Dimes to Dollars- a military wife's guide to personal finance

Six-Word Memoir Meme

2008-06-05T01:57:00.002-04:00

A really long time ago, Maria at Cents and Sensibility tagged me for the Six-Word Memoir Meme. I've totally broken the meme, as she made her post on April 15 (guess where I was that day?), but I won't leave her hanging forever. My memoir is...

Whoops! Got distracted by something else.

My mind is a cluttered field of thoughts and ideas, and my life and household are no different. My parents and husband think I have Attention-Deficit Disorder, and maybe they're right. I'm just a little undisciplined in my thinking, and I have better things to do than to stay on top of everything all the time. I ultimately accomplish all my goals, I just don't always finish them in the order they were started. :-)

House, Senate panels back a 3.9% pay raise for 2009

2008-06-03T01:05:00.002-04:00

The House and Senate budget panels are backing a 3.9% increase in military base pay for 2009, while the President is backing a 3.5% increase for next year. The goal of these increases is to provide for a cost of living adjustment as well as make military pay commensurate with civilian pay for similar jobs. While the increase sounds nice, it hasn't been signed into law yet, because the Congressional Budget is far from being finalized, and if you recall how the process went this past year, don't count on seeing it until February. Hopefully though, a lame-duck Congress and a lame-duck President can get their work accomplished quickly and prevent unnecessary inconvenience to military families.

Of course, we all realize that with the increasing costs of fuel, food, energy, and housing this 3.9% increase will really be a small pay cut, but that's a topic for another day.

Stimulus

2008-05-31T02:01:00.002-04:00

Well, I've just about let this blog go to pasture. We've been pretty busy around the Dimes household, but I shouldn't forget my readers. Since we last spoke, Mr. Dimes and I received our economic stimulus check. We originally planned to invest it, but then we decided, for once, to be frivolous. So we bought an iPod. Yes, six and a half years after the iPod made its debut, we finally decided to buy one. We certainly paid a lot less than the early adopters did (the original iPod cost $400!) and we have a lot more storage space. We also bought a speaker dock for it, so that it can be heard without ear buds. The whole setup cost us less than $300. Definitely a good way to stimulate the economy, respect our budget and purchase something we've been waiting on for years.

2008 NMFA Fellowship Program available

2008-04-04T16:52:00.004-04:00

Hey everyone, I'm writing to let you know that the Military Spouse Fellowship for the Accredited Financial Counselor Program for 2008 is now accepting applications. From now through the end of April, the application will be available online through the National Military Family Association website. It's a great program and at the end of it, the selected applicants will have attained the certification of Accredited Financial Counselor under the guidance of AFCPE and FINRA. Please see the linked website if you're interested in learning more or applying to this program. It is definitely worth the effort.

And on a more personal note, tax season will be over in less than two weeks, and I look forward to blogging again!

Work environments can make jobs miserable

2008-02-27T16:01:00.002-05:00

Like I mentioned in my last post, I am doing seasonal tax work again this year. As much as I love the work itself, I am actively seeking other forms of employment, because the job environment is simply unbearable. The reason I failed to update this site from January 22 to February 22 is because I was spending most of my waking hours in the tax office. I completed a hundred or so returns, and I also had to schedule dozens of appointments, file a mountain of paperwork, distribute a bunch of checks, and handle the problems of disgruntled and angry clients for hours on end. I worked 197 hours in a month of what is supposed to be a part-time job.
Things have tapered off quite a bit in the past ten days or so, but the incredible stress of the weeks before that won't be soon forgotten. And a lot of my stress could have been mitigated by effective management and proper training of our staff, as well as the thoughtful use of a temp during our busiest times. Here are some of the biggest problems:

Our manager never bothered to give us any sort of office orientation. In previous years, the office managers have required an hour or two of paid office orientation, wherein they explain the filing system, the office policies and procedures, where to find things and what to do in the event of certain problems. Here this was never done and evidently hasn't ever been done. As a result, both old and new preparers are clueless about how the office runs, which leads to a lot of wasted time and dissatisfied clients.
Where I work, payroll is king. The #1 goal of all office managers is to keep the personnel budget as low as humanly possible. It's a noble goal but it results in some stupid decision-making. My manager tries to save money by not hiring a secretary, and instead relying on tax preparers to answer the phones and schedule appointments. During our peak season this is a terribly short-sighted move, as this causes most preparers to quickly reach overtime, when we become more expensive than a minimum-wage temp. With the overtime my office has paid me alone, they could have hired a secretary for 28 hours. Even having someone around to answer the phones, help with the filing, and scheduling appointments during the busiest three hours of the day would have helped maintain a lot of sanity. Saving them a few bucks on payroll seriously backfired this year.
I have a dreaded micromanager boss. Have you ever worked with someone who hyper-scrutinizes everything you do in an attempt to hide their own incompetence? This is the exact type of person my boss is. He knows very little about much at all, but more than makes up for it by driving me (and everyone else in our office) crazy. His philosophy seems to be that of a headmaster, where he looks and looks for the tiniest mistake, which was probably made due to a lack of proper training in the first place, and then rails on you for it. I'm pretty good humored and turn a deaf ear to it, because I know he's crazy, but he's driven a lot of my co-workers to tears. It will be interesting to see what the retention rate is going to be for next year. I really enjoy the work and am good at it, but even I am hitting my limits with the abuse.
Despite being a micromanager, my boss does not delegate tasks well. Generally, delegation seems to be, "Make Dimes do it because she knows how." A lot of things don't get done because people either don't know how to do them or that they are supposed to do them. One preparer steadfastly refuses to answer the telephone, label and file tax returns, call clients, or do anything besides write returns. While not very team-oriented, that behavior was acceptable for peak, but now that business has slowed down, he needs to contend with a lot of other tasks aside from writing returns. Instead, he tries to leave during slow periods instead of checking to see what non-return-writing activities need to be done. I suppose at this point it's appropriate to add that this particular preparer has completed the most returns in the whole office.
Climate control in our office is horrible. Our customers are constantly complaining about the temperature in the office, and a lot of preparers have a difficult time working because it is so cold. Fingers get numb, leading to typing mistakes, and the cold is actually a major distraction to workers and clients alike. If we turn off the AC, the temperature soars 15 degrees in an hour, and the office gets terribly stuffy. There doesn't seem to be a workable compromise.

There are other problems, but they're a little more abstract. The point though is that I love the work I'm doing, and I'd like to keep doing it, but the garbage I have to deal with in my working environment is making it not be worthwhile. I don't imagine every company is this bad, and I am willing to try my hand elsewhere to see if I can't find a more enjoyable environment with an equally or more enjoyable job.

Some don't like lack of RAL option

2008-02-23T17:09:00.002-05:00

Greetings, faithful readers! I didn't realize I haven't updated in over a month. I've been very busy with a new but seasonal job. And I have discovered something interesting. Military personnel are not fond of the Military Lending Act as it pertains to Refund Anticipation Loans. While not as expensive as recurrent payday loans, Refund Anticipation Loans are short-term, high interest loans given in advance of an income tax refund. The loan is normally paid off with the proceeds of the tax refund and the lender pockets the difference. The loans are considered by many to be predatory and are illegal to give to members of the Armed Forces or their dependents.

However, a lot of military personnel don't know that the law has been changed to prevent them from getting these loans, and I have seen many disgruntled service members who don't want to wait for their refunds. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like they have much choice in the matter, thanks to the new legislation.

NMCRS to release $300 Quick Assist Loan society-wide

2008-01-19T16:16:00.001-05:00

To mark their 104th birthday, the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society is going to begin a $300 emergency loan program effective January 23. The program, which had been piloted in three geographical areas during 2007, will now be available at full-service offices society-wide. The idea behind the program is to provide rapid assistance for sailors who need a small amount of money for an emergency need without subjecting them to the Society's normal interview and budget process, which can take several hours. 70% of sailors and marines who use the Society only need to visit once during a career, and this product is designed to help them.

In order to be eligible for the Quick Assist Loan, an applicant must fit the following criteria:

Must be an Active Duty sailor or marine. Retirees, reservists, widows and spouses are not eligible, even with a signed POA.
Not have any outstanding loans with the Society and not have been a recipient of any grant aid from the Society within the past year.
If the applicant has prepared a budget with the Society in the past year, it needs to have been a surplus budget indicating repayability.
Must not have received more than one other Quick Assist Loan within the past 12 months.
Applicant cannot be subject to disciplinary action from the command, either currently or within the past six months.
Applicants under Chapter 7 or 13 bankruptcy protection are not eligible.
Applicants must bring their most recent LES, military ID, and a QAL application in order to apply.

The loans are designed for emergency needs of specific types (basic living expenses, medical, dental, transportation, and family emergency). Repay on the loan begins the month after it has been disbursed, and the repayment period will range from 3-10 months. Each servicemember is allowed no more than two QALs in a one-year period. The QALs are not eligible for conversion to grant and must be repaid before the EAS date. If a servicemember is not eligible for a QAL, they are certainly eligible for regular Society assistance. The Quick Assist Loan is just designed to expedite the process for minor emergencies. Like other Society loans, the interest rate on the QAL is 0%.

2008 CONUS COLA rates

2008-01-16T14:14:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I posted about CONUS COLA, as it was a new entitlement for Mr. Dimes. For the uninitiated, CONUS COLA is a taxable income supplement for living expenses in an area (as opposed to housing expenses, which are covered by BAH). It increases or decreases every year, and can appear or disappear altogether for certain areas. For 2008, a handy calculator is available at this site. An official list of sites receiving COLA as well as the percentage rate can be found on this Pentagon site, where the list is a PDF file. If your location is not listed, you are not eligible to receive CONUS COLA. A handful of locations that were previously receiving it lost it for 2008, though they may get it again in future years.

Start planning for your final expenses now

2008-01-15T12:38:00.000-05:00

I know this post topic is kind of morbid, but this issue is very important. Recently, Mr. Dimes and his family had to bury his grandmother, who died suddenly but not unexpectedly right around Christmas. She had a modest funeral and burial, and her final expenses clocked in around $8,000. My mother-in-law fronted the money and will eventually be reimbursed when the estate has been settled, as the grandmother did have some real estate and other assets which could be sold to cover the expenses. Not everyone is so lucky, though.
I recently had a client whose mother died unexpectedly who was requesting over $16,000 in funeral assistance. Her mother owned no property, had no life insurance, and had done nothing to prepare for her final expenses in advance. While the client has siblings, neither individually nor collectively can they afford the costs of the burial. Their mother desired to be buried in the family plot in an area where real estate is very pricey and the burial costs are over half the cost of the funeral. I had to help a grieving client find an alternative to the burial she wanted in order to have something she could afford. This was not a particularly fun experience. Please, for the love of your survivors, do not do this to them. Plan for your final expenses now and let your family members know where they can find any information about plots, policies, final wishes, etc. Deaths are difficult enough without creating financial stress and trauma for a grieving family.

Here are a few ways to ease the financial burden on your survivors:

Consider prepayment of funeral expenses: If you know where you want to be placed upon your death, consider buying a plot in advance, and make sure your survivors know where it is. You can also prepay for the funeral, casket, and other mortuary services rather than requiring your relatives to front the expenses at the time of your death.
Have a life insurance policy specifically for funeral expenses: Both my client's mother and my husband's grandmother had small ($10K-$25K) whole life insurance policies to pay for their funeral expenses, but for one reason or another had let them lapse and when they died, there was no money. If, however, you make sure that you (or someone else) is paying on them and don't let the policies lapse, they can be sufficient to cover burial and funeral costs.
Consider less expensive methods of body disposal: Burials are getting to be insanely expensive, and so are funeral plots. Cremation, on the other hand, is a more frugal alternative to standard burial, and is less harmful to the environment. Some people don't like the idea of cremation for religious or other reasons, but it definitely costs less. It also has the added benefit of allowing for portability of remains; for example, if you want to be buried a great distance away from where you died, ashes are much easier to transport than an intact corpse.
Have a specific set of assets designated for funeral expenses: This would definitely require either a will or a joint account with a person most likely to survive you, but it could solve the problem of a family member having to front expenses and then wait for reimbursement. If you create an account specifically for funeral expenses, then a family member or the executor of your estate should be able to access those funds in order to pay for your funeral. If you're going to do this, you might as well make your wishes known as well as what should be done with any money that remains, in order to keep your relatives from donating your body to science and then flying off to Cancun with your funeral money.

While not fun, death is an inevitable (and expensive) part of life, and you can help your family tremendously by making provisions for what to do when it happens.

How often do you replace pillows?

2008-01-14T01:08:00.001-05:00

Our bedpillows hadn't been washed in some time, so I cleaned them on Friday. After taking them out of the dryer, I was amazed to see what awful shape they were in. The shells were clean and pretty, but the filling was all wadded up and sideways (and I'd even dried them with tennis balls, like everyone recommends). A lot of punching and jumping on them has made them look a lot prettier but they're far from new, and when I fold them in half they don't spring back to their original shape. So should they be tossed or not? I'm sure a pillow salesman would tell me to replace them every two years or something, but what is the lifespan of a pillow?
I'm probably going to replace them in the summer, after they've gotten four years of use. Seems like a reasonable timeframe.

