ridin' dirty

Well friends, I did it. I bit the big one and bought a new car. A 2011 Nissan Versa, in fact. Here she is:


I've been calling it Strawberry, but Jellybean (or, "the bean") also has a nice ring.

I found her at the end of the work day on Friday after spending hours upon hours on Edmonds, Auto Trader, and KBB. She was at Cherry Hill Mitsubishi/Suzuki and listed for $9,995 - just $5 off the top of our budget. I read the website over and over again, trying to see if the list price included incentives that I knew I wouldn't qualify for (like military or student discounts) or if that was the price with some crazy down payment, but didn't see anything. I made an appointment for the following day in order to "lock in" the internet price.

When we got to the dealership, I let the salesman, Al, know that I absolutely could not afford a price higher than the one advertised on the website. If there was any reason they couldn't give me that price, he should show me other cars. He was very nice and checked with his manager before coming back and confirming that was the price I would get. Obviously, I test drove the car and it was awesome, but that's not too hard when you're coming off a 2002 Saturn with 176,000 miles on it.

The worst part about the dealership was how looooooonnnnggggg it took to sign the actual papers! Our appointment was at 11:00 AM and we didn't leave with the car until almost 3:30 PM. Granted, there were a lot of people at the dealership, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that I wasn't the only person buying a car that morning. Moral of the story: Either go when they first open, or wait until the afternoon lull (around 3:00 PM).

Also, because of all that waiting, I got hooked into a few fees that I might not have ordinarily signed to had I not been so bored. The first was the motor vehicle fees. I had every intention of registering and transferring my license plates myself; However, the finance manager told me they "don't allow it" and that they would be handling the registration and tags. Ugh. The second fee was a warranty. Initially, our salesman asked if I wanted to add a 4 year warranty for $10 more to my payment or a 6 year warranty for $20 more. I declined. About a half hour later he came back and said "the finance manager called in a favor and we were able to get you a warranty without increasing your monthly payment." Okay, sounds great! However, what they really did was charge me for the warranty ($1,900), but had the bank lower my interest rate so my payment was the same. I told him I wasn't happy with that behind the back switch (couldn't he just have gotten me the lower interest rate in the first place?), but honestly, I was too hungry and tired to care at that point. So I signed.

My payments are $180 per month for the next six years. I have a 3.6 % interest rate, which is better than I expected, but I'll still probably refinance with PNC next year if their rates are still low. I'm not happy about making car payments for that long, but honestly, I feel less stressed with the thought of the car payments, than with the thought of driving the Saturn around and hoping it makes it through another day.

Plus, it's got all sorts of crazy awesome features that I've never had in a car before, like power windows and locks, keyless entry, MP3 compatible (hello, Pandora!) and, my favorite, cruise control. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the stellar gas milage - 31 MPG on the highway!


so many features!

So, who wants to go for a ride?

the three f's

Fury, Frustration, and you can imagine the last F.

First (no that's not the last F hah!), lets start with something non-financial. I have gotten massive nosebleeds for three of the last five days. I'm talking takes a half hour to clot kinda stuff coming from waay up in my nasal cavity. It's a ton of fun, as you can imagine.

I still have not purchased a vehicle. I've only been to three dealerships so far, but pretty much no one's willing to negotiate on the prices of cars I am interested in and we all know I can't afford a ridiculous car payment right now. I probably can't afford a car payment at all, but driving my car for much longer is no longer a viable option. Almost two weeks ago, I spent $430 to replace the engine and transmission mounts (rubber rings that hold both pieces in place); However, that did nothing to solve the transmission issue. Admittedly, the jerking is better than it was before the repair, but I still can't accelerate rapidly, which is an issue when 30 out of the 35 miles of my commute are on the Parkway. There's part one of the Fury.

Fury: Part Two (it's a three part show) involves receiving a bill from my primary care physician last night for my flu shot. Apparently, Cigna decided to terminate my coverage 11/17/2012 even though I was supposed to be covered until 12/28/2012. Now I'm in a massive appeals battle with them. This is equal parts Fury and Frustration.

