Finance Gets Personal

You’ll recall that I sent a long letter to CVS after a particularly bad couponing experience there last month.

Here is the letter I received in response yesterday:

Dear Ms. Finance Girl,

Thank you for your letter regarding the service you received when redeeming coupons at the City, ST, CVS/pharmacy.

We appreciate the time that you have taken to express your thoughts on our company. At CVS, customer input plays an important role in influencing how we run our business. Therefore, I have advised __________, District Manager of your comments. He will be addressing this matter with the Store Manager and making sure that all staff members are familiar with our coupon acceptance policies.

If you have any other issues with the store accepting your coupons, please ask for a member of the management team so they can address the issue immediately at the store.

Again, Ms. Finance Girl, we appreciate the fact that you have taken the time to inform us of your concerns and have given us the opportunity to address them. CVS has a commitment to service. Each customer is valued, and we thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Sincerely,
Jackie
Customer Service Representative

Seems like a form letter to me, but at least I got a response. Even if that response is basically, “you should have asked for the store manager.”

My sister had her first Financial Peace University class on Thursday, and there were over 30 people there!

Her husband went with her, and is apparently on board. They are already halfway through baby step 1 ($1,000 emergency fund).

She says that there was only one or two other young couples there, but the other older couples praised them for coming to their senses so soon!

So, I’m quite optimistic about the whole thing.

Got an email from my sister today, and she signed up for Financial Peace University.

Actually, she said “we signed up,” so I’m hoping that means her husband is going to go too.

She found a church closer to their apartment that’s offering the class, so they signed up for that one instead of the one at my parents’ church - probably a good idea, and maybe one that helped get her husband to play along.

She did mention that she needs some help paying for it, so I’m thinking about offering $50 (half the cost). If my dad pays the whole amount for some reason, I’ll just tell her to use the extra $50 to help get caught up on the bills.

I hope FPU works for them!

I can’t believe I am becoming the person that calls my sister at 9:30 on a Monday night to bug her about signing up for Financial Peace University. I’ve always been a pretty hands-off type of person. I figure, if someone wants my advice, they’ll ask for it.

But that’s getting harder and harder for me.

A few weeks ago, I found out my 24-year-old, recently married sister has $30,000 in credit card debt. About $10,000 is hers, and $20,000 is her husband’s. She also has a deferred student loan payment of about $150/month, and her husband’s deferred student loan payment is over $500/month (WTF? I went to a more expensive school and my payments were only $122/month!).

Apparently, my brother-in-law hasn’t been paying his bills and gets collection calls daily. My sister wasn’t even aware he had any credit card debt until after they got married (”Well, did you ask him?” “Well, no.”). Apparently, my dad (remember, the guy with lots of debt himself and an untreated termite problem?) has been paying my sister’s $200-$300/month credit card payment, cell phone bill and who knows what else.

Needless to say, I’m worried. And I told her so last week, after I saw that my parents’ church was going to be offering Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University classes. I asked if she was going, and she said she might, but that she didn’t think her husband would be able to go because of his work schedule.

Apparently, they’ve met with the minister before about their financial problems, and he’s referred them to a financial advisor. I told her there’s no way I would pay a financial advisor to help me get out of debt, and she said that she’s looking into free options for people with low incomes and a lot of debt. “Those are credit counselors,” I said, “and you don’t want to go to one of those either - they’ll ruin your credit score.”

Then she mentioned she’d also been considering getting some paperwork together and seeing a lawyer about the possibility of bankruptcy. Needless to say, this nearly made my head explode.

“You are not bankrupt!”

I told her she really, really needed to go to Financial Peace University.

Then tonight, I called her to see if she had signed up yet. And to tell her that what I really wanted them to go - as my birthday present. That I would even help pay for it (apparently my dad has already offered to pay as well).

But her husband doesn’t want to go to any “classes” or “seminars.” Oh, he’ll go to credit counseling or file for bankruptcy, but he doesn’t want to give up one of his nights off work to attend some class at church.

“So go by yourself,” I told her. “Or tell him to come with you to the first class, and if he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t have to come back.”

I think I convinced her to sign up. But I’m sure it’s probably going to lead to a fight with her husband.

But you know what? I’m also becoming the type of person that doesn’t care.

It’s only February, but that hasn’t stopped me from planning the craziest garage sale this subdivision has ever seen!

We made about $300 and got rid of a ton of old stuff in our first-ever garage sale last June.

This summer, I’m hoping to make at least $500 by getting rid of a ton of NEW stuff: My CVS/Walgreens stockpile.