Hope you weren't counting on that extra half-percent raise

2008-01-04T12:54:00.000-05:00

... cuz you aren't going to get it, at least not for awhile.
Remember the National Defense Authorization Act, which President Bush vetoed a couple of months ago, with the 3.5% military pay raise? Well, our pandering and inept congresspeople were unable to revise the bill such that it would be passed before the start of the new year, so military personnel will have to settle for a 3.0% raise across the board. However, plans are "in the works" to assure that "the half-percent raise will be applied to military pay retroactive to January first, 2008," but I wouldn't count on seeing it for a couple of months, at least. Luckily, for most families, this amounts to a difference of $20 or less per month; however, it's hard to plan a budget when something as basic as base pay hasn't even been established. Keep this in mind next time you go to the polls.

Making a killing on travel containers

2007-12-23T15:31:00.000-05:00

As Mr. Dimes and I are going out of town in a few days, I went to Target and purchased our airplane toiletries. We're only going to be away for about a week so there's not much point in bringing a full-sized shampoo, conditioner, body/face washes, lotion, contact lens solution, and toothpaste. Target has a little aisle full of "trial and travel-sized" toiletries, which is convenient, most of which are priced right at $.97 apiece. Doesn't seem like too much, does it?
Well, as luck would have it I also needed to buy a regular bottle of conditioner and a family size tube of toothpaste, both of which were considerably larger than one ounce, and each of which cost about $3.00. For my money, the bigger bottles provided a much greater value. I spent around $12 on our toiletry needs for a single week in travel-sized containers in order to be compliant with FAA requirements.
A lot of people advocate buying once and reusing your containers, which is not a bad idea when they are something that can actually be reused. Toothpaste tubes, for example, aren't refillable, and even though our current tube has less than three ounces in it, because it was originally a six-ounce tube, it would be confiscated by TSA officials. Same thing with contact lens bottles and lotion tubes.
It seems to be a necessary evil of modern travel that you either have to drop a small fortune on toiletries or pack them in your checked luggage, adding heft and increasing the risk of an in-flight bottle explosion. I'm sure the manufacturers of these small containers and their contents love these new regulations, as they are able to sell more product. But I am unimpressed.

Developing my legitimacy bit by bit

2007-12-19T00:31:00.000-05:00

It pleases me to report that I have passed the first of two exams necessary for me to attain the certification of Accredited Financial Counselor, a designation awarded by the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education. Once I have completed a second exam (probably sometime in the spring), finished several hundred hours of practicum experience, subscribed to the Code of Ethics and paid the membership fee, I will be a blogger with a legitimate, real-life accreditation, and not merely an "internet professional"! How many other personal finance bloggers can say the same?

It was quite a test. Nothing at all compared to the CPA exams or the CFP nightmare, but it definitely required a lot of preparation to fully understand all concepts covered.

If you are eligible and interested, this program is a great opportunity for military spouses and survivors to get free education and certification in an important field. The certification would cost about $900 out of pocket otherwise. Applications are accepted in the spring sometime, usually in March. For more information on the program, click here.

Military personnel probably not eligible for RALs this tax season

2007-12-12T01:00:00.001-05:00

The Military Lending Act came into law on October 1, 2007, with the intent to stop predatory lending to military personnel, their spouses, and their dependents. The primary target of this law was to protect military families from payday lenders and to protect the nation from the risks of servicemembers with high levels of debt and out-of-control financial situations. The law caps interest rates on all short-term loans (defined as loans of less than 91 days in duration) at 36% APR. One provision of this law deals specifically with Refund Anticipation Loans, or RALs, which are short-term income tax refund advances. With RALs, customers of tax preparation companies forfeit a portion of their refund in order to get it in one or two days instead of the 8-15 days normally required with an IRS direct deposit. The interest terms on these loans are usually right at 36% APR, since the major tax preparation companies have known about this impending legislation for awhile. That should make the fit within the parameters of the law, right?

Not necessarily, and if you live in California, the answer is definitely no.

Aside from the APR, these loans have an origination fee which cannot be waived for anyone.* The origination fee (or account creation fee, or check fee, depending on where you go) added to the interest charges on the loan bump the loan's interest charges well above the federal limit of 36% APR. This means the loans are considered too predatory to military families under the Military Lending Act and are therefore unavailable. Therefore, as a servicemember, you need to plan ahead and realize it will be a couple weeks before your refund is available.

Are there any loopholes? Not as far as I know, short of committing perjury. A wife filing separately from her servicemember husband is not eligible for a RAL. A child who has received more than half of his support from a servicemember for the 180 days preceding the loan request is likewise ineligible for a RAL. Major tax preparation chains will have their software programmed to recognize certain EINs as belonging to military divisions and will invalidate the RAL option on that basis alone.

This will probably prove to be one of the more frustrating aspects of the new legislation, as many people who don't bother with payday lenders still request income tax refund anticipation loans. Many may not be pleased with the longer wait time, even if it does save them some money.

*Specifics here might vary by state. If you're interested in one of these loans, contact your tax preparation company of choice to inquire. They will know, and more likely than not, they will not be able to offer this product to any member of the military, their spouse, or their dependents.

I lied... 2008 BAH available now!

2007-12-11T18:40:00.000-05:00

Maybe it is Wednesday already in Japan, but anothernavywife has informed me that 2008 BAH rates are now available!
We got a pretty good bump around here; the Hampton Roads area seems to have had an increase of approximately $100-125/mo., fluctuating slightly based on paygrade, of course.

Hooray!

2008 BAH rates available Wednesday

2007-12-11T01:27:00.000-05:00

At long last, we have an apparent publication date! The 2008 Basic Allowance for Housing rates will finally be posted on Wednesday, December 12, according to the pentagon site. Don't know for certain at what time they will be posted, but check often, and when the site crashes, that's a pretty good sign they're available. :-)

Did you know that most military personnel, their spouses and their dependents will not be eligible for Refund Anticipation Loans this tax season? Details to follow tomorrow.

2008 BAH rates will be available next week

2007-12-08T00:42:00.000-05:00

I never quite understand why it takes so long for the Basic Allowance for Housing rates to be published. Base pay figures are usually available by October of the preceding year, but BAH tables aren't available until mid-December. It can make it very difficult for incoming families to decide where to live, as they don't know if the BAH will adjust downwards before they arrive or not. It can also complicate the decision whether or not to move into base housing in the face of higher rents. Plus, it's just plain annoying for people who are trying to create a budget for 2008. Why all the suspense? I'm ready to know!

Anyway, a week from now or so, you'll want to head over to the official pentagon site to see if your new housing rates have been published. The site will undoubtedly crash due to high visitor volume (as it happened in 2005 AND 2006), but eventually it will work pretty well. Other sites like about.com also publish tables, but I'm more trusting of the actual Pentagon page.

My husband had to explain installment loans to me.

2007-11-30T17:06:00.000-05:00

Yes, folks, while I humbly submit to you that I am brilliant, I am not infallible. I understand a lot of the standard financial wisdom, a good bit of the less-common but still useful wisdom, and even some of the more abstract concepts. However, there is one thing I simply cannot wrap my mind around, and it is how installment payments work. So, when you take out a mortgage or a student loan or a car loan, provided it is on a fixed interest rate, you have a set repayment schedule where you make a certain payment every month which pays off all the accrued interest and part of the remaining principal. As the loan runs its course, the interest and principal both gradually decrease. The rate at which they do this is called an amortization schedule. A really helpful amortization calculator can be found here. The concepts behind this are baffling to me, though my husband can write out the mathematical formulas for periodic payments without breaking a sweat (he's awesome, did I tell you that?).

Anyway, what keeps tripping me up is that I forget that the advertised interest rate for loans is an ANNUAL rate, not a monthly rate. So, for example, with a 6% annual loan, the monthly interest rate is really .5% of the principal balance. Usually your interest rate doesn't neatly divide into 12, which makes it harder to figure out in your head. So I was wondering if the interest must be paid in full every month or if you can pay the principal instead. He said that the payments are usually applied to the interest first and then the remainder goes to the principal, which makes sense. It also makes sense that you must pay some portion of the principal every month otherwise you will be in a negative amortization situation, where the total balance of the loan is increasing on a monthly basis. This is what a lot of creative home buyers are currently facing.

So this raises the question of a financial tidbit you hear so often: Make an extra payment to your mortgage broker every year, and label it as saying "apply this to the principal balance only." Doing this in the early years of your mortgage can take years off of the life of the loan, since early on most of your payments go towards paying the interest. For example, with a $200K loan at 6% for 30 years, it takes almost four full years of $1200 monthly payments before more than $250 is going towards the principal on the loan. It sounds like a good idea, but will it ultimately make a difference in the amount you pay altogether as opposed to just a straight-up extra payment? The answer depends on how frequently your mortgage interest is compounded. If the mortgage is compounded monthly, it won't make a difference provided you make the two payments within the same month (which would happen in some fashion or other, right?). If the mortgage is compounded daily, it will make a difference, but depending on how close together the payments are received, it may not be as dramatic as you think. My advice in this situation would be to make a timely payment for double the normal amount (say $2400 instead of $1200), allowing for the entire balance of the second payment to go towards the principal. This is the approach I have taken with my student loans and it has worked well. By paying them down aggressively when the rates on savings accounts were lower than the loan's rate, I have managed to knock seven years off the life of the 20-year loan. If rates fall farther, we might consider adopting this approach again, but it won't save us as much in interest as it has in the past, even though it will retire the loan sooner. This study does go to show that making extra payments early on in a loan (most likely when you can least afford to do so) will potentially save you a great deal of money in the long run.

Also, if you're capable of more abstract thought, you can see that it's a better deal to borrow as little money as possible. Here's one last example to illustrate that point, figures derived using this tool. Suppose you are purchasing a $200K house with a 30 year mortgage at 7%. If you have saved a 20% down payment, you'll only need to borrow $160K, which you will ultimately repay in full along with $223,214,24 in interest. In borrowing the full $200K, you will ultimately pay back the full principal along with $279,017.80 in interest. Providing your $40K down payment saves you $55803.56 in interest, not to mention PMI or potentially higher rates because of a greater likelihood for default, etc. This is too significant to ignore.

What Mark Everson can teach us about Ethics

2007-11-29T00:51:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the taxwise Kay Bell at Don't Mess With Taxes, I've become aware of the firing of the CEO of the American Red Cross, Mark Everson. In case you didn't know, since the deaths of Washington Redskins Safety Sean Taylor and Gatorade inventor Dr. J. Robert Cade seemed to hog yesterday's spotlight, Mark Everson was forced to step down after having an affair with a subordinate. Everson, former commissioner of the IRS, had only taken his position with the Red Cross back in May, and lasted a mere six months as the CEO of the best-known not-for-profit organization in the country.

I found this article by Stephanie Strom, which seems to put more of a negative spin on the organization that fired him rather than Everson himself. Perhaps it is my military background, or my recent and ongoing ethics training, but I am quite in disagreement with this article. For those of you too busy to read it (or in case the link expires or becomes password-protected), the gist is that Everson shouldn't have been fired because it took the American Red Cross so long to hire him in the first place, and despite his actions, he should have only suffered a temporary suspension or a loss in pay. While I am not privy to the details in Everson's contract, I assume the author of this article is not either. I would safely assume there is a Code of Ethics that all paid employees are to follow and before accepting employment they must sign a contract agreeing to abide by this code. The CEO would, for sure, as he is the public face of the organization. People who work for any large company usually have to sign some conduct agreement, and members of the military have to abide by the UCMJ. That said, I don't exactly think the issue was unaddressed for Mr. Everson.

The reason for Everson's termination is that he had an affair with a subordinate, a woman who is the president of a Red Cross chapter on the gulf coast. Both Everson and his subordinate are married, and the latter is pregnant. Personal relationships with people with whom you hold a position of power are generally never allowed and certainly not between two married people. The American Red Cross may have acted quickly in firing Everson, though I don't believe they acted rashly. With great power comes great responsibility. All across the military you see commanders being relieved of their commands due to "a loss of confidence in their ability to govern." Off the top of my head the commanders of the Arleigh Burke, the Helena, the Higgins, the Hampton, the Halsey, VAQ-140, VFA-122, the Newport News, and the Minneapolis-St Paul have all been fired in 2007. I'm sure there are others I've forgotten, to say nothing of the rest of the military. My point is, while you'd certainly hope that the person you hand-picked to lead an organization possesses the skills, common sense, and good judgment necessary to get the job done, this is not always the case, and when someone shows their incompetence, they should be relieved of their command as quickly and quietly as possible. Simply having good business skills or leadership experience is not enough to head an organization as well-known as the American Red Cross. The Red Cross is funded by voluntary contributions from taxpayers. If they feel the organization is going to turn a blind eye to someone acting unethically or irresponsibly by abusing his power and betraying his wife, most people would donate their money elsewhere. Lord knows there are enough other charities begging for it.

Problems at the top have a funny way of filtering down through the entirety of an organization and can negatively affect its culture. While some people feel that ousting the head of a group is a harsh move, I believe it is the right one. Despite his "impeccable credentials," Everson proved he lacks the integrity and personal responsibility necessary to lead an organization that is more respected than the IRS.

Will we really be able to retire?

