“December, 2007” Archive
Dec
22
I apologize for disappearing the past few days. I have a bunch of family in town and trying to blog with a little one running around is proving very difficult, if not impossible. So, I’ll be honest with myself and say that I will be back to the blog on December 26th, once all the family visitors have departed.
In the meantime, I wish you and yours a very healthy, happy and safe Christmas holiday. 2008 is right around the corner!
Dec
17
As I announced last week, I am officially living car free loving every moment of it. Living without a car is a major lifestyle change and may or may not fit with your particular lifestyle, family situation or living situation. There were a few key considerations for me, all of which pointed in the direction of living without a car.
Public Transportation to Work
First and foremost, I needed to have reliable and accessible public transportation to work. Luckily I have several bus lines literally steps from my apartment, two of which connect to a bus that takes me directly to my place of employment; the other provide connections that could also get me to work in a jam.
So, from a work perspective, living without a car was an absolute possibility.
Access to Car Sharing and Other Alternatives
Although the ultimate goal is to live without a car, I knew there would be those occasions where I would absolutely need a car. Family visits, emergency trips to the veterinarian, doctor visits to areas not served by public transport would all require access to a car. To solve that problem, I decided I would use a combination of car sharing and rental cars as these situations come up.
Luckily Seattle has a very extensive car sharing network through Flexcar, several of which are within walking distance of my apartment. In addition, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which offers 50% of weekend rentals, has several locations nearby; they even pick you up.
Access to Parks, Grocery Stores, Restaurants, Banks Etc.
Fortunately, I live in a neighborhood that is very walkable in that most of what I need in terms of services is within walking distance of my apartment. If you are curious about the ‘walkability‘ of the neighborhood you live in, you can check out Walkscore.com. It is a great site and I used my own walk score to determine whether or not I could live without a car. My neighborhood scored an 85 out of 100, which according to Walkscore’s scoring definitions, indicates I could absolutely live without a car; I would agree with their assessment.
These aren’t the only considerations when contemplating a life without a car but they were the most important factors in my decision to go car-free, other than the obvious savings each month.
Regardless of whether or not living without a car is the right choice for you, I would encourage everyone to make better use of public transportation. Since using the bus as my primary transport, I have found myself to be A LOT less stressed out and my days are clearly more structured.
Dec
14
Well just when I thought the shuffling with my AMEX collection accounts couldn’t get any crazier, I got the following letter in the mail yesterday (edited to protect my identity of course):
Dear Madam or Sir:
As of Tuesday, December 11, 2007 your case will be considered closed. ARAG has terminated their contract with us effective immediately and we are no longer able to represent you. We at XXXX,YYYY and ZZZZ would like to thank you for the opportunity of having represented you. Your file will be stored by our office.
Please let us know if you need a copy of your file.
Sincerely,
XXXYYYZZZ Office
You can imagine my surprise upon getting this letter, given that I was told just days before that progress was being made. Well, it looks like the shuffling will continue as I now have to find another attorney to handle these matters and essentially start all over again with the collection agencies. Truth be told, there are all new agencies handling my accounts at this point, so maybe this is actually a blessing in disguise.
I will keep everyone updated once I find a new attorney and what the strategy will be going forward.
Dec
14
In a post from many months ago–time flies when you are paying off debt–I mentioned I would moving to a car free lifestyle, free of car payments, insurance payments and the expense of $3.50 gallons of gasoline. Well, I am happy to announce that as of December 7th, I am officially living without a car and I couldn’t be happier about it.
In terms of dollar savings, I should save close to $600 per month, net of any FlexCar usage each month:
| Expense Item (Monthly) | Amount |
| Car Payment | $464.61 |
| Insurance | $89.00 |
| Gas Purchases | $175.00 |
| FlexCar Usage | ($125.00) |
| TOTAL MONTHLY SAVINGS | $603.61 |
In addition to the ‘direct’ savings every month, I think there will be many ‘indirect’ dollars saved as a result of living car free. What I mean by ‘indirect’ is that there will be no impulse buys or overbuying at the grocery stores since I will have to carry my groceries on the bus or walk from the store; I’ll only have room for what is on my list. In addition, I expect to eat out a lot less as a result of not having a car. The bottom line is that living without a car should really jumpstart my effort to create and live on a budget, build back an emergency fund, and get current on my student loans (I had fallen a month behind or so in recent months).
