we’re camping.)

Unfortunately, Granville Moore’s is not a cheap restaurant. I held myself down to one beer, but even so, that beer was nearly $10. (But extremely delicious.) I won’t tell you how much it was, but I will say, I ended up charging it to my credit card. UGH. There are times when you throw prudence under the bus and eat heartily. (”We Eat and Drink for Tomorrow we die?” I sure hope not!)

At any rate, Halloween is for cocooning tonight and there won’t be a big night of festivities. Just some candy for the kids, TV and some handknitting I have to finish. WHOOPEE!

Who else is keeping it low-key for the holidays?

ps- My boss bought me a shirt at a thrift store for a costume I need for a skit at work. $4. I need to pay her back. I will totally repurpose/use this shirt! All other costume items are from the costume bin at home. Everyone needs one!

I knew this was coming. Earlier this year the borrower was late on a payment for the second time, so I decided to ping him with an email asking if everything was ok since he was late again. He said things were tough but he made his payment and brought his account current.

I wasn’t sure if I should send him another email once his loan started to fall seriously behind. I mean, I used to work professionally in Accounts Receivable and I HATED making collections calls. But they were darned effective. So was sending out invoices on brightly colored paper with a red rubber ‘past due’ stamp to major investment houses. You’d think places with over $100 million in assets under management could pay a $25K invoice on time, but I guess not. But I digress into the financial mismanagement of professional money managers for incidents 10 years ago. That has absolutely nothing to do with today’s current economic conditions. Nope. None.

I just wasn’t sure if I was crossing some line of etiquette in Prosper by emailing him on a personal basis to put myself and my loan at the top of his payment queue.

At any rate, due to the charge off, I’ve netted about zero returns for the total amount invested in loans. I’m up 3 cents! I’ve spent about $275 on transfers into Prosper. I’ve pulled out $30 and my remaining loans are worth $245.03. I hope the rest of the loans don’t have any further problems. So far so good, I’ve only had this one problem loan. The E grade loan is still current and none of my remaining loans have ever had a late payment.

I decided to pull out the $30 for a few reasons.
1) Prosper is in a quiet period and I don’t think new loans are being originated.
2) $30 isn’t enough for a minimum bid anyway.
3) I can add that money to my Save-O-Meter balance because I wasn’t including Prosper in that, but it is in my net worth calculations.

We shall see if I feel comfortable putting any more money into Grade A loans only after the quiet period ends. If interest rates from banks stay very low, I might go for safe 7-8% loans for kicks. (We’re still talking about potentially less than $500 total for a fun experiment in diversification and trying something new. So far, it’s cost me nothing but lost interest in other savings vehicles and things could turn around if all the remaining loans pay out without a problem.)

I had a conversation this morning with a co-worker from around Scranton. He said to me that if only the Eagles could win now that the city’s curse has been broken. I said, that would be cool, but very sad. The only person I know with a PSL for the Eagles was my friend, JB, who was killed earlier this year. It would be ironic if they won now in the first season after his death.

All the same, I’m still very happy today. I’ll never care for the Nationals. I was more of an Orioles fan having gone to games at Camden Yards in college and watching Cal Ripken’s penultimate game. (I still have his bobblehead doll.) But deep, deep, down, I will always like the Phillies. I remember Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt, Tug McGraw and the last time they won. Today is a great day!

I get paid on Friday. I have $69.23 left in my checking account. It’s been that way since Monday night.

I wanted to use the rest of the money to buy much lunches this week (with lunch provided on Halloween) and top off my gas tank. Boyfriend bought me half a tank on Sunday because I bought dinner for us the night before.

But if I wanted to transfer that balance to my short term savings, would it be cheating on the challenge if I empty my piggy bank of dollar bills to make it to pay day? Not sure.

This barely has anything to do with personal finance, except at the end where this year’s expenditure on knitting is listed. Scroll to the last paragraph if you want to know what a bad spendthrift I’ve been or not.

All my current shawls are shedding. This annoys me at work. I like a pretty shawl to keep me warm in the office, but I need one that doesn’t leave hair all over my clothes. My own hair does that enough. It’s also kind of depressing to watch my clothes rub against my shawls, fluff them up, and cause them to shed. I have in mind to knit one just for the office. And I know what I’ve got queued up. I just have to get through my current Works In Progress (WIPs).