2007-11-27T14:46:00.000-05:00

This morning I logged onto Vanguard to look at my husband's Roth IRA as well as my own, and was in for a surprise. Since October 31, my Roth account has lost $1100 in value. My husband's Roth, invested in an entirely different fund, has lost $2300 in the same four weeks! OMG! We should withdraw all the funds and put them into cash or something more secure, shouldn't we, rather than risk losing any more?

Are you kidding me?

My husband and I are 25 years old, and by law, with a couple of exceptions, cannot enjoy the fruits of our retirement accounts for another 34 years. Surely the markets will have rebounded by then. Heck, they may rebound by Christmas, which would keep us from regaining our losses if we pulled out. Another important tidbit I failed to add is that despite my $1100 dive, I'm still up about 13% for the year. So my gain wasn't 28% or whatever. Big deal. I'm still not going to sniff at anything over 6%. My husband's funds have gained as well, though not as much as mine have (his are a lot more volatile and have been dippier this year). We haven't lost any of our initial investment, but isn't that a risk you take when lending money?

There are two lessons to be learned here. First one is don't panic. The market fluctuates, your investments can go up or down, and if you realize that you won't act irrationally and sell off before a big rally. The second lesson is not to follow your retirement accounts too closely (provided you're at least several years away from retirement). Vanguard, for example, sends a quarterly statement. When you're more than 20 years away from retirement, glancing over your funds every three months is about all the monitoring they need.

Gratuitous publicity, or something

2007-11-26T00:40:00.000-05:00

My blog was recently reviewed on debtconsolidationcare.com, a site which claims to be "the internet's first get-out-of-debt community" and boasts ninety thousand or so members. While this may be the case, not a single hit on my sitemeter has come from this community since this review was published. :-) I cannot vouch for the Debt Consolidation Care's expertise or competence, and my browser settings really don't work well with their page, but maybe you'll have better luck than I did. I use Mozilla Firefox with ad-block on Windows XP, and have blocked most video sites by default. Nonetheless, some of the scripts affiliated with the site kept hanging my browser. Just be cautious.
I *can* tell you the Debt Consolidation Care community is based out of Calcutta, India, based on the time of the emails received (usually after 10PM Pacific) and my site stats, so take that as you will.

I'm obviously not getting paid to write this review, but am doing at the request of one of their staff members, one Liza Jolie, who has been, shall we say, very relentless in her emailing. So here it is. I'm sure my link to their site will make a huge difference in their traffic. ;-)

A store-free shopping season?

2007-11-24T17:54:00.000-05:00

Due to geographical constraints, Mr. Dimes and I are planning on avoiding brick-and-mortar stores as much as humanly possible this holiday season. Instead, we're going to be purchasing all gifts online and shipping them to the intended recipients. The lone exception to this rule will be going to stores to shop for one another. Hopefully we'll have success with this plan. There are several reasons for doing this:

We live in a geographic black hole with few well-respected retail outlets. The nearest good bookstore is 20 miles away, and it's an hour drive to a decent mall. Anything of higher quality than Sears or Target can offer will have to be purchased at an online retailer anyway, so why not shop for everything with one?
We simply can't afford to go and visit the family this year. We live too far away, and round trip holiday airfare will set us back at least $1500. It would be twice as much if we went to visit both sides of the family.
Even if we did travel to see them, do you know what a tremendous pain it is to try and get gifts through security? You can't travel with wrapped packages, and while checked bags are routinely pilfered, it gets worse right around the holidays. I would think it would be highly likely that any gift in its original packaging would be more likely to find its way onto eBay than under my in-laws Christmas tree.
Who likes to go shopping anyway? Too many obnoxious shoppers, picked-over merchandise, and endless loops of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra are enough to drive me into a frenzy. Toss in some obnoxious perfume or an indecisive husband and I'd happily rather take the whole thing online. Besides, it's a LOT easier to track spending when you don't have to schlep receipts and merchandise all over the mall.

I used to be a big fan of gift cards until it occurred to me that their purchase just passes the task of shopping from the giver to the recipient. That's not very nice! I'm going out of my way to try and avoid them this year, and I hope not to receive too many unless they can be used online, since they won't be easy to redeem.

2008 Basic Allowance for Housing Rates Forthcoming

2007-11-17T14:52:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again! No, not the holiday season, but the month or so where military personnel and their families are anxiously tapping their toes waiting for the release of the next year's housing allowance figures. According to the Pentagon site, the 2008 BAH figures will be available in "mid-December." Historical data suggests this will probably be December 14 or December 17.
I suspect in many areas of the country, BAH rates will either level off or drop. There seems to have been a huge increase in BAH rates nationwide in 2005, and in many areas that appears to have been too much, such that rates have either flattened or fallen in the past two years. The trend will probably continue.
BAH rates are determined by an annual survey of properties in a given military housing area, and by determining the median housing costs (rent, utilities, and renters insurance) for servicemembers based on the type of housing they *should* have based on their paygrade and family size. Basically that means more modest housing for junior enlisted and more substantial housing for senior enlisted and officers, as well as more substantial housing for servicemembers with dependents. A single E3 has more modest housing needs than an E7 with a wife and three children.
What happens if you live in an area where the BAH rates will drop from 2007 to 2008? You will be covered by "rate protection." Rate protection means you will receive the higher of the BAH you are entitled to on January 1, 2008, or the BAH you were entitled to on December 31, 2007. In other words, if you see that your BAH is expected to drop $200 per month between 2007 and 2008, provided you don't lose BAH eligibility for some reason, you will keep seeing the 2007 rate. However, if you move into the area from another duty station, you will receive the new (and lower) BAH rate. If the BAH annual survey has done its job properly, though, you shouldn't be paying too much out of pocket for housing expenses.

The best $20 I spent this week

2007-11-16T01:51:00.000-05:00

The days here are still relatively warm, but the nights have gotten downright COLD! My husband and I often wake up at night pretty chilly, even though we set the thermostat to 68 degrees (yeah, not too frugal, but I almost NEVER turn on the AC, so there) and have both a flat sheet and a comforter. While I was in Target, the other day, I sought to find a remedy to this problem, and I believe I have. I purchased a cheap cotton blanket to tuck between our sheet and our comforter. It's not too well-made, which means the weave is loose and there's a lot of space for air to get trapped, upping the warmth potential. It's perfectly sized, so it fits between the other blankets without showing, because it doesn't quite match them, color-wise.
I don't know how well it will hold up to repeated washing, as a few of the reviewers mention it kind of falls apart after washing and the hems look a little flimsy, but for our purposes, it's doing very well. After just a couple of nights under it, we're both sleeping much better and aren't freezing while in bed. Definitely a worthwhile purchase.

Should I get a paying job or not?

2007-11-14T18:33:00.000-05:00

We've been living here for about two months now, and I've had a couple of job interviews but haven't heard back from them, and at this point I am wondering if I should even bother with trying to get paid employment. It may not be worth the hassle. It might. If I get hired with either the company I interviewed with two weeks ago or the tax preparation firm I worked with in Virginia (surprisingly, employment is NOT as portable as they'd have you believe), I'll take the position, but I'm trying to decide if I should even try for more.

Reasons I should get a job:

Boredom! I have quite a bit of free time on my hands, and while I am engaged in volunteer activities, I could easily handle a part-time job and not sacrifice any family time or fail to accomplish any of my regular errands.
The gap in my working resume is only getting longer with every day I fail to work. Same thing with my salary history.
A supplemental source of income would provide Mr. Dimes and me with greater ability to fatten up our short-term and long-term savings (and a matched 401k would be totally awesome if I could get it). We've got the three-month emergency fund taken care of, but a car-replacement fund or home down-payment fund would be great to get started on.
My student loans, which I have earnestly been paying off with my income, are now starting to become my husband's responsibility with no earnings coming into the household from my efforts. Even earning $200/month would enable me to fully cover the loan payments.

Reasons not to get a job:

Potential lack of flexibility. I am doing hundreds of practicum hours for my AFC certification, and a full-time job would cut off my ability to do those at the pace needed to complete them on time. A part-time job is ideal, and what I'm looking for, but even some part-time schedules are unworkable with my volunteer commitment.
Interference with family planning: Mr. Dimes and I are thinking about starting a family within the next year or two. It would be difficult if I were to start a job and then immediately get pregnant, as I have no plans to work after giving birth.
Possible relocation. As I mentioned a few posts ago, we might be relocating onto base housing. Currently we live about 20 miles away from the base. If I had a job close to where we currently live, it would be just as far from our new residence as his workplace is from our current one. In that case, we'd just be trading commutes. My car gets better gas mileage than his does, but do I want to drive so far every day for supplemental income?
Allegedly, there is a lot of nepotism in this area for jobs. I've heard that a lot of people get passed over due to internal hiring decisions or choosing friends or acquaintances instead of the most qualified applicants. While this wouldn't keep me from applying for jobs in general, it would probably cause me to throw in the towel sooner than if I weren't thinking the process was rigged.

So I'm not sure. I guess another thing to keep in mind is that Christmas is coming, and a new job might keep me from being able to go and visit family in December, though I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing. ;-) We'll see what happens.

Opportunity for free financial education

2007-11-13T14:30:00.000-05:00

A hot tip from Veteran Military Wife, the mastermind behind Life Lessons of a Military Wife. Dave Ramsey, the well-known financial program radio host and purveyor of the Debt Snowball method, is offering his Financial Peace University program FREE to all veterans. The promotion is running from now until the close of business on Wednesday. This program is a 13-week course, and normally costs $100, but due to this promotional offer, he is giving it away for free to eligible vets. For more information, see Veteran Wife's post about the offer. You will not find any mention of this offer on Ramsey's website, as he only mentioned it over the air. For the proper enrollment procedure and to find out if you are eligible, see the above-linked post for details.

Mortifying moment at a job interview

2007-11-04T23:59:00.000-05:00

Last Friday I was interviewing for a job at a local bank. The job is one with a fair amount of potential in and of itself, and should position me to effectively be able to use my AFC certification once I've attained it. Also, since the bank is fairly widespread, I'm hoping that any job with them would be at least somewhat portable. Anyway, I do a couple of skills tests (handwriting legibility, number recognition, workplace attitudes) and then they do the one-on-one questioning. I get the standard "describe your cash-handling experience," "what does 'teamwork' mean to you," "where do you see yourself in five years," questions, and then out of left field, the lady asks "what single word would best describe you?"
Um. I can think of NOTHING. So eventually I stammer out "speechless." Possibly an even better response would have been "flummoxed."
She laughed, at least. Hopefully a sense of humor will save my job candidacy. We'll see. At the very least, I have yet another ridiculous personal anecdote to share.

Oh, and I just remembered, I forgot to send a thank you note. I think I'll run it by tomorrow.

Should we move into base housing?

2007-10-31T14:22:00.000-04:00

When Mr. Dimes and I moved to California, we put our names on the base housing list at our command. We were told the wait time would likely be from three to five months, depending on who else moved in or opted out. Well, we hadn't given it a lot of thought but after a few weeks here we're trying to decide whether or not we should move when the time comes. It's a complicated decision, with a lot of pros and cons. Here are some of the factors that matter:
Pros:

A dramatically reduced commute. Right now my husband is driving 40 miles per day in a round trip commute, much of it along dubious roads. Moving to base would reduce the round trip to about ten miles. This would reduce his gasoline expenditure considerably and also reduce his risk of being on the road during periods of dense fog, driving rain, or blinding dust storms.
Monthly rent and utility expenses would be at the exact level of BAH. Currently we're paying less out of pocket for rent, but water, electric, and gas bring the total above our BAH. Living in base housing would provide a cap, which will be helpful during the high energy use summer months.
We would probably use the commissary more. Right now, with the commissary being 20 miles away and open limited hours, my husband tends to run to a local grocery store which is a lot more expensive than the commissary would be. I try and use the commissary, but the savings don't necessarily offset the gas and time expense of going there.
We would be living in an actual house instead of an apartment, and I'm pretty sure it's not going to be a duplex. They recently renovated/rebuilt all the housing on the base, so it's in pretty good shape, not your standard prefab double-wide layout. It is also probably bigger than our current accommodations. Also there is more freedom to do your own repairs and not be accountable to a landlord.

Cons:

We just moved! Moving again is going to be a hassle, even if we don't have to pay for it out of pocket. However, it won't be as major of an upheaval as when we moved here from VA. I can probably haul a lot of my own stuff (like my kitchenwares) which would save mover time and effort as well as unpacking hassle. We'll also have to forward mail again, cancel/move utilities, update insurance and drivers licenses as well as addresses on everything else, which we just did six weeks ago.
The financial consequences of breaking our lease will be moderate. After reading the lease agreement, the consequence will be one month's rent (the time between notification and move out) plus a $1000 early termination fee. We'd also have to pay for any damages (there are NONE) and a carpet cleaning. Total consequences would probably be as high as $2000-2500, though theoretically we'll recoup that within a year in gasoline and housing cost savings.
While my husband's gasoline costs will drop, mine will most likely rise, as I'll be the one with a longer commute. However, if I work as a tax preparer, that will only be on a seasonal, part-time basis. Also, unless we switch churches, it'll still be a 40 mile round trip every Sunday.
We'll have to deal with lawn care. Most of the yard is maintained by the base, but a section of it is the service member's responsibility. We've never had to deal with a yard before.
Less quiet. The base is noisy. Much noisier than where we currently live. I'm used to it somewhat, but it's been a nice break from the racket. I'll be sad to hear all the noise again.
Less diversity. When you live on a base, everyone else who lives on the base is military. Everyone goes through pretty much the same thing, and tales of people being all up in your business are commonplace, though I'm not sure how true they are.

