Irregular Payments

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No joke. Still lots o’ debt…

	Mar13′06	Mar31′07	Change
EVERYTHING We Owe
Credit Card Debts
Chase	$19,900.00	$19,973.61	$73.61
Other Debts
Home Mortgage	39,323.59	39,323.59	0.00
Low Energy Loan	16,353.31	16,353.31	0.00
Line of Credit	33,493.51	30,644.57	(2,848.94)
TOTAL Liabilities	$109,070.41	$106,295.08	($2,775.33)

BUT, at least a decent little chunk got knocked off the top. I doubt most months will see that unless the new side business takes off more substantially, but I’ll take it when I can!

It’s only been 18 days since the last update, so just doing a little end-o’-the-month cap off. And as an FYI, no, I’m not charging anything on Chase — just tacking on a bit of interest since my statement just came in.

Seventeen more days, and I get to stop dreaming in numbers… Maybe I should think about doing our taxes sometime as well!

You know, I really appreciated the simplicity of paying the bank that took over serving our mortgage via their simple online form. No need to write out a check or make a call or, well, anything other than enter any additional principal I’d like to include with this payment, click ‘Pay Bill’, and then ‘Confirm Payment’.

I generally pay the mortgage the same day as I receive the bill. I like not having to think about it and the emailed receipt allows me to not worry about whether a check actually made it or not. Plus, it’s one of our must-pays anyway, so why wait.

So this morning, I receive my bill and, like the good customer I am, hit U.S. Bank’s payment center to pay it. And what do I see at the bottom of my ‘Confirm Payment’ screen but a new line item: ‘Fees’. Just ‘Fees’. No explanation of what kind of ‘Fee’ it is; what it’s for; why I’m getting charged them now; nothing but ‘Fees’. Apparently they now want to charge me $2.50 just for the simple pleasure of paying my bill. Which, considering the the little mortgage we’ve got through them, is ridiculous - it ends up amounting to a 1+% premium on our bill. Well f&@k you very much.

They do have an automatic payment option that I can sign up for, no fees attached. But I like having the ability to easily tweak my payment if I’d want to pay an extra few bucks in principal in any given month. Fully automatic payments have always bugged me. I like the extra step, even just to remind myself that money is going out and that the payment is in the amount that I’m expecting.

So I’m stuck either having to pay to pay, via their little convenience fee or with a stamp when I mail in my payment (yes, I know, it’s just 39¢ a payment; it’s the principal of the thing damnit! ;)). Or I have to sign up for an automatic payment system that I don’t want.

Just one additional tiny but aggravating motivation to pay off everything as soon as I possibly can.

Tagged:
 » mortgage, customer service, bank fees, US Bank, annoyances, nickel and dime, death by a thousand cuts

I’ve had a fairly decent mind funk going on - probably thanks to all those out of town visitors bringing their foreign germs to invade my poor immune system - so my end of the month quasi-balance sheet ended up a few days late.

I know, I know… your week just couldn’t go on, and you were feeling lost without it.

I’m sorry. I’ll due my darnedest not to let it happen too often in the future!

So, here we go, a bunch of raw numbers to throw at you:

	Nov30′06	Dec31′06	Change
Assets
Liquid Assets
Checking	$151.16	$29.58	($121.58)
Cash	10.00	1,350.00	1,340.00
ING Orange Savings	10.92	10.96	0.04
HSBC Savings	3,587.06	3,196.17	(390.89)
Total Liquid	$3,759.14	$4,586.71	$827.57
Semi-Liquid Assets
Firstrade ROTH	$183.24	$196.74	$13.50
Firstrade SIMPLE	6,304.16	6,388.43	84.27
Wife’s Rollover IRA	45,397.61	45,626.63	229.02
Total Semi-Liquid	$51,885.01	$52,211.80	$326.79
Illiquid Assets
Our Home	$54,000.00	$54,000.00	$0.00
Our Vehicles	5,250.00	5,250.00	0.00
Gifted Property	45,000.00	45,000.00	0.00
Total Illiquid	$104,250.00	$104,250.00	$0.00
TOTAL Assets	$159,894.15	$161,048.51	$1,154.36
Liabilities
Credit Card Debts
Chase	$6,234.83	$20,625.00	$14,390.17
American Express	0.00	0.00	0.00
Total Credit Cards	$6,234.83	$20,625.00	$14,390.17
Other Debts
Home Mortgage	$39,524.72	$39,480.21	($44.51)
Low Energy Loan	16,814.63	16,700.03	(114.60)
Line of Credit	10,503.43	2,571.55	(7,931.88)
Total Other Debts	$66,842.78	$58,751.79	($8,090.99)
TOTAL Liabilities	$73,077.61	$79,376.79	$6,299.18
NET WORTH	$86,816.54	$81,671.72	($5,144.82)

And of course, a note or ten:

• Our HSBC savings took a little hit. No emergency occurred; just taking out the money set aside for buying our Xmas gifts along with another scheduled bill or two. It was fun watching that slowly creep up, but I see more non-monthly bills coming up on the calendar. So I imagine we’ll see some more retreat on that front. But then, that’s precisely what that fund is for…
• Early in December, I decided to take my chances and, in order to save a little interest expense, rolled that used portion of the line of credit over into a 4.99% interest for the life of the transfer to the Chase card. Yes, I know, it will only save a few hundred a year, but a hundred here, a hundred there, and pretty soon you’re talking about some real money. It was as painless as writing out a balance transfer check, and if Chase starts messing around with the terms, I’ll just transfer it back out.
• Received two bills from the grand renovation for just under $4,000 and, in almost the same breath (ok, not really, unless you take incredibly slow breaths… but not separated by more than a couple days), received a $5,000 bonus. People really light up when you slap down a wad of hundreds. I’m going to call it debt repayment because, well, I can and really, that’s what it was… So, four days into the year, and I’m a fifth of the way to my debt repayment goal. Good progress so far! Now if I could somehow just convince the boss to give me a big bonus every month, I’d really be cranking away at this debt!
• Yeah, that was a pretty big jump up in total liabilities, wasn’t it? Especially considering I just got through telling you I used up most of my bonus on debt repayment (or that jump would be even bigger). I warned you there were bills coming up, and right I was. C’est la vie. I’m not thrilled with the increase by any means, but I knew they were coming. And I’m expecting a few more…
• Just as a note to myself, I’m going to have to set up an alternate way to track debt repayment for that goal I made a couple days ago rather than Debt Balance on 1/1/07 less Debt Balance on 12/31/07. That way won’t quite be accurate, because the 1/1/07 Balance is missing several outstanding amounts that presumably will be arriving soon. I’m thinking I’ll just adjust that beginning one as the bills come in for anything done pre-January 1, 2007. (Thinking aloud, excuse me… ;))

Tagged:
 » debt, report card, credit cards, mortgage, investments, assets, liabilities