Right now, I’ve got two items in progress. One is a red wool/silk blend shawl in a lace pattern that I’ve been trying to complete for nearly four years. How do I know it’s been four years? Because that’s the date on the pattern magazine! I really botched the pattern and stowed it away, unable to look at the disaster I had created. Finally I summoned the chutzpah to rip it out, much to the chagrin of my knitting friends. You must realize there are knitters who are crazy OCD and will rip back an entire sweater (1 stitch for 100’s of rows) and fix one single mistake. Me, I’m not like that. I’m much more laid back about mistakes because I’ll let them cripple the completion of the project if I fret over them too much, which is why this project lay dormant for years. Finally, I could not bear the number of mistakes in the lace pattern and ripped the shawl out to start over again under the tutelage of more experienced lace knitters. It’s going MUCH better now.

The other item in progress is a baby blanket for my pregnant cousin. It’s the same structure as the red lace shawl, but no lace pattern. I think that’s too frou frou for the boy she’s having. I’m glad that it’s going to take about 4-5 skeins of something I’ve had in my boxes for years. I bought 17 balls of this yarn on deep discount while I was still working for a yarn shop. (We’re talking about $6.50 a skein for something that usually costs about $13.50. I looked up the price on Quicken.) Without the cost of labor, this is one of the cheapest baby blankets I’ve ever made. (Except the one I made with free yarn, that was a gift for someone this year.)

Knitting is my soothing hobby. I swore to spend less on my hobby and buy less yarn in 2008. I skipped out on the big yarn festivals this year and it shows. I have bought only $18 of supplies for knitting, a new needle for the baby blanket and some ring markers. I have used up a good amount of yarn on this year’s projects, so I’m pleased about that. I’ll be giving some away soon to an old friend who moved back to Ohio where the cost of living is cheaper. That should help thin out my yarn bins permanently. I’ve got so much right now, that I think I could continue my yarn moratorium into 2010 or beyond. (FWIW, my 2007 expenditure was less than $400, while the previous two years topped out over $1000 both years. Of course, that includes taking some classes and workshops and NY Sheep and Wool Festival attendance.)

It’s $180.71.

That’s the tally for 2 Maidenform bras and two pairs of jeans (Buffalo by David Bitton and Lucky). (Who the heck is David Bitton?) And that was on SALE. EEK. Macy’s was having a fall sale on clothes and so the bras were a good deal. I got them for 40% off their original price of $32 each. There was some sort of regular sale and then boyfriend put it on his Macy’s card for me so I could get an additional 15% off. (Without me having open my own card. YAY!)

The jeans were almost a complete lost cause. I’ve been watching too many fashion makeover shows lately. Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style is having a subtle influence on me. I know my body is heavier and my old clothes aren’t cutting it. There have been a few abortive attempts at buying new clothes while I worked inside a mall, but no luck.

I’ve been aware that my going out clothes are dated, or a little too style-specific. I’d like nothing better than to toss on a pair of jeans and a flashy top, but flashy usually means dry clean only. You can only get so far in hipster t-shirts. And I hate the baby-doll look. Empire waists are not for me.

I was taken aback by jeans over $50, but I was desperate. I’m getting middle-aged and a little paunchy. Low rise jeans are not my thing, but I have been hard-pressed to find anything else out there that is fashionably cut. I can get away with low rise cuts and godbless my ex-boyfriend who told me that it’s kind of a style to have a ‘muffin top’ of fat over the waistband, but I will concede I am larger than I was 2 years ago and it’s time now for some jeans that *actually fit*.

I get annoyed quickly from clothes shopping. And we almost walked out without trying anything on. In the women’s department denim sizes were marked on transparent stickers with black small font print stuck on dark denim. Excuse me? But why does the men’s department have *clearly marked* sizes? I swear, they want to make me blind through this excruciating process on top of feeling dejected. After combing through a few piles of jeans I ended up trying on 4 pairs and walking away extremely pleased with the fit of the Lucky brand jeans. They’re nice enough to wear to work and sit all day for 10 hours, but cute enough to wear for the evening. The other pair is strictly for fun.

