It was only a couple weeks ago that I posted about gas being under $3 a gallon and now it is under $2 a gallon. Most gas stations around here have it at $1.99 a gallon. Since I don’t drive much now this doesn’t make much of a difference in my finances. I thought I was going to be able to make it through this month with only one fill up. I had to make a couple of extra drives though and had to get gas Monday. Gas was just a smidgen over $2 a gallon then and it cost me under $20 to fill up my car. It has been a while since I’ve been able to do that and it is a great improvement from the over $40 it was costing me this summer. With my current driving habits the cheap gas is probably saving me $10-$20 a month. That isn’t a lot but I’m still glad I have a fuel efficient car though. These gas prices will eventually go back up.
Andy Hough
What’s Your Worst Financial Habit?
Mine is procrastination. It has caused me to delay saving for retirement, looking for a job, finding better deals, etc. It affects a lot more than just my finances though. I should have aksed what is your worst habit is that affects your finances. Procrastination also causes problems with my school work, exercise,blogging, and just about every aspect of my life. That is how I had no school Wednesday and still didn’t manage to get a blog post done.
This Monday I was stressed out because I had delayed two projects until they both had to be done that day. I could have easily had them done before Monday and spared myself the stress and ordeal of working all day on them but I didn’t. You’d think I’d learn from this but that hasn’t been the case in the past. I might do a little better for a while but then I’ll start letting things slide and eventually I’m procrastinating as bad as ever. I have a lot of things I want to do but I never seem to have time to do them. I know I could do more if I would just stop wasting time putting off actual work. I’m sure there is some way to cure this habit but I haven’t gotten around to looking for the solution yet.
What's Up with Google/Feedburner?
Is anyone else’s Feedburner stats messed up? It looks like other blogs are having their stats reported correctly but mine are way off.  Last week my subscribers went from 257 to 199 overnight and then up to 292 the next day. This week they’ve gone from 278 to 174 in two days. I don’t think I’ve done anything to alienate the readers so much that they would unsubscribe in such large numbers. When I go to Feedburner my number of visits isn’t being recorded at all. I suppose it is something to do with Google absorbing Feedburner and the numbers will eventually be accurate again. The numbers aren’t really that important but it stil annoys me.
I wish Google didn’t have so much control over everything. They stripped me of my Page Rank last year and it doesn’t look like they’re ever going to restore it. I resisted putting Adsense on here for a long time but I’m sure that I can use the revenue more than Google. I’m trying affilliate links instead of Adsense this month but they’re way behind what I made from Adsense. I’ll probably put Adsense back next month. If Google is going to annoy me I might as well make some money from them.
A Somewhat Frugal Bed Purchase
We acquired a new bed over the weekend. We had been needing one for some time. Barbara Mandrell may have complained about sleeping single in a double bed but sleeping double in a double bed isn’t all that great either. There just isn’t enough room for us to both sleep comfortably in a double bed so we upgraded to a queen size bed.
We got the mattress for free from one of my GF’s coworkers. Her coworker didn’t like it because it was too firm. It is definitely firm but I can sleep fine on it and the price was right. My days of hiking and sleeping on a wooden floor with just a thin sleeping pad under me have changed my perception of how soft a sleeping surface needs to be.
Although we got the mattress for free we still needed a new frame and foundation. We were hoping that the frame we were using for the double bed might be adjustable but no such luck. We went and bought a frame fairly cheap at Sam’s Club and then bought the foundation at Big Lots. We still needed bedding since the double size sheets wouldn’t fit the queen bed. While shopping for those we found a bed frame that also doubled as a foundation. Since it was cheaper than the foundation alone we bought it and now have to return the frame and foundation we had already purchased. Kind of a hassle but worth it for the savings.
Setting up the new bed was pretty easy and didn’t take as long as I thought it might. I’ve now had two nights sleep in the new bed and I think it was worth the investment. We haven’t turned on our heat yet and being able to curl up in a warm, cozy bed is nice.
My Identity Theft Experience
This week is “National Protect Your Identity Week” so I thought I would share my experience with having my identity stolen.
My identity was stolen back in 2001. I was alerted to this when my credit card company called and asked if I had applied for another card with a Las Vegas address. I hadn’t and they advised me that someone had applied for credit using my information and that I should contact the credit bureaus. Say what you will about Capital One’s customer service in this case they were on the ball.
I’m not sure how the id thief got my information. I lived in Las Vegas until early 2000 and I had just visited there in the summer of 2001 a month or two before my identity was stolen. I know I didn’t bring my social security card when I visited Las Vegas and I don’t remember giving it out for any reason. Even then I was very cautious about revealing my social security number. It is possible that someone got my information when I was living in Vegas and just waited to use it. Homeless people often went through the trash at my apartment complex and one of my jobs put everyone’s SSN right on the sign-in sheet. The timing of the thief applying for credit right after I had visited makes me think it had something to do with my visit though.
Contacting the credit bureaus and getting a copy of my credit report and putting a fraud alert on my credit file was not that difficult. I remember having to wait on hold a long time but I did always get through to an actual person who was able to help me eventually. I think I had a special number to dial because I tried to contact a credit bureau recently and it was impossible to get hold of a live person.
The consequences of having my identity stolen wasn’t that bad. I just had to spend a couple hours on the phone with the credit bureaus and review my credit reports. The biggest hassle was the fraud alert was only supposed to last ninety days but at least one of the bureaus never cancelled it. This results in me occasionally having to provide extra verification of who I am. Usually this is only a small hassle although sometimes companies don’t bother telling me they need extra verification and just deny me credit. This is resolved with a phone call but it is an additional PITA. I was lucky, my experience would have likely been much worse if it weren’t for the fact that it was caught quickly and my credit at that time was rather poor resulting in the thieves’ credit applications being denied.
I’m even more careful with my information today.