I’ll be talking more about my choice to live without a car, including my thoughts about whether a car free lifestyle may be right for you and what resources are available to help you decide. In the meantime, I’ll be happily riding the bus and living a more structured life going forward.
Dec
13
With the heart of the Holiday season rapidly approaching (or in some cases already over), gift giving and the expense of gift giving can often be a problem for folks. I know holiday spending was an issue for me, particularly when my illness wasn’t being treated properly.
This week’s poll poses the question: How Will You Pay for Your Holiday Shopping? With debit cards now providing much of the same purchase protection as credit cards, I’m curious to see if the majority of folks will use credit cards rather than debit cards. Next week’s poll will likely look at the question about how much do you spend and will have a spin associated with the answers to this week’s poll.
Dec
13
The Debt-O-Meter is updated to reflect the latest and greatest status. I had hoped to be a little farther along than I am, but I did unfortunately have some expenses associated with turning in my leased car that I hadn’t anticipated so I couldn’t put as much toward the debt repayment as I would have liked. Regardless, I am still making significant progress and given that I now have fixed, low/zero interest payments for all the accounts the balances should drop even faster.
Dec
12
As you might imagine, my Christmas shopping will be very limited but not non-existent this year. I will be getting a few, select things for my daughter for her to enjoy this Christmas, including a contribution to her college fund held at Vanguard.
That said, I realize some of you are in a better spot financially at the moment than I am and may still be Christmas shopping. Here are some sites I have found useful in the past and present:
Price Comparison Sites:
Bargain & Cash Back Sites:
Once again, the Nintendo Wii appears to be the most desired electronic gizmo this holiday season. Finding on in stock at any of the online retailers appears to be very difficult. Checking the sites constantly can be a source of frustration and wasted effort. Well, it looks like there might be a solution to that problem.
There is a site called WiiTracker, that purports to show the real-time availability of Wii at a plethora of online retailers. There is even an RSS feed available so you can get updates on retailers that have the Wii in stock via RSS.
Good luck with the remainder of your shopping and please be responsible when using your credit cards this holiday season 
Dec
11
Well, I added some new posts and updates to the site and also made some changes to my hosting Control Panel. It appears I effectively disabled my site and I didn’t notice until this afternoon. Everything appears to be fixed and I will have an update to the Debt-O-Meter tonight; one more call to make.
Dec
11
As I mentioned in my previous post, my accounts with AMEX are still unresolved at this point, after several months of negotiations with the original collection agencies. The offers that were being made were between 50% and 60% of the original balances, with the condition that my credit report have no negative reporting associated with these accounts.
Unfortunately, before the collection agencies could respond, AMEX pulled the plug on Collection Agency A and sent the accounts along to Collection Agency B. This month, while my attorney once again sent out an offer letter, AMEX pulled the plug yet again and sent one account to Collection Agency C, another to Collection Agency D and the third and smaller account to Collection Agency E.
I’m not exactly sure what the strategy is exactly for AMEX, other than the fact that they seem fairly uninterested in negotiating–or having someone else do it for them–at this point.
All the shuffling between Collection Agencies doesn’t really impact me for the time being as my legal plan covers the entire matter. It does seem to be a fairly wasteful process on both sides, but I think AMEX would rather keep pressing me for full repayment as they know I work for a relatively stable company and have a regular income. What they don’t seem to grasp is just how tight and dire my finances really are at this point, i.e. full payment isn’t possible or it would have been done in the first place.
As the end of the year rapidly approaches–and many companies close out their fiscal year–I can’t help but think that the collection agencies might show some renewed interest. After all, they too have books to close for the year!
Dec
10
I usually don’t pay much attention to my blog stats, particularly because my Page Views have been so low over recent months thanks to my lack of posting.
That said, there are two stats that I finally paid some attention to that have me very encouraged and excited to get back to delivering some good content to folks:
- Google Page Rank - 3/10
- 100+ Readers via Feedburner
I know these are small milestones, but having 100+ subscribers is a major milestone in my opinion, particularly given the lack of posting on my end. So, I am going to formally set two goals for the site in 2008:
- Have 750 or more subscribers via Feedburner
- Google Page Rank of 5/5
The plan to achieve this is quite simple….Content, Content, Content!
