My Emergency Fund to the Rescue!!
We have been hearing a lot about emergency funds in recent months because of the state of our economy; saving money has become the new black. I think it is great that people are finally getting serious about building and emergency fund and I honestly don’t understand how people can go through life without it. It is suggested that people now have an emergency fund that’s equivalent to 6-8 months of your income. I am a total realist and understand that this is not possible in every situation and honestly it is not expected to happen overnight, but at least have a couple thousand saved up. You are probably thinking that you aren’t in the position to put money towards an emergency fund. For some, that may be true, but what about using your tax refund? Most people I know cannot wait until January 31st so they can do their taxes and get a refund. Well, instead of spending that money on clothes, a TV, or some other material items, put some of it towards your emergency fund. You can also use those extra paychecks that some receive if on a 26 weeks pay cycle and open up a Bank of America card and sign up for their Keep the Change program. Whatever you have to do, DO IT!! so you can have piece of mind and not totally freak out when problems start knocking at your door.
Our problem this month was our 2001 Nissan Altima. It is started to shake when we went over 55 mph and it was puttering. The car has over 166K miles on it and we have no intentions on buying another car, so our only alternative is to get it fixed. My husband was a little upset, but I, the cheap, frugal, penny-pinching queen, was fine. Why? Because I know we have an emergency fund and I figured the repairs would not cost more than $1,000. I was almost right; the repairs needed to FIX the car only cost $1,000, but I was able to talk them down to $900 (yeah me!!) However, of course, they found everything else under the sun that needs to be fixed which would have cost an additional $700. We did not get those repairs done yet, mainly because they are not life threatening and because I just was not mentally to prepared to pay more than $1,000 even though we have the money.
But I started thinking, what if we did not have our emergency fun, our credit cards were maxed out or cancelled because credit card issuers are closing unused cards, we only had the one car that’s not working, and can no longer get to work. Result: we take out a payday loan, (the worst thing ever invented) get fired because we could not get to work, some other problems comes up which prevents us from paying back to loan, and they take our car. I know this is an extreme situation, but it is a “very” real situation.
Thank God our emergency fund rescued us from this situation, but there are many people who are not as fortunate.
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Save Money: My Husband Will Not Give Up Cable
To keep cable or not to keep cable has been a battle in my household for maybe the past 6 months. I am all about saving money; therefore, it would not be hard to me to get rid of cable. And the majority of the shows I watch are on the local channels. The only show on cable that I was addicted to was Jon and Kate plus 8, but now that they are getting a divorce, I doubt I will be watching that show anymore. BTW, I am very saddened and disappointed about the divorce and a little upset with TLC, but I will not get into that. My husband is a sports buff and would probably have to be committed if he could not get his daily dose of ESPN. My children would probably think they were on some sort of punishment if they were restricted to watching cartoons on Saturday mornings ONLY, like the good ol’ days.
Since my husband will not let go of cable until I guess we have completely exhausted our emergency fund, wiped out our retirement funds and our house is in foreclosure, I, as usual, have to look for other ways to save money on our monthly bills. I will say that I have never paid more than $140 for my bundled cable package (phone, cable, and internet), but now that seems like too much money.
Every personal finance blog has talked about ways to reduce your cable bill, so I won’t really go into too much detail about that, but I do have my 2 cents to add.
1. Pay your bills on-time. They absolutely look at your payment history to determine if you are worthy of a discount.
2. Be nice. You always get more bees with honey.
3. Talk to the cancellation department when you are looking for a rate reduction. They have all the tricks up their sleeves and their job is to keep you as a customer.
4. Rinse and repeat. If you don’t get the price you want, hang up and call back later. The next time you call, you are likely to speak with a rep who will hook you up!!
Last week I got the hook up!
I called Comcast, ready to cancel just about everything, except the internet, but instead was only calling to cancel the phone. The lady a spoke with was very nice and asked why I wanted to cancel. I told her we were looking to save some money. So of course, she reached into her bag of tricks and pulled out the best package I have ever heard of in five years. Get this, I am now only paying $114 for extended digital cable, phone, internet, HBO and 2 DVR boxes…SCORE!! There is a catch, but not that horrible, I have to sign a contract stating that I will not reduce or cancel my package and that locks in that rate for ONE YEAR! At first, I was leery about the contract, but I figured we have a contract with our cell phone provider also and that is for two years. I have not signed the contract yet, but I will. If you don’t sign the contract, that price is only good for 6 months.
For now everybody is happy and I have avoided World War III in my house.