I resent having to pay $140 for two pairs of jeans. Only one pair was on sale before the 15% discount for using the store card.

Why is it that you can’t find 28″ inseam jeans anymore? The petite stuff was ridiculously short. I’m probably still going to have to hem these fancy jeans, but I already the own gold thread for doing this, so it’s pretty easy.

What about you? What’s your price for vanity?

ps- There was no black denim available and I never wear dirty denim. I find the yellow cast on dirty denim to be disgusting and nauseating.

I took the car in yesterday for my state emissions and inspection with a side of oil change and tire rotation. I also asked them to check out a rattle that has been driving nuts for weeks. We couldn’t quite tell where it was coming from, just somewhere on the passenger side.

Let’s review:
It’s a 2001 Nissan Altima with over 130,000 miles.
It’s 8 years old, less 19 days. (Picked it up November 2000)
I’ve replaced the clutch once around 91,000 miles.
It still runs really peachy.
It’s got a spot of rust from a hit and run accident.
It’s never had the windshield changed.
I used to have the oil changed religiously every 3000 miles.
Now I wait till at least 4000 have passed.
I put excellent tires on it the last time and I can feel the difference when I drive it in the rain or cornering at speed. ZOOM!

My girlfriends are shocked the windshield has never been broken by flying gravel. Considering how much I’ve driven on crappy, carved up, rough roads with lots of gravel, I’m amazed too. I’m thinking of having the windshield changed just so I don’t have to squint at night through chips and divots that prevent a perfect view. I can’t decide if I should wait till it actually breaks though. I swear it’s coated with titanium.

Someone at the office has a really old Honda Accord. It dates to the 1990’s. His A/C is out and the transmission has been wonky through the summer. He figured he’d replace it in the spring after he spent some time researching a new car. Not a bad strategy since he doesn’t need A/C over the winter. But alas, his plans got thwarted earlier this week when the transmission died. It’ll cost him $1200.00, which is more than the car is worth. I cracked a joke that maybe he should just fix it because a car payment is more like $3600-5000 a year. Conventional wisdom says that you should not spend more to repair a car than its worth. I’m not so sure about that.

Last year I spent $4K on my car and closer to $6K. I admit two years ago was really expensive, but that was the clutch repair and I needed new engine mounts. Pretty serious stuff. I thought of selling the car then, but I dug in and decided that I’d keep it till I needed a second clutch. That would get me really close to 200,000 miles. So far this year, I think I’ve spent about $1200 on car repairs. And that’s only because of stupidly expensive brake job at the dealer. I think if I can keep my maintenance at around $1200 a year, I can keep my car for another 70,000 miles.

So what’s your threshold for buying a new or newer car? Do you follow conventional wisdom or will you fix the car till the repair costs are more than new payments for a year?

I worked from home yesterday and again today. I spent absolutely nothing yesterday because I didn’t leave the house at all. I didn’t even run to the mailbox because that would mean I’d have to put on some shoes.

This morning I took my car into the shop to get inspected, change the oil, and rotate and balance the tires. Estimated damage is about $150.00. I suffered greatly the day before because I didn’t have any caffeine in the house, so I walked back home and picked up a coffee and a lottery ticket. (Why do people at the lottery register think you’re crazy because you only want one ticket? I go for cheap thrills here. Just one please.) Less than $3 and I can still feel a low-grade headache forming.

I sold off some of my hockey tickets (5 early season games) and deposited some checks. I’m pleased because that will cover the cost of the tickets and save me the money of buying stadium concession food and Metro rides for those games. It also happens that the amount of money will cover the cost of the car repairs.

Also, I reduced my unreported liabilities this morning, or rather yesterday in the unchecked mailbox. I got a ticket from DC earlier this summer for not having DC tags on my car. Park enough in front of your boyfriend’s house and suddenly they assume you live there. I contested the ticket and the fines by their mail-in adjudication service and won. Mind you, I sent them a copy of my VA driver’s license and VA registration to prove that I’m still happily a Virginia resident. (I say unreported liabilities because I never put this onto my net worth sheet, but technically I should have.) I received a letter from DC’s Parking Ticket Adjudication Board aka ‘Hearings by Mail’ and it is my proof that I no longer owe them $200.00.