Fury: Part Three happened on the way home from work yesterday when I realized I needed to pay my Kohl's bill soon. I logged on and saw they charged me a $25.00 late fee for last month. Additionally, because I was "late" they ratcheted my interest rate up to 25% and wanted a minimum payment of $70.00! This was my last straw with Kohl's - I don't remember if I blogged about how they hiked up my minimum payment for absolutely no reason a few months ago. After asking other people who have charge cards with them, I found out I was the only one who suffered that increase. I called to "decline the changes", but was told if I did, they would close my account all together. Since I haven't had my Kohl's charge that long, closing the account would actually look worse on my credit report than keeping it open, so I didn't do anything about it. Last night, I called Customer Service regarding the late fee, and the representative said "I guess we'll take your word for it and remove the late fee." I went bananas on her. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. "Of course you're going to remove the late fee, because I have never made a late payment in the two years I've had your card and I've made your company a lot of money" is what I said to her not so nicely. At the end of the conversation, I informed her I would be transferring my remaining balance onto one of my other credit card and no longer shopping at the store. Which is exactly what I did. 

The third F, as you've probably figured out, rhymes with Duck and ends with You. Not you personally, readers, because I love you all for reading this blog and I would never ever ever say those things to you. It was a big middle finger to the universe. At other points last night, it ended in F-It because I was feeling quite depressed about our financial situation and had no other words for my feelings. It's still pretty accurate for how I feel today, too.

I'm sure it'll all get better, but the question is when? I'm tired of waiting.

mish mash

I have a whole mess of financial thoughts running through my head today.

First, Molly is sick today. Actually, she's been sick since about Wednesday, but this morning it started to get worse instead of better. I took my child to the doctor like any good mother, only she's not covered by my health insurance. $255 later, we had blood drawn, a shot, meds, and new food to take home. I had to put that on our joint Chase card since this is the paycheck where the mortgage comes out and we're going to Disney next week.

Speaking of Disney, I managed to put aside $300 to take with me. We leave Wednesday night and come back Monday afternoon. Saturday will be taken up with race day, so I'm hoping that other than food, my expenses will be minimal and I'll be able to come back with some of that money.

Yesterday, I received an email that my job is not continuing my health plan in 2013. Next month I have to decide whether to jump onto the hubs plan or to take the other plan that's offered. I'm leaning towards the former right now, but it'll depend on what kind of coverage they'll offer for my post-op doctor visits and physical therapy when I get knee surgery later this year. It's very frustrating decision to have to make. I'll admit I had a "poor poor Kathy" mindset last night, but I'm getting over it.

It's not all bad news, though. I've been very good at documenting my spending this month and I think I've managed to reduce spending - not by much - but a little. I was able to stick to a budget when buying a bridal shower gift last week and spent less than I usually would. I even went to Home Goods yesterday with some co-workers and didn't see anything I wanted to buy! That's huge.

Any news with my readers - who's got big weekend plans? We're having people over for the Jets / 49ers game on Sunday since the tickets were too expensive for us to actually go.

A Mortgage Fancier

Friday was our one year anniversary of becoming homeowners.

closing day 2011

Yesterday, we received a statement from Wells Fargo regarding our mortgage and escrow account. We utilize the escrow account to pay our homeowners insurance, city taxes, and the mortgage insurance. Each year, the company reviews our account and adjusts our mortgage payment accordingly. The minimum balance our escrow account can be is $701. At one point this year, we dipped to about $605 which left us with a shortage of about $95.

Wells Fargo provided us with two payment options:

Option 1: Pay the $95 up front and increase our monthly payment about $5 to make sure we don't have a shortage in the coming year -or-
Option 2: Spread the $95 dollars out over the course of the next year in addition to the $5 increase in the mortgage payment.

I chose Option 1 since the shortage wasn't an exorbitant amount of money. Our new mortgage payment starts in April; Previously, we were paying $12 extra each month on the principle to make our mortgage payment an even number (easier for transferring funds between bank accounts). After reviewing the statements and talking with the hubs, we agreed to put an extra $200 towards the principle. According to my calculations (but remember, I'm not the math teacher in the marriage), this puts us on track to have our mortgage insurance removed in about 7 years.

We're also weighing a payment plan offered by Wells Fargo that would allow us to make bi-weekly payments on the mortgage. Allegedly, this is supposed to help us pay off the principle faster. Hubs is sold on the idea, but I'm wary of another mid-month payment, since that tends to be when the majority of our bills are due. Right now, I want to keep my focus on utilizing any extra money for savings and paying down my credit cards.

Feel free to share any helpful tidbts or stories you might have about homeownership in the comments!

Day Seven Spent:
Wells Fargo: $93.18
Wawa: $2.67
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Day Seven Saved: $0.00