So we're torn. Luckily we haven't gotten a solid offer yet, but we're trying to figure out what to do if we do.

What is this CONUS COLA?

2007-10-30T17:29:00.000-04:00

As Mr. Dimes and I just relocated to California, we knew there would be a few changes to his monthly pay. First of all he switched from a Sea Command to a Shore Command, so he lost his monthly Sea Pay. Also, the BAH changed to reflect the costs of housing in our new area, which are different from the area we just left. We had another unexpected change though, and that is a small bump in the paycheck due to CONUS COLA.
So what is CONUS COLA? Apparently it has been devised by the military to help offset costs of living for areas whose cost of living is more than 108% of the costs of living in an average US military location. All areas have COLA indices and when the costs measured by the index are too high, service members get COLA income to supplement their base pay. The extra income is measured in "COLA index points," from 1 to 13. All service members stationed in the same location have the same number of index points; the dollar value varies slightly based on base pay. For example, in an area where CONUS COLA is only one index point, service members with dependents generally receive between $25 and $35 extra per month, based on paygrade, years of service, and whether or not there are any dependents. CONUS COLA is received by service members in 44 military housing areas and 20 counties. A list of CONUS COLA locations can be found here.
CONUS COLA is a taxable entitlement. The list of locations receiving it are updated annually and modified as needed, much like with BAH. In our area, it's a pretty pitiful entitlement, but in big cities like San Francisco or New York, it can amount to several hundred dollars per month. It's definitely something that is good to know about.

The Military Lending Act

2007-10-26T13:17:00.000-04:00

Effective October 1, 2007, the Military Lending Act is a much-needed federal law designed to protect military personnel and their families from insidious predatory loans. The Military Lending Act caps the interest rate on short term loans, such as payday loans, car title loans, and refund anticipation loans at 36% APR. The law was passed because excessive debts for servicemembers can have a crippling effect on military security and readiness as a whole. Servicemembers who are mired in debt are more likely to commit acts of desperation in order to improve their financial situation, like sell weapons or secrets to the enemy. The intent of the Military Lending Act is to help prevent our armed forces from some of that damage.
However, be advised that not ALL loans are capped at 36%. Loans whose terms exceed 91 days are not covered under the provision. This has caused some lenders to restructure their products to exceed 91 days and allow them to charge a much higher rate.
For more information, see this press release from the Center for Responsible Lending.

7 random things about me meme

2007-10-22T02:26:00.000-04:00

While I'm waiting for the days to tick down until we've been out of our apartment long enough for the management company not to fine us anymore, and while I'm waiting for the extra piece of RAM to come for my computer so that I can multi-task again, Kay Bell from Don't Mess with Taxes! (a very awesome and informative blog, by the way) tagged me for a 7 random things about me meme. I seem to recall doing one of these awhile back, but hey, it's been awhile! Here we go:

1. I never put plastic dishes in the microwave or the dishwasher. When we got married my MIL gave us a set of rubbermaid storage containers. After three years of heavy use, the pieces are all like new because no one has ever microwaved tomato sauce in them, leaving blistering and indelible stains. No warping, either. However, the reason I avoid microwaving them is because I'm afraid of radiolytic compounds or little pieces of plastic ending up in my food.

2. I am a major nail-biter. I've tried every remedy, from obsessive manicuring, acrylic tips, keeping them painted, using vinegar, cayenne, and other coatings, even wearing gloves, and I can't stop. If my nails were stronger, I might have a chance, but they are super weak. Truthfully, it doesn't annoy me very much.

3. I very rarely take a grocery list when I go shopping. This has become problematic in a new area of the country where I don't know the grocery stores or their layouts. I end up walking by a lot of stuff I wouldn't have missed if I'd written a list beforehand. I'm getting better at remembering to list, though.

4. For our first Thanksgiving together as a married couple, my husband and I made chicken fajitas, Stove Top Stuffing, French's green bean casserole (with canned beans instead of frozen), and apple pie for dessert. We watched the Indianapolis Colts beat whoever they played, some James Bond movie, and Spider-Man 2.

5. I still have and wear clothing from high school. Much of it is about ten years old and in pretty good shape, considering. In fact, the shirt I wore yesterday I was wearing in high school yearbook activity photos two years in a row. The end of one sleeve is a little frayed, but otherwise, it's in great shape.

6. When we moved cross-country, I special-transported our important papers, enough clothing to last, jewelry, our lava lamp (apparently defined as a hazardous material!), and my set of Henckels knives. Of all our possessions, I was most worried someone would steal/destroy our TiVo or those knives. Both things made it safe and sound to California, I am pleased to report.

7. I hate looking at any digital clock when it changes from X:59 to Y:00. My least favorite is from 9:59 to 10:00. I think this is because when I was about six my mom had a castoff flip clock she gave to me, and it flipped REALLY loudly on the hour. The sound would startle me so I'd look at it and the double zeros looked like the clock was looking back. You have no idea how happy I was when she got rid of that clock and replaced it with an LCD one. All things considered, I still prefer analog clocks.

This should be a law!

2007-10-16T19:08:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling a little curmudgeonly today and I have come up with a great idea for a law, but I bet it will never be passed. I propose that it should be ILLEGAL for companies to contact you with automated messages requesting a callback, pressing 1 for further information, or anything along that line. Calls should only be made by real people. The sole exception to this law would be granted for automated confirmation of existing appointments.
Since we arrived in California, we established a land line and we're getting on average 4 or 5 automated calls per day, not all of which fall under the rules of the Do Not Call list. We get several from presumed debt collectors entreating us to return the call to the number in the message. The calls seldom to never identify the caller and absolutely never identify the intended recipient. Because of this, it is our household policy to ignore them, but it can be aggravating, as they will call as early as 8:30AM on weekends. These calls are pointless, because for someone who doesn't have debt issues, there's no real way to stop them, and do the debtors really return these types of calls? I doubt it.
In Virginia, we used to get a lot of campaign bots too, that would call from blocked telephone numbers and slander one candidate or the other, or from the governor justifying his position on some issue or another. It is absolutely infuriating, and anonymous call block does not seem to whittle down the calls at all.
If there were a law passed making automated calls a crime with a $100 punitive fine per documented incident, I bet they'd go the way of the dodo in a month or less. What do you think?

How to avoid getting ripped off by your landlord

2007-10-15T10:55:00.000-04:00

I am going to post an account of what happened between our landlord and the Dimes family, but due to the statute of limitations for declaring damages in Virginia, I won't make the post for a week or so, lest they decide to try and charge us for more damages we did not cause. In the meantime, we've learned many lessons from this experience, which I will gladly share with you in order to help you avoid a similar fate.

Know your rights. In most states, the Landlord/Tenant Handbook is available online, and you would do well to know the basic guidelines for landlords and tenants in your state, as well as your legal protections under SCRA regarding deployments, evictions, and lease terminations.
Before you even select an apartment, look it up on a site like apartmentratings.com to see what previous residents have thought. Bear in mind though, that the people who will be posting opinions are generally unsatisfied so don't panic about a 50% approval rate. Read through the comments and try to see if there are any prevailing problems (black mold, management being unreachable, no emergency maintenance, etc). Also, contact the housing office at your new duty station and ask them for specific recommendations. We did that when we moved here and the difference between this complex and the one in VA is night and day.
During your move-in walk through, be super slow and fussy, and document everything, even shadows on the carpet. Make sure the inspector writes EVERYTHING down and follow up with pictures. Open up every cabinet to check for broken shelves, turn on all the faucets to check for leaks, flush the toilets, turn on the dishwasher, the AC, and the furnace. Make sure the hot water works. Check any sliding glass doors and any balconies, storage areas, or garages you may have. Ususally after the move-in inspection you have a couple of days to write down other problems. If you find any, make sure you write them down, give a copy to your landlord and keep a signed copy from them, and also follow up with photos.
If any problems develop after the window to report them, go ahead and report them anyway. Include photos and retain your own copies. Make sure you date the back of yours and theirs and that you have a picture that has proof of the date they were taken (date on a NewsChannel or a newspaper from the day they were taken).
If there are habitability issues with the apartment (no hot water, broken locks, problems with AC/heating, etc), find out if you have the option of putting your rent in escrow and do that if necessary (rent escrow is where you pay your rent to a third party who holds it until serious maintenance issues are dealt with, so you cannot be evicted for nonpayment, but your landlord won't see the money until the problems have been fixed. Not all states/municipalities have this option but a lot do.).
Follow the rules in your own lease. If you have a pet, a child, or a girlfriend, make sure this is noted on the lease and that you pay any penalties as required by law. If you keep a dog in your apartment for a year and don't pay pet rent, they will find out, they will probably sue you for more than you would have paid if you'd been forthcoming about your animal, and they will almost certainly win. It undermines your credibility in court when you haven't been following the lease as agreed to.
Leave accurate forwarding contact information and make sure you set up a forwarding address with the US Postal Service. Predatory landlords have no compunction about sending notices to the apartment you just vacated in hopes you won't receive them in time and they can take you to court for more money. Even with leaving accurate forwarding information, my landlord didn't bother to mail us any notices about our outstanding damages until 21 days AFTER our move-out date, and they also required the damages to be settled in full "immediately," as they would be turned over to collections and court after 30 days of their being generated.
Realize that the sub-contractors who work for the landlords (carpet companies, painters, plumbers) are generally under long-term contracts with the landlords and have no reason to be truthful or helpful to you. They make their money from working with the landlords, not from you, and will happily lie to you or to a judge in order to keep their workload and money coming. I have one of these lies on paper which I will include in the post about what happened to us.
Keep in mind that there is a limit of time that varies by state for the length of time that a landlord can charge you for damages. In Virginia, that time frame is 45 days. During those 45 days, don't make any statement that could be construed as admitting to damages, because your landlord might find it and take you to court for it. (This is probably me being paranoid more than anything else, but we already got taken for a ride and I'm not willing to go on another one.)

While I'm not posting the details of our story just yet, I have written a letter and am sending it to the Housing Office in Hampton Roads, naming both the management company and the specific complex where we lived. If they did it to us they can just as easily do it to other tenants, and according to apartmentratings.com more than likely have. Because military personnel get a housing allowance, get money to move, and often move too far away to come back and fight, unscrupulous apartment managers have a field day with ripping them off in order to fatten their bottom lines. It's disgusting, and you have to protect yourself.

2008 Military Base Pay Charts

2007-10-13T18:04:00.000-04:00

Probably a lot of you have already seen this, but I wanted to make you aware of the 2008 Military Base Pay Charts. Congress and the Senate approved a 3.5% pay increase for 2008, and you can see the precise figures on these charts. For enlisted personnel, the 2008 pay charts can be found here, for warrant officers, see this chart, and for commissioned officers, the 2008 pay charts can be found here. In order to find your base pay, scroll down to your rank and then look to the right until you find your years of service.

The 2008 BAH figures will be available sometime in mid-December at this site, as will any changes to CONUS COLA, Overseas COLA, and Per Diem.

Thanks for a shout out and where I've been

2007-10-11T01:16:00.000-04:00

First of all, a shout out to the always fun to read Mapgirl of Mapgirl's Fiscal Challenge. She spotlighted me on her blog today and I'd love to say thanks. If you haven't ever followed her blog, it's worth a read. She focuses mainly on personal finance topics, but she also covers enough of her other interests (such as fine arts and autism) that she is a lot more dimensional than many bloggers. Also, if you live in the DC area, following her blog can give you a lot of great ideas for activities to do.
Mr. Dimes and I have been getting settled into our new duty station, he reported to his command and I went to a base indoctrination course last week. I'm trying to make myself more available to update, but we've been dealing with a financial predator. Not a predatory lender, but a predatory landlord. The story has almost played itself out, and it has provided a lot of valuable lessons, which I will share with you, and I'll also tell you which management company you should NOT do business with if you are ever stationed in Hampton Roads.

Gas mileage: An unscientific case study

2007-10-04T17:52:00.000-04:00

Mr Dimes and I decided to tally up our gas receipts from our cross-country voyage. We both traveled the same distance along the same route, and were always within 45 minutes of each other, which made for very similar traffic and weather conditions. You'd think we'd have spent about the same on gasoline, right? Wrong!
Driving cross-country in my Honda Accord, I spent $276 on gasoline.
Driving cross-country in an F-150, my husband spent $422 on gasoline.
Neither one of us were hauling anything, my vehicle was probably heavier, and I used cruise control while his truck is not equipped with that feature.
It's amazing to see that over a 3000 mile trip, he spent $150 more in fuel costs than I did.

Update

2007-09-27T02:04:00.000-04:00

We arrived here over a week ago, but our personal property didn't catch up with us until just now. According to the carrier, it decided to take a side trip to Sacramento, CA. Oops! Well, more like oops for them but aggravation for us.
California seems to be the state of a thousand taxes. We each had to pay for a smog test and we are also getting to know that irksome CA CRV tax (evidently a 5 or 10-cent tax levied on beverage containers). I'm getting my car registered in a few days, and I know that's going to cost even more! It's really interesting to see how things change when you move a few thousand miles.

