Sabby Ann

With all the financial uncertainty as of late, coupled with the desire to reduce our credit card debt and to get back on solid footing, I’ve been thinking about getting a second job.

We already have a few plans for the upcoming month, including a 4-day trip to Milwaukee over Thanksgiving, a corporate holiday party, and a week-long vacation to Key West. With a schedule like that, plus availability only evenings and weekends, it’s unlikely that I’d be able to find a seasonal retail job… so I haven’t bothered applying.

I did, however, apply to a few seasonal positions as a tax preparer. Tax season runs January through mid-April (therefore would be unlikely to conflict with my full-time job). It would be a stretch, since I’m not a CPA or EA, but I can at least say I’ve had formal training and experience (through my volunteer work last season).

I have an interview with a temp agency tomorrow morning, before work. I’m not expecting anything to come of it, but it’s at least worth a shot.

Yesterday I stumbled upon this pattern for a crocheted reusable shopping bag. It called for a single skein of yarn, a CD, a couple of crochet hooks, and a yarn needle. I always seem to have some yarn laying around, and I had recently purchased a replacement set of crochet hooks (I always seem to misplace mine, or at least my “favorite” sized hooks)… so I thought I’d give it a try. Here’s a photo of the end result: 

The skeins of yarn that I have were slightly smaller than the 5 oz. required, so I had to use a second skein to finish it off. The green accent stripe along the top/straps is something I added at the end, using a simple chain stitch (but with each stitch placed through the “holes” in between two rows). 

The CD was used as the base, sandwiched in between two crocheted circles, to give the bottom of the bag some rigidity & form.  I thought it was an innovative use, and I’ve been pondering how I can modify the concept to create larger bags - perhaps using a frisbee or plastic lid? I might also try adding a silk lining, so that I can use it as a handbag or purse - since it was intended to be a reusable grocery bag, the pattern has holes big enough that chapstick or pens could fall through - but I think it’d be easy enough to fix, and I love the aesthetic! 

It took 3-4 hours to complete (including some wasted time ripping out & redoing a few rows, because I lost count on my stitches). Overall, it was an easy project, and the directions were relatively simple to follow.

A few weeks ago I twittered a photo of an advertisement for Wayne State on the back of a Pepsi truck, along with a rhetorical question about a partnership between the two. About five minutes later, I received a message from Wayne State stating that they receive ad space on the trucks in exchange for an agreement to serve Pepsi products (exclusively) on campus. 

Up until that, I hadn’t really thought about the fact that colleges and universities might use Twitter. I checked to see if Michigan Tech had an account and, sure enough, they do. Unfortunately their account is rather boring, and contains mostly sport-related announcements and scores… posted in all capital letters! I sent an email to MTU, suggesting that they consider being more interactive (and pointing to Wayne State as an example) - by actively adding followers, posting messages @people, etc.  Oh yeah, and not using caps lock all the time!  ;) 

While I was googling twitter, I found several interesting snippets, including this article about a customer getting a prompt response from a JetBlue Airline customer service rep via twitter. I learned that several major companies and organizations use Twitter, including the Red Cross. I also read several articles about the growing uses for twitter in academic settings. Some of the highlights: 

• Virtual office hours with instructors
• Collaboration on projects
• Discussion of lecture topics outside of class
• Set up reminders for upcoming assignments, group meetings, etc. 
• Virtual career-shadowing (following professionals)
• Teaching effective communication (due to the 140 character limit)
• Innovative assignments 
• Announcements (due dates, school closures, bus delays, etc.) 
   

Twitter for Academia

Twitter in the Classroom 

25 Twitter Tips for College Students

Assignment: 48 hours of Twitter

Over the past few days, the credit forums over at myFICO and CreditBoards have been abuzz with news about Chase changing the terms and conditions on their credit cards. To summarize, the new terms are as follows: 

1. A new Account Service Charge of $10 per month will be applied to your account.  This charge is owed whether or not you use your account, and you agree to pay it when billed.
2. Your minimum payment due will increase from 2% to 5% of the ending balance on your monthly statement.  As a result, your required monthly minimum payment will increase.

Over the past few months, I’ve been reading a lot of articles and stories about people who have had their credit limit slashed. At first it seemed like it was only happening to people who posed an obvious credit risk, those who were late on payments, had missed payments, defaulted loans, etc. But then the credit line decreases started happening to “good” customers, the ones with decent FICO scores and who made regular timely payments. Still, I didn’t give it much thought…

Until this past weekend, that is. Eric logged into his Bank of America credit card to check for balance transfer offers, only to find that they had cut his credit limit from $14,000 to a measly $1100. The current balance, just shy of $1100. Then, today, he discovered that his WaMu/Providian card was cut from $10,000 to $0… we presume that they are making sure there are no outstanding charges before they close the account entirely. These cuts represent a significant portion of Eric’s credit, and are quite concerning to me.

Since FICO scores are based, in part, on credit card utilization rates (balanced owed vs. available credit), these credit line decreases (CLD) will likely cause a notable drop in Eric’s score. Since both vehicles are in good shape, and we’re in a negative-equity situation on the house (and therefore unable to sell or refinance), our credit scores aren’t super important right now. I’ll be curious to keep an eye on insurance prices though, as State Farm and several other insurance companies factor credit scores into policy premiums. 