The plan today for lunch at home is leftover pasta and maybe a snack at Wendy’s on the way home from the dealership. I wish I could have spent no money two days in a row, but que sera sera. I’m glad to have one true No Spend Day this month.

As much as I love Quicken, I like finding free online tools I can suggest to my personal finance counseling clients. While browsing resources for counselors, I found the Utah State University Extension site PowerPay.

Basically it’s a no-frills debt management program that allows a person to enter their debts and interest rates and develop a Debt Snowball plan or pay off highest debts first. I think letting a person choose their preferred method is great. That will allow them to choose which method motivates them the most. Too often, I think personal finance software forces people to take the mathematically rational path, but in reality, they need to do what works for them.

Another feature that I like in PowerPay is the ability to add extra payments into the mix and select if they are periodic or one-time. After you enter them, then you can see an amortization/payment schedule and witness how to direct all your payments over time. I find other tools won’t let you include multiple extra payments like Christmas and birthday gift money, a quarterly bonus, etc. Other tools just aren’t that flexible.

Probably the best part is that you can configure your debts to have expiring introductory rates too. I find that pretty important when figuring out how to optimize payments over a long period of time. A teaser rate with a long duration can hugely influence your best plan of attack on debt repayment.

PowerPay lets you export your payment schedule to Excel and save your information from session to session. That might be a good thing to print out and remind yourself each month where you want to be. But let me stress, that it’s not a super jazzy website with a lot of features. There is an emergency fund savings feature and a loan consolidation feature as well, but I didn’t really give them a huge try since I’m not as interested in those features.

PowerPay does ask what state you are from before you begin. They do that because the Extension programs are subsidized by the USDA and they need to keep statistics about the community they serve to maintain funding levels. For a free service available to anyone with internet access, it’s a great educational tool so don’t let that be an obstacle to giving it a try if you need a free debt reduction planner.

Alrighty, with this fabulous new credit limit increase on one of my cards, I decided to shop around a bit. There’s a few things I’ve been doing lately and observations I wanted to share.

1. I have a few other credit cards, but I never charge them up. Lately I’ve been spreading things around to get rewards points/miles/what have you. I find that this is really positively one of the most annoying things ever. I prefer to ring up one card and pay off one card. I’m not going to spread stuff around again if I can help it. It’s just a dumb idea. Even though I keep a watchful eye on my balances with Quicken, I feel out of control with balances on more than 2 cards at once.

2. I started looking closely at the Balance Transfer offers out there on my cards. One card offered two offers, each with a 3% transaction fee capped at $99. Offer A was 0% till June 2009, then reverting back to standard APR of 10.99%. Offer B was 2.99% till January 2010. I did a little math on my balances and this is what I figured out:

-I have about $11K at 6.03% APR.
-It will take me about 8 months to pay that off, till about June 2009.
-I also have about $5K at 7.18% APR which is old consumer debt I put on my HELOC.
-Under Offer A, I’d be paying roughly $99 in interest and fees till June 2009.
-Under Offer B, I’d be paying roughly $437 in interest and fees till January 2010.
-But in transferring money, I can pay the minimum on the $11K balance and really attack the 7.18% APR debt first and clear that off my in 5 months.
-Transferring from one credit card to the higher limit card means I go from 87% utilization to 58% utilization, all the faster to get under the 35% utilization and improve my score.

So I figured out that it’s best for me to do these things:
-Transfer $11K to Offer B on my credit card with the high limit.
-Pay down my old consumer debt at 7.18% APR on my HELOC.
-Once I’m done with the old debt at 7.18%, then attack my 2.99% APR transferred balance.

But in actuality, I hate this plan. I want to get rid of the credit card debt first and foremost. So here’s the new goal to be carried into 2009.

Goal
Specific-Pay off transferred credit card balance
Measurable-approximately $11K
Attainable-$800 a month
Realistic-Yes, that’s about what I pay every month right now for debt servicing.
Timely-By January 2010