Mid move update

2007-09-14T22:23:00.000-04:00

Today Mr. Dimes and I crossed the halfway point in our cross-country move and are spending the night in Colorado at a Holiday Inn Express with free internet! So I thought I'd update you on our status. It's interesting as you travel from east to west how fewer and far between the service exits on the interstate become, and the fluctuation of gas prices from state to state is also amazing. Missouri has been the cheapest, and Colorado and Illinois have been the most expensive, though I'm not sure if it's due to state taxes or just price gouging by the individual gas stations. Maybe after we get settled in California, $3.00/gallon gasoline will seem cheap. Right now it's double-takingly expensive.

Temporarily interrupting this blog to move 3000 miles

2007-09-04T10:50:00.000-04:00

Well, dear and gracious readers, you are few but mighty. Mr. Dimes and I are currently in PCS status, which is going to bring about a temporary absence from the internet and meaningful blogging as we cross the United States. I will be enabling comment moderation for the duration of the trip because, as you know, people start acting like idiots when there's no one to monitor their activity. I will probably have intermittent access to email but I will neither have nor make the time to blog until we have signed a new lease in California. While blogging is important (it brings you hits and advertising pennies), real life is a LOT more important.
Anyway, I'll probably be back in a month, maybe less. Hopefully less, because my blog anniversary is coming up. I can't believe I've been doing this for a year.
Everyone stay safe.

Bad advice abounds

2007-08-30T22:18:00.000-04:00

Tonight I was sitting in a tax class, and the primary subject was retirement accounts, which are important but not particularly interesting, and this one guy seemed to want to wow everyone with his knowledge. He starts yakking about how certain types of investments are bad and others are better and how 529 plans don't cover anything except for tuition expenses and a whole bunch of other stuff that made no sense or was patently false. He launched into the advice he gives his clients and a lot of it was stuff that would send me screaming for the door because it was silly screwed-up and backwards. This one woman asks him about his financial background and he replies, "I read Kiplinger magazine."
I had to turn my head. Kiplinger does not a guru make, and this guy was a prime example. However, what amazed me more than anything was the steadfastness with which he held his positions and his internal belief that he could not be wrong. Even when the stuff he said made absolutely NO sense at all, he refused to concede that he might be misinterpreting what he'd read or that there might be a better way for people to accomplish their financial goals. One example was him referencing a family who made $345K in annual income opening a Coverdell ESA for their children, which is impossible as the Coverdell phase-out window is $190-220K. Anyway, I got really sick of listening to him, and he had an obnoxious accent that only made it worse.
I began to wonder if this guy wasn't a blogger. As he was talking I realized he might well be. For blogging there is no barrier to entry, so conceivably this guy could have a webpage from which he enthusiastically misinforms people every day. And there are probably many other people just like him, which his a scary thought.
The point is, like I posted last week, be careful who you listen to! It seems that some of the loudest and most prolific people can also be some of the most WRONG. Idiocy abounds, and usually it abounds loudly. Just look at Congress. Don't listen to someone who makes no sense just because he is loud.

Charity! or Making Others Happy by Discarding Your Old Junk

2007-08-29T12:23:00.000-04:00

Mr. Dimes and I are about a week out from the start of our PCS, and so we're taking care of lots of meddlesome tasks, including a full household goods inventory coupled with photographic documentation. As I've been going through our rooms, I've found quite a few items we've never used, we likely won't use, and are just taking up space and weight. I've started filling my trunk with them and will be hauling them down to the Goodwill on Friday.
A lot of the things we're getting rid of are in the household goods category, and EVERYTHING is something that was given to us as a gift, nothing that we purchased ourselves. While my mother-in-law is a sweet and generous woman, about 70% of the items we're donating came from her. She has a tendency not to think things through, gift-wise. For example, why would a young married couple ever need a seven-quart crockpot? Why would people who don't drink coffee want a cappuccino machine?
Most of the items are in new condition, or only used once, all in original packaging, and I've had to tell myself not to be guilty about giving them away. It seems like you shouldn't reject gifts that have been given to you, but here we go. I'm having to convince myself that the problem is lack of forethought on behalf of the giver coupled with extremely limited space on a military move. Plus, someone will surely get great enjoyment out of the stuff, and really, isn't that the whole point of giving anyway?

When $719 feels like a bargain

2007-08-28T13:09:00.000-04:00

Two months ago we spent $600 on vehicle maintenance for my husband's truck, which prompted this post. Well, today it was my turn. With an upcoming 3000 mile drive, I want to make sure my car will not cause me to be stranded in Utah, and besides, I'm overdue for 45K mile service. I don't know what the last owner did to the vehicle maintenance-wise, but I know in the past three years we've done nothing to it except for oil changes and a new air filter. The service girl gave me an estimate of $275, so I was expecting that much, maybe a little more for a new battery. (I bet you know what's coming!)
The technician looks at everything, and yeah, my battery was almost dead, and my windshield wipers were in tatters (which I also knew). And then a surprise: the serpentine drive belt needed to be replaced, because it was pretty well cracked (and probably six years old). Fun. They also recommended replacing the timing belt and water pump within the next year. I opted to hold off on the timing belt and pump, but got the other things taken care of, and asked how much it would cost. They told me it would be about $450 more than the original service. I agreed, of course, but was NOT happy.
I brought some study materials but I finished them and so I walked around the dealership looking at all the shiny and new vehicles for sale and started doing some mental math. If I were to purchase one of those cars, finance it for the sticker price at 6% for three years, I'd end up paying close to $700 every month, and don't forget higher insurance premiums and personal property tax bills. Knowing that I could just pay about $725 one day and hopefully not have any more expenses for several months at least was very gratifying.
The final bill came to $719, which was what? 2 gallons less than $725? And like the last time, the payment went on the card with the most recently ending billing cycle, so we'll actually pay for this around mid-October. All things considered, it could have been much worse. I could have bought a new car. ;-)
This episode does underscore the importance of budgeting for routine car repair. Cars age, stuff needs repaired or replaced, and it doesn't seem to come cheap. It also seems I'm in the wrong line of work. The labor costs for each of our recent vehicle repairs have greatly exceeded the parts costs. Maybe I should become a mechanic.

Timely article by Liz Weston

2007-08-27T21:11:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading Liz Weston's article about not being entitled to keep money you erroneously receive from an employer, and it happened to be very timely. At the end of March, one of my employers paid me for a day's wages when I hadn't worked and was not entitled to any money. The first of May they sent me a letter via certified mail telling me that I had received a payment in error and needed to remit it as soon as possible. I did so, and just last week, they finally got around to negotiating the check, five months after having given me the errant payment. On the bright side, it took so long for them to retrieve it that the interest on the money probably paid for the postage.
This sort of thing happens fairly frequently in the military as well. However, when the military overpays they generally don't send a nice little letter requesting repayment. Usually they just snatch it from your pay all at once. It's important never to presume your pay is correct and to be vigilant about your pay and allowances. Errors happen a lot, especially when you move from one area to another or when you go on or return from a deployment, and you need to be aware of the type and amounts of pay and entitlements are you are supposed to receive. If you spot a problem, contact PSD and expect the problem to be fixed in the cruelest way possible. I've heard they're trying to pass legislation limiting the amount that can be taken at once, but until then, people will continue to experience "no pay due" paydays.

Keeping your payment going when your payment method expires

2007-08-25T14:01:00.000-04:00

A couple weeks ago I wrote about my NFCU Checkcard being sent to the wrong address and how Navy Federal had to re-issue the card to our current address. Well, when I got the new card it had a different account number than the original (and now canceled) card. I was looking at the bank account statement just yesterday when I realized that our renter's insurance payment is still being drawn off the old card account, which, if it was not canceled two weeks ago, will expire next Friday at the end of the month. USAA, our insurer, has not sent us any kind of courtesy notice to the effect of, "hey, this method of payment is no good, and unless you want your policy to lapse you'd better update your payment information." The bank, of course, hasn't reminded us that we need to update all of our automatically drafted accounts to keep the payments from rejecting after the end of 08/07. Unfortunately, this seems to be the kind of thing that is our responsibility to remember and deal with before we start getting late notices (right in the middle of our PCS, of course).

So, on Monday, I'm going to have to call the insurance company. I'll probably also have to call the cell phone company too, because their payment method will also expire on Friday. It would probably be a good idea to make sure that we're not forgetting anything else, like the electric company. Actually, I think the electric company uses information from our checks to authorize a monthly ACH transaction, which is different and not something that will expire unless we cancel our checking account.

MOMA Meme: Be careful who you take advice from

2007-08-22T21:39:00.000-04:00

Patrick over at Cash Money Life tagged me to fill out a meme called "My One Money Advice." I guess the point of this meme is to share a favorite tidbit of personal finance advice. It's been hard for me to pick just one, since there are a lot, from the tried-and-true to the offbeat. So I chose the probably controversial yet common sense "Be careful who you take advice from." Consider the motives and positions of anyone whose advice you are taking, and be wary of anyone whose motives don't wholly align with yours. This should be common sense, but I'm amazed at the rampant stupidity I see splattered all over the PFBlog-o-sphere masquerading as good advice. Mapgirl had a great post a week or so ago alluding to this fact. Read it, and then be sure to check out the comments.
Whenever possible, you should seek the advice of a qualified professional. Everyone's financial situation is different, and the people you interact with probably have quite different needs and goals than you do, and their strategies will necessarily differ from yours. Having someone who is capable of assessing your situation based on your current and future income, your expenses, your obligations, your values, and your goals is a lot more important than people realize. Popular personalities, like Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey have a quite a few rules of thumb, but the reason these people are famous is because they're SALESMEN, not good financial planners. There are a lot of personal finance bloggers who fit into this same category. They generally have no formal training or experience, and all they care about is driving up their traffic and collecting ad revenue.* One widespread sign of this are people who post "ask the reader" type posts, which are a great way to drive up traffic and comment count with relatively little effort, even though they're often loaded with bad advice. The other sign is my well-known pet peeve of page ads, which have a frightening tendency to run totally counter of the intent of the blogs on which they appear, though that doesn't encourage most bloggers to turn them off. Credentialed personal finance bloggers are few and far between, and they only get a tiny fraction of the traffic of the most popular ones.** And the credentialed ones, if they even answer personal questions in a weblog capacity (there are a lot of ethics issues with this), won't do so without a consultation and a bit of turnaround time.
I know a lot of people don't like the idea of actually paying for good advice, especially in this era of thievery of intellectual property and free information overload. However, everyone's financial situation is different and most people would greatly benefit from a professional consultation. Yes, in order to talk with a qualified professional, you will probably have to PAY for it, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. A fee-only financial planner or someone with fiduciary responsibility is someone who will work for YOU, not for themselves. And I daresay, when we're talking about ones entire financial future, it's a small investment that can have a huge payoff.
I'm probably supposed to tag someone, but whatever. If My One Money Advice has inspired you to post, then go for it.

*I keep wondering when a personal finance or investment blogger will get sued for promulgating bad advice. Sure, everyone has those lame little disclaimers on their sites, but I doubt they're legally rigorous, especially if they aren't easily visible and clearly written. Probably the biggest barrier to lawsuits is the lack of positive identification of the authors.

**It should be noted that I am not currently a credentialed blogger. However, in a year's time I will have completed all the requirements for accreditation, and I certainly will not be doing personal finance consultations over this blogspace.

Military "Bachelor" couple broke up

2007-08-21T11:48:00.000-04:00

I generally read Sarah Smiley's column every week, and today she wrote that Andy Baldwin and Tessa Horst, the couple from The Bachelor: An Officer and a Gentleman, have broken off their engagement. This seems to be par for the course for most of the Bachelor couples, so I can't say I'm surprised, heartbroken, or shedding bitter tears for this most unfortunate couple.
When that season aired, I actually made the effort to watch the last couple of episodes (it's too confusing early on when there are 20 girls and one hour of tape, and they all look exactly the same), just to see how it would end. I was amazed at how *little* emphasis was put on the practical aspects of Andy being in the navy and how much they focused on silly romanticism and drabble. Helicopter rides and horseback rides are great fun, but they do precious little to prepare a prospective wife for the life she will face as a military spouse. For awhile I was hoping that they had discussed these things at length, just off camera, but then it became clear when Bevin Powers, the losing contestant, told Andy's parents that she had no desire to be involved in a long-distance relationship. Exactly what kind of a relationship did Bevin expect from her sailor husband? She was obviously all giddy about the idea of being Mrs. LT Andrew James Baldwin, MD, but did she realize it was not going to be a life of paper mills and Joe Cocker? Tessa was a lot more reticent, at least on camera, but she presumably thought the same thing. When Andy proposed and Tessa breathlessly squeaked out a yes, and Up Where We Belong started in the background, I knew the relationship wasn't going to last six months. I also laughed myself off the couch, but that's neither here nor there.
To those who haven't been initiated to military life except through pop culture and movies, it seems a lot more exotic and romantic than it really is. Military life is *gritty,* and your typical game show hussy isn't going to understand that. Separations of months and months are common, and if Andy and Tessa couldn't bear being apart for the time it took to run the show and then the three months since the finale was aired, they're not made of stern enough stuff to get married. I was particularly touched by the revelation that Andy is going to receive a new duty assignment, and they don't want to uproot Tessa from San Francisco at this time. Of course not. It wouldn't be conducive for a marriage to have both halves of the couple to be in the same place at the same time, would it?
If this is truly the end for them, more power to Tessa. As someone who has spent a lot of time around naval officers, I can say Andy is no catch. There are plenty of more attractive, more interesting single sailors out there, officer or not. And I daresay ones who are a lot more competent. Do you really think a *good* sailor's command would authorize six weeks of personal leave in order to film a reality show? Me neither.