The CLDs also concern me because it took away a large part of our “emergency fund”. Although the experts say that everyone should have an emergency fund of 3-6 months living expenses set aside, we just haven’t been able to set aside that much. Who am I kidding, we don’t even have one month of living expenses set aside! If something were to happen, we would cut back wherever possible, and look for another job (or two). We both have short-term and long-term disability.  But realistically, we would use our credit cards to fill in the gap, for things like groceries and gasoline. We also rely on our credit cards’ availability in the event of a major unexpected expense - like a new furnace or a costly vehicle repair. 

The third problem is that the CLDs have made it much more difficult for us to make large purchases. While we don’t often buy those big ticket items, it does happen at least a few times each year. Sometimes it’s stuff for the house - a new roof (over $8k, cha-ching!), a riding lawn mower, the new hot water heater. Of course we have our share of electronics - a new computer every 2 years or so, plasma TV, stereo system, photography equipment. We usually book vacations online, using our credit cards as well. We will have to think twice about which cards we can use now. 

I’ve checked each of my credit cards, and so far the credit limits have remained untouched. Since there doesn’t seem to be a good pattern to the CLDs, I don’t feel “safe” yet… I’ll probably be logging in to my accounts every few days, just to verify that they haven’t cut my limits. In the meantime, we still have enough available credit (albeit, now only on my cards) to keep us afloat in the event of an emergency. 

The timing of the credit line decreases seems potentially suspicious to me. While we aren’t aware of any notifications, I imagine that the credit card companies probably sent out their standard “change of terms” brochure, with the credit limit decrease hidden amongst the fine-print legalese. I’m guessing that most other consumers who are have been hit by a recent decrease also aren’t aware yet. What does that mean? Holiday shopping sprees will send many over their credit limit. The credit card companies will allow the charges to go through, instead of declining them at the register, and will tack on over-limit fees… and probably hike interest rates as well. They’ll line their pockets, and consumers will find out when they get their next monthly statement. Perhaps the timing is coincidental, and I’m just jaded…. but I certainly wouldn’t put it past the credit card companies!

I have about 3/4 pound of leftover taco meat sitting in the fridge, the only remnants of last night’s dinner. Normally we don’t have much left, but Eric wasn’t hungry so I ended up with quite a bit… and I hate to throw that much away! The question is what can I do with it? 

• Quesadillas (beef, cheese, tortillas)
• Taco Salad (lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, fried tortilla shell, beef)
• Nachos (tortilla chips, beef, cheese, sour cream, tomatoes)
• Spicy Bolognese Spaghetti-Style Sauce (tomato paste, tomato sauce, seasonings, beef)
• Chili 
• Mexican Fried Rice (beef mixed with a box of Rice-A-Roni?) 
• Stuffed green peppers or Chilis Rellenos
• Taco Casserole
   

Eric & I have never really established a weekly grocery budget. When we were in Houghton, groceries tended to be slightly more expensive - Econo Foods was the only ‘big’ grocery store in the area, and so that’s where we did most of our shopping. Since moving down to metro-Detroit, we shop at all of the major chains - like Meijer, Walmart, Kroger, & Busch’s, to name a few. At any rate, our grocery bill has consistently averaged about $100/week. 

But the economic downturn has definitely made me uncomfortable with our level of spending/saving, giving me new motivation to save more and spend less. Last week I bought the Sunday paper, and spent some time cutting out coupons. Kmart had a double-coupon special running, so I bought a few items at a great discount (like toothpaste and bathroom cleaner) but it was mostly duplicates of stuff that we already have. Needless to say, it’s a great way to accumulate more stuff at great prices, but it’s not going to help reduce our weekly spending. 

I also hit up a couple of discount grocery stores, Save-A-Lot and Aldi. Both stores had some great prices, which helped to offset what I spent at Kmart. But there are a few items that both Eric & I just can’t get used to eating off-brand (like rice!), and that we just can’t get at either of those stores. The other downside is that neither one is particularly close - the nearest stores are in Westland and Canton, respectively. 

So this week I took another approach. Again I bought the Sunday newspaper, clipping all the coupons for items we sometimes buy. Then I combed through the weekly circulars, making a list of sale items at each store. Anything that was on sale AND that we had a coupon for was a must-buy. When I went shopping, I grabbed my coupon pouch and list of sale items, and then only bought items that were either on sale or had a coupon (with a few small exceptions, like frozen vegetables and yeast). I also kept a written running-tally of the total amount spent, and when I hit $50 I headed straight for check-out. The actual total was $40.99 (because of double-coupons & bottle returns)… but I also spent $9 at CVS for (4) 12-packs of Coke (plus bottle deposit). 

I’m hoping I’ll be able to continue the $50/week grocery budget indefinitely. We’ve gotten used to convenience foods (Lunchables, 100-calorie snack packs, baby carrots, prepackaged salads, etc), so it will take some adjustment, but I think it will be worthwhile. Hopefully it will also help us cut back on some of the junk food.  :)