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Home > Archive: April, 2012

Archive for April, 2012

Why yes, I *would* like my money back.

April 29th, 2012 at 06:10 pm

Last year (in April) I had the mystery bill from a local hospital I never went to (and posted about it

Text is here and Link is http://bennkar.savingadvice.com/2011/04/30/medical-mysteries-garage-doors_68817/
here) and then I had to fight with them to get them to submit the correct type of procedure they did to the my insurance. All the time I was getting bills saying I had to pay or they would report this to the credit bureaus and send this to a collection agency (basically threatening me).

Once they filed it properly my insurance had me pay a co-payment, which made no sense as it was part of the procedure done at a doctor's office. At that point I didn't care any more and paid it, happy to let it go. Now just two weeks ago I get a letter from the insurance saying I shouldn't have been required to make a copayment and they went and paid the hospital my $25 copayment.

Of course the hospital didn't send any reimbursement of the copayment. I knew that would happen, so again another call to the hospital this Wednesday where I get "Oh, you'd like the money back? Sure we can do that." however, what goes through my mind is to say "No, actually I like paying extra, don't you?" GRRRR.... I just say "yes", and leave it at that.

Funny how their systems work great one way and not the other. Ugh. Oh well, I guess I should be happy about the extra money.

The end is near (actually it arrives tomorrow)

April 24th, 2012 at 03:42 am

Well ... the end of my debts arrives tomorrow. Admittedly I've had enough free cash to pay it off for a few months now, but tomorrow its official - my last outstanding debt balance goes buh-bye. My free cash has been dropping slowly the past few months as I've paid this off before the 0% promotion runs out, but next month its going to start building back up. Debt burning par-tay anyone?

On other financial news and notes, this past month I went and swapped my homeowner's insurance. The difference was amazing, the change saved me 50% with no change in coverage. They had been raising the rate the last few years, but I had enough this go-around. I guess they figure people don't want to change, so they up it whenever you renew. Ugh.

I have here a letter from Bank of America for one of my (many) credit cards. Apparently they felt that sending me all of these "offers" where they send "courtesy" checks wasn't enough. Now they sent a four page letter where they itemize every single offer previously sent, each listing the promotion codes, start and end dates, and APRs involved before and after the end dates. I guess my cutting up these checks and burning them wasn't good enough to indicate my feelings about them. Oh, and how many offers do they show? Try 17. Hey guys - here's a thought - if you're not making enough money on me, how about stop wasting your money on these mailings. No wonder these banks aren't making money - .

Oh, and lastly - yard sales are starting up. I didn't get much for me last weekend. A pair of sneakers that once I steam cleaned at home look like new was my main purchase at $2 - Amazon has them for $50. I did make a better score for the girlfriend. She asked about finding a reel mower a few weeks back. I found one used once (yes it was dusty and looks brand new) for $20 - Amazon price is $140 - so she's a happy camper now.

Enjoy the summer (once this cold front moves out of the area!)

After one year, its time to DRIP it.

April 7th, 2012 at 03:32 am

On the way home tonight I realized its now been over a year using the Magicjack for my phone service, saving me a little over $200 for the past year on phone charges. The last time I made that type of an ongoing savings (dropping my unneeded trash pickup a number of years ago...) I decided I needed to start investing the saved money.

Now with the phone savings, I decided its time to add it to the trash pickup savings. Tonight I've changed my monthly DRIP amount to account for the phone savings. It will now be titled the Phone-Trash DRIP account (aka, the PTDRIP). With this extra money, it should start growing at a nice clip.

Also a few days ago I got to see my 457 plan amount cross the $200k barrier, though now its dropped down below it again. Frown

And finally, this is it - the month will be the last payment to wipe out the credit card balance that was used for the car purchase. When that's done, no more debts, unofficial or otherwise.

Now its time to go celebrate, or at least check out this week's yard sales.