A renter's wishlist

2007-08-19T19:35:00.000-04:00

Last week I called the Base Housing Office of our new duty station. They informed us that there was a 12-month wait for base housing, and while we're still encouraged to double-check with them when we arrive in the area, it's extremely likely my husband and I will be renting again. As we've lived in several different apartments in the past, we have a pretty good idea of the features that are most important to us. I'm listing them here just for your amusement or as food for thought if you're facing an upcoming move.

Rent needs to be at least $100 below our BAH: Basic Allowance for Housing is designed to cover 100% of the median housing costs in an area, based on paygrade and number of dependents. Everywhere we've lived, we've sought to have our rent be somewhat below our BAH in order to help offset the costs of essential utilities (water, electric, gas), and also to hedge against rent increases. Unfortunately, given where we're moving, $100 below BAH probably relegates us to an apartment, as the results on militarybyowner.com are generally running several hundred dollars above our BAH.
Top floor: In the last five places we've lived, we have been on the top floor. This doesn't bother me because I don't have to haul furniture up or down the steps. I've learned that it's worth paying a $30 delivery fee to keep from having slipped spinal discs or a hernia, and military movers also *have* to put everything from your shipment into your apartment. Having nobody above you helps to shield yourself from the noise, and based on personal experience, it's a lot easier to get someone to come and fix a leaking roof than it is for them to come and fix the upstairs neighbor's leaking toilet.
W/D in unit: I'm not in college anymore, so I don't even consider a unit where there is neither a washer and dryer in the unit nor hookups for one to be purchased or rented. It is really a tremendous hassle and expense to have to tote laundry to a different location in order to take care of it. At one place where we lived for a very short period of time, it was actually cheaper to rent a washer and dryer than it was to pay to use the on-site machines. And when Mr. Dimes came down with norovirus, it was a lot easier not to have to haul contaminated clothes 50 yards to wash them. I can't imagine having children and not being able to wash clothes in the privacy of your own home.
At least two bedrooms/big enough for our stuff: This is pretty self-explanatory but obviously wherever we live needs to be big enough to hold the furniture we already own. When we first got married we lived in a 600 sq ft crackerbox but we've since upgraded. We don't really own that much stuff, but we also need enough space that we're not stumbling over one another.
Two toilets: We don't necessarily need two full bathrooms, but two toilets are a must. If you've ever had your only toilet break at 11PM on a holiday eve, you'll know what I'm talking about.
No smoking indoors: For one, I like my renter's insurance to be in the realm of the affordable, and I also don't like living with the constant fear that some idiot is smoking in bed and is going to inadvertently torch all my stuff. Secondly, if people smoke inside, it's going to permeate into your apartment and all of your stuff is going to take on that wonderful bowling alley smell. Lovely.
No communal billing: If utilities are not included in the rent, I would prefer that each tenant pay for his own portion of his water or electric bill. Some complexes, though not that many, simply split the bill up equally among several tenants. This means about half the people get ripped off, and the rest get a break. I don't see why my spouse and I should have to subsidize the water usage of the six people who live downstairs. And then what happens if they don't pay at all? Do I get to make up the shortfall, or do I get my water turned off?
Adequate and preferably assigned parking: Nearly everywhere I have lived has ample parking, but one of the places used to have an extremely lax parking policy. For the first year we lived there, the parking lot was an elephant graveyard of sorts, filled with abandoned cars, wrecked cars, cars without valid tags or safety inspections, and cars without owners. When it got to where there was almost no parking, they started towing out the abandoned vehicles and the parking situation greatly improved. Every complex should aim to have two spaces per unit at a minimum.
Soundproofing: This is such a pipe dream that I will just end my list right here.

How Casey Serin has enriched my life

2007-08-16T23:07:00.000-04:00

I'm sure by now most regular internet readers have heard of Casey Serin, the woebegone wanna-be real estate investor who purchased eight houses with no-doc loans, got foreclosed on five of them, sold two of them for scant profits (probably actually a loss if someone was doing the math), and has one still in a tenuous "mortgage wrap." Casey documented his adventures on his site iamfacingforeclosure.com and gradually managed to attract major media attention owing in part to his young age and his epic debt of approximately $2.2 million. With all the houses gone and his marriage in shambles, Casey pulled down all of his personal content and sold his web domain to an interested bidder for a reported $50K. Currently there is nothing on the page, save for a handful of Google ads. It's been over two weeks since Casey has vanished into the ether (though reportedly he's fishing for contacts on linkedin.com), and while he's the subject of an alleged federal investigation, no media outlet big or small has published any news on the guy. Reportedly he's moved back in with his parents who continue to enable his whimsical, lazy, pseudo-entrepreneurial lifestyle.
A lot of people hate Casey Serin, or at the very least, they hate what Casey Serin represents. Casey drives me up a wall, and I admit to spending far too much time in the past several months following his exploits, but I'd have to say that he's changed my life for the better in several ways:

Casey came onto the scene at a very opportune time. About a month after my husband deployed, I read about Casey on Ramit Sethi's blog. At that time, Casey's story was just starting to get exciting, and over the next several months, it became the gift that kept on giving. I worried the story would play itself out before my husband came back from deployment, but Casey did not disappoint.
I have learned more about the mortgage and real estate industry than I ever wanted to know. While I was aware there were many different types of mortgage loans, I didn't realize that commoners were able to get 100% financing on HOUSING. I'd thought it was reserved for military first-time homebuyers only. It has made me feel a lot smarter as we're watching the mortgage industry fall apart before our very eyes.
I am MUCH more appreciative of my husband. Sure, I appreciated him before, but when I compare him to a lazy, controlling, noncommittal jerk who scoffs at his wife's desire to get a degree and refuses to let her work outside the home for income, he's a knight in shining armor. In fact, few men could prove to be worse husbands than Casey Serin.
Casey shows us why impulsiveness can be a bad thing. Acting without thinking about the consequences has created a major mess for Casey. Casey purchased several of his houses sight unseen and paid way too much for them. He also purchased penny stock after receiving a Pump and Dump email, and bought a car with a great sound system but not much else on a moment's consideration. Every one of these actions has proven to affect Casey's life for the worse.
Casey has proven that there's *always* a mark. No matter how stupid or half-baked your scam is, there's going to be some clown who will fall for it. Casey spent a reported $35-50K on "real estate education," the kind where they give you two hours of instruction and then try to sell you another seminar, and there's usually a pre-recorded video of Donald Trump's son or the guru master telling you that you can meet him in person for only $10K and a trip to Phoenix. He fell for at least a couple of spam emails, and he's also a client (student?) of Nouveau Riche University. The reason you get so much spam email and junk postcards and see all those "lose 30 lbs in 30 days!" signs along the road is because marketers are looking for people like Casey.
The rule of law doesn't matter in this country. If you borrow money from someone with no intent to repay (as Casey did), it is doubtful you will be prosecuted, especially if they bent or stretched the law in order to lend the money to you. While I believe Casey should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, he will probably escape unscathed, simply because the companies who could sue him for fraud were 1) probably complicit in it, and 2) probably going out of business. Meanwhile, Casey, who is fully capable of working yet chooses NOT to, while following some lame dream of do-nothing "entrepreneurship," will use bankruptcy legislation to his benefit and get pretty much all of his debt forgiven, and pawn the rest off on his soon-to-be ex-wife. Then he'll find some new scam to run, and will be ready to file for bankruptcy again in 2015 or so.
My faith in humanity has been restored. While I know that sounds contrary to the last point I made, a lot of people who have followed the Casey Serin saga provided a LOT of helpful advice to Casey, which he proceeded to ignore. Many of them are successful homeowners and are people who are doing quite well financially, and for them to invest the time and energy offering advice to a complete stranger was quite magnanimous indeed. Unfortunately, Casey ignored all advice that didn't tell him what he wanted to hear, but for quite some time a great number of readers provided a lot of support to him. Even though he infuriates most of his readers, the vast majority of them do wish Casey well and would be happy to hear that he turned his life around and made amends to those companies he defrauded and people he betrayed and hurt.

While Casey has been engaged in his dalliances, racking up more debt and interest every day, Mr. Dimes and I have quietly begun setting up a house-buying fund. Since I started reading Casey's blog, we've managed to scrape together about $20K for homebuying. We're not going to buy any time soon, of course, but while Casey has sat on his rump doing nothing for the past eight months, plenty of other people HAVE been improving their situations. People like Casey are certainly a scourge on society, but they show the rest of us that we're not doing so bad after all.

A fun tip regarding NFCU accounts

2007-08-14T13:28:00.001-04:00

My husband and I have a joint checking account with Navy Federal Credit Union, and as is wont to happen every couple of years, our Checkcards got to the point where they were about to expire, and NFCU sent us new ones. Well, actually, they sent my husband his, and we kept expecting mine to arrive but it never showed up. After about 10 days, I finally called NFCU to ask them if the card had been mailed and whether or not we would need to re-issue it. The woman on the phone asked me for my access number (that seven-digit number assigned by NFCU that shares no digits with your account) and we found out that the address tied to my access number was our old address. In Georgia. Where we have not lived for over two years. Uhm. This is where they'd mailed the card, and the card had never been activated or used, nor had it been returned to NFCU. So the woman updated my address, sent me a new card AND a new pin, and I received them both a couple of days ago, and we're back in business.
I asked this woman how this mix-up could have happened, as there as been no activity from us in Georgia for two years, an all of our other bank statements and credit cards have ended up at our current address, and even my husband's card made it here without a hitch. She informed me that when we moved I evidently never called in using my access number to change my address, even though he had, and therefore they didn't realize to send my card to our new address, as this is not what they had on file. So this time when we move, we'll each have to make sure that we call NFCU and update our addresses as they are linked to our access numbers to keep this from happening again.
You'd think a bank that has a very large percentage of mobile military customers would be more military-friendly, but I guess not.

Military Move Entitlements

2007-08-13T13:04:00.000-04:00

When a service member (or an entire military family) moves across the country or halfway around the globe, they are entitled to a few special pays and allowances to help them with their relocation. Usually these things are paid when the service member checks into the new duty station, but the dollar amounts are substantial and knowing what to expect can help a family a great deal in planning and budgeting for a move, no matter how small. A military-ordered move is called a PCS, or Permanent Change of Station, move, and the two end points are called PDSs, or Permanent Duty Stations (though really, "permanent" in military-speak is probably only 2-3 years).
The entitlements and allowances a relocating service member may receive include the following:

DLA: Dislocation Allowance (pdf file) is paid to relocating personnel at a rate equivalent to 2.5 months of BAH expenses, and its primary purpose is to help offset costs associated with a PCS move (first/last month rent, security deposit, setting up utilities, etc.) While it appears to be quite a bit of money, it generally does not offset all costs associated with abolishing an old household and setting up a new one, but it will significantly defray those expenses. There are two DLA rates, a with-dependent rate, and a without-dependent rate. Generally you are not entitled to DLA if you will be living in the barracks at a new duty station.

TLE: Temporary Lodging Expenses are paid at a rate of up to $180 per day for service members and their dependents who have either arrived at their new duty station or not departed from their old duty station. The entitlement is limited to ten days and helps to offset expenses of lodging while at a duty station but still in a PCS housing situation.

MALT: Mileage Allowance in Lieu of Transportation is the rate per vehicle and vehicle occupant during a PCS move where the service member and/or his family drive to the new duty station. The rate is 15 cents per mile per vehicle driven by the service member or authorized dependents (normal limit of 2 vehicles) and 2 cents per mile per additional dependent in the vehicle. For example, a service member with one dependent and one vehicle receives 17 cents per mile. A service member with two vehicles, one driven by the service member and one driven by the spouse, will receive 30 cents per mile. The allowance is not intended to offset gasoline prices, but is payment that encourages service members to drive instead of requiring the military to figure out and pay for their transportation. It should also be noted that the number of miles from one duty station to another has already been set by the Department of Defense and if you chose a longer route you will not receive extra payment for it.

Per Diem: Per Diem is the government-established dollar amount for a military member who is relocating and their eligible dependents. A service member is authorized one day of per diem for every 350 miles of travel between two duty stations. If the remaining number of miles is greater than 50, an additional day of per diem is allowed. The daily rate of per diem is $99 for a service member. For a spouse or family member over age 12, the service member will receive $74.25 per day, and for children under age 12 the service member will receive $49.50 per day. As with MALT, the distance to determine per diem is already set by the Department of Defense. Per diem is to be used to offset food and lodging costs associated with the travel part of a PCS move.

Again, service members generally receive these pays as a reimbursement for moves already made (theoretically, so they can't take the money and go AWOL), so if you are expecting to make a PCS move, it's important to budget so that you don't have a cash-flow nightmare while you're waiting for the entitlements to arrive. Moving is stressful enough as it is.

