Finding Freedom

To anyone who has a sweet tooth and is looking to save money, today is your lucky day.

Ben and Jerry’s ice cream parlors across the nation are giving away free ice cream cones today.

I don’t know if it’s every flavor that they are giving away, but if it is, I am looking forward to enjoying some Phish Food in a just a few minutes.  That’s mm-mm good.

I have a bit of a confession.  I spent a good deal of money over the weekend on some things that I certainly shouldn’t have spent a good deal of money on. 

I’m a bit disappointed because I thought that I was past these little spending splurges, and looking back now, I can’t help but think how much better that money could have been spent paying down some of my debt.

Sigh.  I suppose these little trips off of the savings wagon make being on the wagon that much more pleasant and pleasurable.  Let’s hope that I remember that next time.

First off, I want to say welcome to those who are coming over from MillionaireArtist.  It was very kind of her to mention me, and I hope that you find something worth reading over here.  You can go here to get a snapshot of how I’m doing financially right now, you can check out this post where I briefly discuss my last acting job, and you can take a look at a little bit of helpful advice I’ve discovered when making credit card payment

Secondly, I’ve decided to spend a little bit of time on Fridays to point out four blog posts from the personal finance community that stuck out to me in the last week.  I hope that they will stick out to you as well.

Flexo over at Consumerism Commentary brings up the question Should High Schools Require Money Management Classes?. 

Yet Another Blog about Money amusingly gives his opinions on How Men Should Dress.

Katie at Aridni explores the dichotomy of time and money in her article Time vs. Money — Picking your Assets.

And finally, Erik over at Money Crashers gives Four Ways to Get Out of Debt Before Christmas.

With the basic premise of this site being that I have been bad with money in the past, I am generally loathe to reveal many more deficiencies within my personality.  This is partially due to the fact that I try to present myself as a generally reasonable person, and, while one or two flaws that I’m working on make me seem kind of like a boring modern day Odysseus, I fear that revealing any more than that will make your mind’s eye view me more and more like this.

However, last night, in dealing with a very personal issue, I realized that it had something to do with personal finance, and that I should probably post about it here.  That very personal issue was that my room is pretty dirty.

Hello.  My name is Steven, and I am a messy, messy person.

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I spent the weekend at home with my parents and grandparents.  It was wonderfully relaxing, and, as most weekends spent at home often are, it was full of delicious food.

One thing that my parents and I talked about was the fact that I was a little worried about my car, as it seemed to have a slow oil leak.  My parents suggested that, before my car got too much worse, I should trade my car in while it still had some trade in value and get either a used or new car that didn’t have that problem.

This got me thinking.  While it would certainly be exciting to have a new car, I didn’t think that the prospect of having another set of bills to pay would be the best choice given my current situation.  I don’t think that the situation with my car is serious enough to warrant getting another car just yet, and I suspect that if I keep on eye on my oil level, I can keep the issue from getting out of hand.

I guess that this shows that I’m getting a little bit better with my spending.  I hope that I continue in that same direction.

Most likely if you are interested in personal financial stability, you are already a little bit wary of credit cards.  I thought that I would chime in a bit about one of my credit cards that is a pain in my butt.

I picked up my Aspire Visa a while ago, when I was still spending much more than I should have been.  When I realized how high my balance had climbed, I figured that I could just make several payments a month, and that would bring the balance down to an acceptable level (i.e. zero).  However, the kind folks over at Aspire Visa have decided that they are going to do their best to keep interest building on the credit card by using two schemes:

1)  Part of the agreement with the credit card is that the customer can only make three payments every ninety days.  This means that I can only, essentially, make one payment a month, or else I will be risking late payment fees somewhere down the line just because I was trying to pay off the darn thing.  I feel that this is especially pernicious of this company because all of my other credit cards allow me to make payments anywhere from exceptionally frequently (Discover lets me make a payment every three or four days if I want to) to reasonably frequently (My Bank of America balance transfer lets me make four payments a month).

2)  If I opt to pay online, the site charges me a fee of $4.95.  This also makes the payment process more difficult as I really don’t have the convenience/reasonable customer service option of being able to pay online, since I don’t want to give them any more money than I absolutely have to.

In short, I suspect that many of you would have looked over their customer agreement and decided not to go with them in the first place.  However, should you still be on the fence, I suggest that you go with some other credit card.

I have been cleaning out my blog roll of some folks that I really enjoyed reading, but haven’t posted in a while because my blog roll is kind of long as it is.  If you would like me to re-add you, or if you’d like me to add you in general, leave me a comment on this post, and I will likely be glad to do so.

I received a letter in the mail a few days ago that said that I didn’t get into the top, and only, grad school that I applied to.  I am disappointed.  However, I know that because I won’t have to worry about school come fall, I can continue to work at my day job and earn good money for another year.

While this makes life not as exciting as it could be, I think that it’s probably for the best for me, at least for right now.  Next year, though, boy, let me tell you, I’m getting in by hook or by crook.

Anybody know any burglars? 

So here I am, trying to be a reasonable person and pay down my credit card bills, and the credit card companies (I’m looking at you Chase and Providian), after I make large-ish payments to them, decide that they are going to cut my credit lines.  While this makes good sense from a business standpoint for them (as I have obviously not had the best spending track record in the past), I can’t help but think that their cutting my credit lines is going to hurt my credit score, as my ratio of balance to credit limit is going to be higher.

When I noticed that Chase did this, I gave them a call right away, and they re-instated my credit line.  However, when Providian did this to me the other day, I called and they said that I needed to wait for a statement in the mail that would explain why it had happened.

I’m still pretty dead set about paying off the balances of all of my cards, but it’s discouraging to see that even though I’m doing my damndest to lower my balances and, therefore, to improve my credit score, it seems like the companies are doing their damndest to see that my credit score goes in the toilet.  Has anyone experienced anything like this with credit card companies?  Do I have any recourse?

Here’s my networth update for March.  I know that it’s a bit premature, but I’ve already paid all of my bills for March, so I thought that I’d stick the numbers in early, so that I could see where I am at.