I found a nifty little wiki at SlickDeals.net that shows how much money people successfully charged for common stockpile items in their summer garage sales. Based on the wiki, I figure I can easily charge the following prices for the new items I get for free at Walgreens and CVS:

Toothpaste: $1.00
Toothbrush: $1.00
Shampoo/Conditioner: $1.00
Body Wash: $1.50
Razors/Refills: $3.00
Medicine: $1.00
Deodorant: $1.00
Nail Polish: $1.00
Makeup: $1.00-$2.00
Sample-Size Items: $0.25-$0.50
Plug-In/Wax Candle Air Fresheners: $1.50
The Bigger/Nicer Candle Air Fresheners: $3
Cleaning Items (Windex, Scrubbing Bubbles, etc.): $1.50

Even though Christmas nearly exhausted my stockpile (my stepson gave some interesting gifts this year), I figure I’ve accumulated at least $100 toward my $500 garage sale goal since then.

I can’t wait to see the looks on people’s faces when they discover that the stuff I’m selling isn’t half-empty or expired, but brand new! “Damn rich people - selling stuff they haven’t even used yet.”

Yup, I am the crazy person that collects coupons to acquire free things to sell in garage sales to help pay for trips to Europe.*

Makes you think about coupon ladies a little differently, huh?

*Alternately, to help pay for ramen noodles

Photo Credit: Ninjas vs. Pirates Garage Sale! by Steve Rhodes, used under Creative Commons licensing.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any - enjoy!

Courtesy of someecards.com:

We still don’t know if my husband will get laid off, but now we know when we can stop not knowing:

March 12.

Apparently, his manager said this is when the layoffs will be announced, and she’s been given a number of how many people have to go.

So, will my man get a rose? Or will he be crying in the limo on the way home?

A few posts ago, I casually mentioned the savings we have in our basement fund, new computer fund and European vacation fund.

I’m not sure how much I’ve talked about this before, so I thought I’d explain before I start looking like a complete hypocrite (wah, it’s so hard to get out of debt while remodeling your house/buying new computers/taking trips to Rome!).

First, we’ve set up a basement fund, since one of my husband’s goals is to finish the basement himself for $3,000-$4,000. We are directing $150 per paycheck to this goal.

The new computer fund is my husband’s personal account (currently, $750 in a Body Shop tin hidden in the bedroom). He’s saving part of his personal allowance/blow money each paycheck, as well as any money he gets for Christmas and his birthday. Normally, this would be something we would work toward together, but since we got his computer as a wedding present (his parents let us choose what we wanted) and my current computer is older than the one he wants to replace, well…
I only mention this fund because we could use it if he lost his job and we were desperate for cash.

The third “special” fund is the European vacation fund (my personal favorite!). For the past two or three years, my husband has secretly been saving part of his allowance/blow money to take the family to Europe for my 30th birthday next year (well, not too secretly - I knew the account existed, but I only knew that he was saving for some special “surprise”). By the time we take the trip (probably Spring 2010), he’ll have $4,000 saved. Now, I know this doesn’t seem like enough to take three people to Europe, which is why we’ve also started working credit card-frequent flier magic, which should completely pay for our flights (more on this newest hypocrisy in an upcoming post). We’re thinking of visiting parts of England, France and Italy for two weeks.

So, those are the “secret” funds! We’re going to continue to contribute to them as long as they don’t get in the way of regularly scheduled programming. And, you can be sure that I’ll be looking for advice on visiting three of the most expensive cities in the world (London, Paris and Rome) on the cheap!

Last week, after news that my husband might get laid off, I prepared an “oh shit” budget.

As in, “oh shit, we lost half our income” budget.

It’s actually not as bad as I thought it would be.

If he gets laid off, we can continue paying our mortgages, car insurance, life insurance, utilities and telephone bills, and also manage to buy groceries and household products (hooray!). However, we will no longer be able to save for retirement (or anything else), pay extra on our debts, go out to eat (though we rarely do that now), buy new clothes, give gifts, pay for before- and after-school care (which we would no longer need), contribute to our health care flexible spending account, subscribe to the newspaper, subscribe to Netflix or have cable and Internet service.

The good news is he’s eligible to receive six months of severance pay and health insurance. He’s also eligible for seven months of unemployment.

So our plan is to cut everything to the bare minimum and live off my income while he looks for a job. If he found a new job after six months, we’d have about $38,000 in savings by then! After six months, his company would stop paying his and my stepson’s health insurance, so we’d use the seventh month of unemployment benefits to cover that cost. Anything longer than seven months would require us to dip into savings to cover their health insurance premiums (I can get health insurance for them through my employer, but we’d be responsible for 100% of the cost).

And if he found a job right away - well, that would be awesome, because we could use his six months of severance pay to pay off the second mortgage!

I’m feeling *much* less panicky.

It also helps that he got an excellent performance review at work last week. His boss even said he’s his most valuable employee! Good news! (Unless the boss gets the axe, of course.)

In other news, I still haven’t heard back from CVS (hello?), I still have my in-laws’ vacuum (getting dusty?) and I’d be done with my taxes if I weren’t waiting on the interest statement from my second mortgage (hurry, before I start procrastinating!).