Inventory your house

2007-08-07T22:55:00.000-04:00

With a cross-country move just about a month away, I have taken on the task of inventorying our entire apartment. Mainly this is so that if something gets lost in the move, we know what it is and can better estimate its worth. This is a good idea for anyone though. If possible, you should supplement your inventory with pictures (NOT digital, those crappy 35mm throwaway cameras are best for this purpose, as is a camcorder) so that you can prove the functionality and condition of your items as well, because movers (for the military, at least) are responsible for the damage.
This is also a good idea for your home in the event of home invasion or fires and floods, though it's important to keep your inventory in a safe place and to keep it well-updated. The parents of a college roommate had a vacation home that was burned to the ground in a wildfire five years ago, and luckily they'd made a video tour of the home which they'd sent to an aunt halfway across the country. The video was immensely helpful later on when they had to file their insurance claim.

Better late than, you know, never

2007-07-25T14:40:00.000-04:00

So with our move to California somewhere between six weeks and two months out, my family and Mr Dimes's family has finally become sufficiently motivated to come and visit us in Hampton Roads, as it's not likely that we'll be stationed here anytime in the near future. We only have one guest bedroom, so they've all had to come in shifts. It saves a lot of money, as this is a tourist town and summer lodging is expensive. Besides, we can cook here and I have a car and know my way around and we have pretty much all standard household amenities. Basically my apartment has become a one-stop resort with built-in tour guide. And it's great.
Staying with guests in their home is generally a much less expensive way to visit an area. You eliminate lodging costs and drastically reduce food costs. However, it's important to be a gracious guest. Across our families, people run the gamut from the most gracious and easygoing guests to nightmarish high-maintenance ogres who wear me to a frazzle in a few short hours. These people are anything but a joy to have around, but we grit our teeth and smile, and are planning to have slightly smaller quarters in California.

BUY RENTER'S INSURANCE

2007-07-04T12:15:00.001-04:00

An acquaintance of mine accidentally set her apartment on fire last night. Thankfully she was not injured and her unit was the only one affected. She was able to put the fire out herself, but not before causing a fair amount of smoke and water damage.

She does not have renter's insurance. This means, more likely than not, that she's going to have to pay out of pocket to replace all of the lost/damaged items. She hasn't had time to do a complete assessment of her losses yet, but she thinks they'll be fairly substantial.

Do you have renter's insurance? Unless you own a home and are paying homeowner's insurance, you need renter's insurance. Whether you live in an apartment or a barracks, unless you can afford to replace all of your belongings out of pocket AND have personal liability insurance, you need renter's insurance. Renter's insurance protects your belongings against fire, theft, and weather, and usually contains a liability premium protecting others from any mishap you may cause. Many landlords require their tenants to maintain liability coverage, at a minimum.

Renter's insurance is insanely cheap. Most policies average about $15/month, depending on coverage. It's usually available with the same company who provides your car insurance, often at a discount. If your car insurance provider doesn't offer it, USAA does.

Often people fail to get renter's insurance either because they believe they're covered by their landlord's policy or because they feel it's too expensive or not necessary. Your landlord's insurance generally covers the structure you're living in, but not your belongings. If a tree crashes through the roof, the landlord will be able to get his building repaired, but you'll be on the hook for replacing your TV and couch that were destroyed by the falling tree. As for the expense to you, would you rather pay $15 and be covered if something happened to your items, or would you rather save the $15 and hope any loss suffered by you was small enough to be covered by your savings? What if you were like my acquaintance but instead of containing the fire, the whole building burned to the ground and destroyed all the belongings of everyone living inside? How would you manage to pay for all of that damage?

Buy renter's insurance, people!

Happy birthday to me!

2007-07-03T14:58:00.000-04:00

Not really. My birthday was months ago, but our car insurer has finally recognized my advanced age by lowering our car insurance premium! Apparently we save about $5 per month due to my being over 25. Hooray!

I'm spending entirely too much time following the Casey Serin saga. I'm not sure if it's because of schadenfreude, of the fact we're the same age, or because Mr. Dimes and I are moving to CA ourselves in a couple months and are going to have a great time looking for affordable housing due, in part, to punks like him. Yesterday I spent six hours doing volunteer work and then came home to read about CS for about two more. NOT an effective use of blog time, I must say.

Auto maintenance can be expensive, so budget

2007-06-26T15:04:00.000-04:00

When I help people with budgets at my volunteer job, one of the major expense categories is personal vehicles, namely the vehicle payments, gasoline costs, insurance, and any registration or personal property taxes that are regularly owed on the vehicle. Another expense is the upkeep/maintenance allocation, which should cover both routine and unexpected maintenance expenses on a vehicle, such as oil changes, tire replacements, brakes and tune-ups. Our guidelines recommend $50 per month per vehicle, and for vehicles older than 7 years or so, we encourage the service members to consider either allocating more funds for repairs or to consider budgeting for a vehicle replacement. A lot of servicemembers balk at the idea of saving $50/month for maintenance, declaring that they perform their own oil changes or that their vehicle warranty covers everything or that their vehicle is super dependable and they don't need to worry too much about upkeep. Interestingly, we also see a lot of people coming in for unexpected vehicle repairs. Through budget counseling, you'd be surprised at how many of them don't consider an "unexpected" vehicle repair to be an expense they should anticipate and try to save for, even when it's the cause of their visit.
I'm saying all this because Mr. Dimes's car went wonky the other day, and I spent five hours and six hundred dollars fixing it yesterday. It needed a full tune-up, which was a little premature for its mileage but not its age, and given that it's going to be taking a very long trip in just a couple of months, we went for it. Technically it cost us 12 months worth of our maintenance budget. Luckily for us we've been saving, right?
I also had the presence of mind to put the expenses on the reward card whose billing cycle ended the day before, so we won't actually be paying for the mechanic for another six weeks or so. That's a small victory, but I'll take it.

Discover Cashback Bonus conveniently aligns with my life

2007-06-23T16:21:00.000-04:00

...for the next three months, anyway.
I got a Discover card about a year ago and while I use it for almost all of my incidental expenses, I generally don't spend enough money to earn much of a cashback reward. In fact, since August we've only accrued about $50 in Cashback earnings. Most of these have occurred when I take advantage of the Get More program to increase our cashback percentage. Luckily, from July 1 to September 30, the Get More program is focusing on gasoline and travel. Guess who will be buying quite a bit of gasoline and possibly renting a few hotel rooms between those dates? Yup. It's kind of hard to drive from one coast to the other without buying gasoline.

Long overdue update

2007-06-20T12:18:00.000-04:00

I suppose there are probably still a few lingering readers, to whom I apologize for pretty much disappearing for the last two weeks. Mr. Dimes and I have been enjoying his post-deployment downtime, I've began my internship hours for my fellowship, and to top things off, we're planning a PCS move-- to CALIFORNIA-- in a few short months! Never a dull moment in the life of a military family!
Things are returning to a "normal" pattern though, so here's hoping I can blog at least occasionally. I'm anxious to see how our financial situation will change with my spouse no longer receiving the deployment entitlements.

Here's to the Heroes Free Park Admissions

2007-06-05T14:22:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Mr. Dimes and I took a trip to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, VA. We got in without having to pay a cent (except for parking, which is insane) through the Here's to the Heroes program. This program allows servicemembers and up to three of their dependents one free single-day admission to one of several Anheuser-Busch theme parks. If you live near or will be vacationing near one of the theme parks (a list can be found here), be sure to take advantage of this opportunity.
We went, got sunburned, and then came home and invested $6K into our Roths.

Aiming for replacement parts

2007-06-02T14:31:00.001-04:00

An unhappy event coincided with the return of my beloved spouse: Our TiVo bit the dust. Actually, the hard drive gave out, and it was something that was several weeks in coming. Unfortunately TiVo's warranty lasts for a mere year, and we've had the thing for two. Under normal circumstances, simply buying a replacement device would make sense, but we purchased the Lifetime Service, which TiVo stopped selling over a year ago, and we want to hang onto that if at all possible.
While searching the web for solutions, I came across WeaKnees.com, which is a site that sells TiVos and TiVo parts. A replacement hard drive was only about $120 so we've ordered one and we'll see if that does the trick. [Note: Opening your TiVo will void your factory warranty. If your TiVo is still covered by the manufacturer, contact them instead of installing replacement parts yourself.]
Possibly TiVo should rewrite their warranty. They lack market saturation even though the competitor products are vastly inferior. I wonder if this isn't because the lifespan of their products is so short. Of course, hard drives will fail eventually, but why not offer free or low-cost replacement (or even those bait-n-switch upgrades)? It would definitely strengthen consumer loyalty.

Still on leave

2007-05-31T20:08:00.000-04:00

Dear loyal readers and others who pop in every now and then, I want you to know I am alive. Mr. Dimes just came home last week and we're getting reacquainted with one another and just chillin'. I should be back in a week or two. Maybe less.

"Pulling a Serin" re Casey Serin

2007-05-25T17:51:00.000-04:00

Hey,
I was wondering if any of you haterz can give me a link to tonight's fraudcast once it has been downloaded and hosted off Talkshoe? And/or give me a rundown of any highlights?
Mr. Dimes came home a couple days ago, and I'd much rather spend my Friday night with an intelligent, attractive, successful man than riveting myself to the computer so I can listen to Casey Serin drone on for hours. Can you blame me?
Thanks!

Vanguard revises fees, causes major confusion

2007-05-19T15:24:00.000-04:00

My husband and I are Vanguard investors, because we're of fairly modest means and we don't have a lot to save, nor do we have much to spend on brokerage fees. Both of our Roth IRAs are currently managed through Vanguard. Last year they charged me $10 on my Roth account for having less than $5000 invested into the fund (I'd just opened it, so the account balance was necessarily less than $5000). I smiled and vowed to get the balance up, and currently it's around $8500.

It seems that Vanguard must operate like the USPS and react specifically to my actions. Today, in the mail, I received a paper version of this press release:

Formerly, Vanguard’s annual fees were based on account type, fund type, and account balance, as follows:

· A $10 custodial fee on IRA (including SEP–IRA) accounts with a balance below $5,000.

· A $10 maintenance fee on index fund accounts with a balance below $10,000.

· A $10 custodial fee on Education Savings Accounts with a balance below $5,000.

· A $10 low-balance fee on all general accounts with a balance below $2,500.

Beginning in June, Vanguard will implement a much simpler, single-fee approach under which a $20 yearly fee will be assessed on all fund accounts with a balance below $10,000.

It goes on to state (on the back of my letter) that fees can be waived if a user agrees to switch to electronic statements OR raises the level of each fund in an account over the $10,000 mark. Humm. I suppose we'll be opting for the former, then.

This sort of action on behalf of Vanguard frustrates me, and it's not the first time this or another financial institution has suddenly implemented a new fee schedule that hurts their customers. For example, between the time Mr. Dimes opened his Roth account (2004) and when I did (2006 for TY2005), Vanguard raised the deposit minimum from $2000 to $3000. It's hard for young investors to find an extra $1000! Luckily we were able to use our tax refund to fund the account, but it was met with protest from my spouse.

This new $20-per-fund-with-less-than $10,000 will accomplish what, exactly? Will it encourage less diversification by investors trying to avoid a lot of fees? I'm hoping to broaden the range of investments in my Roth IRA, and the thought of paying $20 per fund with a balance of less than $10,000 gives me a bit of pause. If I buy a different fund this year, for example, I could be paying $40 in fees as opposed to $0 in fees, assuming I retain paper statements.

And, upon further perusal, there is some discrepancy in the letter I have received compared to the official Vanguard press release. The letter I have received says the following:

"These fees have been replaced by a single account service fee. This $20 fee will be charged annually for each Vanguard fund in which you have a balance of less than $10,000 in an account.
Below is a list of your fund balances as of May 5, 2007. Review this list to see which of your funds were below the $10,000 level and may be subject to the fee:
[my fund is here with the dollar amount, though not the account itself]"
On the back of the page where it mentions the two ways to avoid the fee, the second bullet says: "Invest additional assets or consolidate accounts to reach the $10,000 level in each fund in an account."

Compare this to the press release, which says the following:

Beginning in June, Vanguard will implement a much simpler, single-fee approach under which a $20 yearly fee will be assessed on all fund accounts with a balance below $10,000.

Under the new approach, shareholders have three options to invest fee-free with Vanguard: 1) establishing account access on Vanguard.com and choosing electronic delivery of statements, reports, and prospectuses; 2) maintaining total Vanguard® fund assets of $100,000 or more; or 3) consolidating accounts or investing additional assets to bring all account balances to $10,000 or more.

Do you see the difference? The letter I received refers to FUNDS. The press release refers to ACCOUNTS. These two words are NOT synonymous. A fund is a group of stocks or bonds, like the Mid Cap Index Fund, which is scraped together by a company and sold for investment purposes. An account is a way of managing or designating these funds, for example a Roth IRA or a 401K or a mutual fund account. The whole (account) equals the sum of the parts (funds). In my case it doesn't matter right this minute, since I only have one fund and it's below $10,000, but I will be throwing in another $3000 before the fee implementation date. If I'm correctly interpreting the letter I have received I should be buying into the same fund to save myself $40 in fees, but if I'm correctly interpreting the online press release it doesn't matter whether I add to my current fund or buy a new one, since the total account balance will exceed $10,000. All that matters is that I contribute before the June implementation date.

So which is it, Vanguard?

Casey Serin podcast idiocy

2007-05-18T23:34:00.001-04:00

Casey Serin made another foray into the realm of the webcast tonight, and it was not unlike his earlier attempt. This time, however, it ran overtime and he was apparently cut off at three hours. I wish I could say that Serin has gotten better at webcasting, but it seems that his narcissism trumps his broadcasting skills and he soliloquizes in a manner that makes Rush Limbaugh seem accommodating to his callers by comparison. In future webcasts, Serin needs to limit each call to no more than eight minutes, using a kitchen timer if necessary. More people would be encouraged to call in if they knew they weren't going to have to wait on hold for an hour or more, myself included. There were no women on the phone tonight.
When I find a downloadable link to the podcast (edit: here, right-click the link to save to your machine; thanks to The Dude) I'll post it, though a three-hour post is a lot to wade through, and most of it is the same old stuff. There were a few highlights though:
-Casey begs a caller for a free dinner (15:30)
-A caller advises Casey NOT to give advise as an unlicensed professional and Casey argues with him (16:30)
-Duane LeGate, Casey's first affiliate, called in (31:48-1:03:50)
-Casey complains about Duane's generosity and Duane telling his side of the story (59:00)
-Casey "deftly" dodged a YES or NO question by Benoit™ (1:20:45)
-Jackie Treehorn advised Casey to get a divorce and Casey admitted to being tempted (1:46:30)
-CHJTS (2:26:01) wrote a "love poem" to Stephanie J. (the steel-toed Aphrodite of the Haterz Club) (2:34:20)
-Declan McCullagh, author of "The Most Hated Blogger?" calls in (2:57:10)
Unfortunately the call terminates at 3:00:00, so we never find out how exactly Casey plans to make his $1000 per week.
It is my sincere hope that no one is crazy enough to sit around and transcribe this three-hour nightmare, though if you know the exact timestamp for any other memorable tidbits, let me know and I'll add them to the above list.
Edit: We have a winner. Miguel is transcribing a few choice passages of the Casey cast, which can be found here (Duane LeGate) (Declan McCullagh).

A Golden Opportunity

2007-05-17T18:13:00.000-04:00

Remember a couple of months ago when I applied for the NMFA Military Spouses' Fellowship for accredited financial counselor? Well, last Tuesday was the notification date, and I am pleased (and a bit surprised) to report that I was one of the 200 selected for the program. There were over 2000 applicants, so the odds of being chosen were long. I'm really excited about this opportunity and eager to begin. Mr. Dimes and I will be PCSing before the end of the year to a new duty station, and it will be a bit more rural than our current whereabouts, so this will give me something to do while we're there.
For those who are interested in applying for the fellowship in future years, the application should be available at NMFA.org through the month of March.

Deployment caused net worth explosion

2007-05-15T10:45:00.000-04:00

Today marks the end of the seventh month of my husband's deployment, and I've been looking back over our financial situation since October. It would seem that since he deployed, our net worth has increased by about twenty-five thousand dollars. In the seven months prior to his deployment, our net worth increased by only nine thousand dollars.
What factors caused such a huge increase? Let's enumerate.

Combat incentives: My husband has received the combat zone tax exclusion since October, which equates to an increase of about $400 per month in untaxed income. It has the dual effect of lowering our taxable income as well, which kept us in the 10% bracket for 2006, reducing our tax liability and keeping more money in our pocket.
Other deployment incentive pay: In addition to the combat zone tax exclusion, my husband also received the hostile fire/imminent danger pay ($225 per month), hazardous duty incentive pay ($150 per month), and the family separation allowance ($250 per month beginning at the 31st day of continued deployment).
Promotion/calendar pay: A few months before deploying, Mr. Dimes was promoted, which equated to an increase in his base pay and in his housing. He also received a pay increase due to his time served.
Tax benefits: Because of nontaxable allowances and combat zone tax exclusion, Mr. Dimes and I were able to qualify for the Saver's Credit in 2006, which refunded $800 of our tax liability to us for funding Roth IRAs (contributing to a Thrift Savings Plan would also have qualified us for the credit).
My job: For the most part, I am a seasonal employee, making most of my annual earnings between January and April. With my husband away, there wasn't much of a concern that my job was taking away from valuable "family time," so I was able to work more. Obviously, that translates into greater earnings.
Sweet passive income (HA): While we don't have a lot of money in our retirement accounts yet, the money that's in them has been growing pretty well so far, and it looks good on paper and also goes on the net worth statement, though we're not planning on touching it for ages. A year ago our bank said they were going to cease paying interest on checking accounts, so we opened a money market account and put our emergency fund in there. In the meantime the bank changed its tune and is still paying interest to the checking account, but we're making more in interest --4%ish --in the MMSA.
No overwhelming recurrent debts: The only money we're currently repaying is my student loan at 3.625%, so there isn't any high-interest debt that would be eating into our net worth growth. We haven't had a car payment in almost 17 months.

Not all servicemembers or service couples will experience the same increase in net worth that we did, but the potential for great increase is definitely possible. We vastly exceeded our expectations and I am impressed. Now the challenge will be not to squander all of our gains when Mr. Dimes comes back in a couple of weeks.

MyPay login has changed

2007-05-13T00:01:00.000-04:00

Patrick from Cashmoneylife beat me to this one, but sometime within the past week, the DFAS pay site, Mypay, has changed the security style of their login page. Instead of typing in both your user ID and password, you now use a "virtual keyboard" to input your password. The virtual keyboard's layout changes each time the page is reloaded, but don't worry, the letters and numbers stay on their correct keyboard rows. The theory behind this is that keyloggers will not catch your password. If you do not have a mouse, you can use the tab and spacebar keys to enter your password (though, admittedly, I had NO SUCCESS with this).

I first saw this change on Thursday and I was amused but am not sure how helpful it's going to be. For one thing, it's terribly easy for someone to look over your shoulder and see you selecting your password, letter by letter. For another, it looks like you're *screwed* if you don't have a mouse or a touchpad, since arrow keys don't work, and apparently the tab and spacebar feature isn't working like it's supposed to. I suppose the protection against keyloggers is a valid point, though the actual login ID isn't entered on a virtual keyboard, which would still enable thieves to obtain it.

I wonder if this method of login will become more widespread, and I wonder if it will actually help prevent ID theft.

About May Rent

2007-05-11T15:46:00.000-04:00

First of all: Happy Military Spouse Appreciation Day! And thanks for all the well-wishes.

I just realized I forgot to update you about the ongoing saga of my apartment rent. Regular readers might remember that last month my apartment complex collected rent from me twice, first by check (for the new amount), then by auto-draft for the old amount (I renewed the lease in March and did NOT authorize automatic withdrawals). Anyway, I let them keep the overdraw and just paid the balance on May 1st.
Imagine my amusement (though frankly, not surprise) when a notice appeared on my door May 3rd presenting me with a bill for $1265 in delinquent rent and penalties. I couldn't decide whether to run over to the leasing office in a rage or whether to just blow them off and let them figure it out. I took the intermediate route of calling the leasing office, because it was raining. The girl who answered the phone listened while I expertly explained the problem and the fact that I owed them nothing at all, and that their records would indicate this, if only they'd look at them before taping notices to people's doors. She did, in fact, look, and agreed with me, and the matter was settled.
I'm not going to pursue the $3.50 I lost in interest due to them withdrawing that payment early. Some things ain't worth the hassle. :-)

Things you may not know about me- old meme

2007-05-10T16:30:00.000-04:00

Sun, over at The Sun's Financial Diary, tagged me in the meme "Five things you may not know about me." The problem? He tagged me on December 9th. It has taken me FIVE MONTHS to respond to his tag. Maybe I should stop preparing taxes and start working for the IRS instead. I'm moving along at bureaucratic speeds.

1. I am a huge fan of rocket-era astronauts and test pilots. Last week, to honor the life of Wally Schirra, I watched "The Right Stuff" and had too many glasses of booze. The last time I drank myself into a stupor was when Scott Crossfield, the first person to go Mach 2, died, in April 2006. Only two of the original Mercury Seven remain, and the ranks of the Gemini and Apollo astronauts are thinning too, bit by bit.

2. I have a hard time falling asleep at night, and an even harder time waking up in the morning. My husband is the exact opposite, naturally.

3. Cooking is one of my favorite hobbies. I don't like to eat out, but if I find some delicious dish, I try and replicate it. I watch the food network a lot and don't use too many cookbooks. I try to just be inventive in my own right.

4. Mr. Dimes and I ran off to Vegas. It was my idea. Our parents even gave us their blessing provided they were able to come too. And so it was. I wore a white dress, we all stayed on the Strip, and we even had a cake from the famous Freed's Bakery. All in all, the whole thing probably cost about $5000 for all of us, which wasn't bad for a spontaneous, "destination" wedding. While not totally spontaneous, the whole thing was planned and executed in less than three weeks, which is a pretty short time.

5. I am obsessed with my teeth. I think about them constantly, run my tongue over them all the time, and have a hard time keeping my fingers out of my mouth. I floss regularly, and brushing totally grosses me out, but I do it anyway. I only have two cavities, and I wear a mouth guard to bed. I'm currently bleaching them, but I have to admit I only do that about every 3-4 years.

Am I supposed to tag someone? Ok, how about this: If you hadn't been born when I was originally asked to complete this meme, go ahead, knock yourself out.

Weigh in!

2007-05-10T00:06:00.000-04:00

Golbguru made an interesting post tonight, asking his audience what beefs (if any) they have with personal finance bloggers. He's speaking generally, so don't name names unless you want your comment censored. Maybe if enough people comment, he'll follow up with some semi-detailed analysis.

I know most of my readers also read Golby, but in the event that some of you don't or you simply missed his post, go over there and rant! Now is your chance!

P.S.: For some strange reason my blog thinks it's in the Central Time Zone. Guess I'll have to fix it.

Treat your Family Separation Allowance as an Allowance

2007-05-09T00:28:00.000-04:00

When I wrote my post "How deployments affect finances" six months ago I touched on the incentive pays that military personnel get while in the field, but I didn't go into great detail with each of them. I simply advised service members and their families to be careful not to ramp up spending to levels that will be unsustainable post-deployment. Now, let me tell you about my favorite incentive pay* and how I've used it to make my life happier, and how you can do the same.
My favorite incentive pay is the Family Separation Allowance, which kicks in after 30 consecutive days at sea and is $250/month, regardless of paygrade. I like to think of it as "lawnmower man money," since it could probably cover the cost of yardwork (and other chores) which would normally be performed by the absent spouse. It is, like other allowances, a nontaxable benefit, meaning the military basically gives you $8.33 for every day they keep your spouse, beginning at day 30.
Personally, I have considered the FSA to be a sort of indulgence pay, and allow myself to use it on whatever items make me happy, provided that they can be paid for in one fell swoop and aren't ongoing obligations. Good examples of these items include airfare to see my family, ridiculously priced bath products, novelty liquor, magazines, and, um, spousal stand-ins. Bad examples would be things that couldn't be paid for quickly, like an expensive car, custom highlights, or Netflix, though Netflix is pretty reasonable as far as indulgences go. If you recall, I actually turned off the cable movie channels when Mr. Dimes deployed, and have rented the rare movie I felt like watching. If I were more of a movie aficionado, I probably would have signed up for that service, since it's definitely less expensive than premium movie channels.
Deployments are tough on everyone, so it's important to be able to pamper yourself a little, lest you go insane. However, by using a carefully metered allowance, you can indulge yourself without sinking your financial ship.

*Actually, the combat zone tax exclusion is my favorite pay, but its dollar value is not uniform across all ranks/paygrades. FSA is my favorite set-value pay.

Military Spouse Appreciation Day is May 11

2007-05-08T12:39:00.000-04:00

May 11th marks the 23rd annual Military Spouse Appreciation Day. This day was proclaimed by Ronald Reagan in 1984 to honor the "countless personal sacrifices" of American military spouses. The holiday (or recognition day, or whatever it is) occurs annually on the Friday before Mother's Day. So if you know any military spouses, please remember them on Friday.

Postage rates go up next Monday!

2007-05-07T12:21:00.000-04:00

This whole thing might be a ploy by American Greetings and Hallmark to encourage you to send Mother's Day greetings to your moms, but please be advised the postage rates to send a first class letter are increasing next Monday, May 14th to 41 cents. This increase is two cents from the current rate.
I could have foretold this increase, because I bought stamps in February, a bare week before the possibility of a rate hike was mentioned. The USPS monitors me, and chooses to raise postal rates when I buy stamps. This is not the first time this has happened.
At any rate, the increases will affect all types of mailing media, and the shapes of parcels will matter as well. More detailed information can be found on the USPS website.
With the ease and availability of online billing, I haven't had to use the postal service very much, mainly to send holiday greetings to family and friends or packages to my deployed spouse. However, rather than having my lovely envelopes sullied and returned for insufficient postage, I like to make sure my stamps reflect the current rate.

Advice from the peanut gallery

2007-05-06T00:10:00.000-04:00

The time is rapidly approaching for me to fund my Roth IRA for 2007. Since I'm trying to diversify, I'm looking to buy into a different fund this year. For the past two years I've purchased the Vanguard International Growth fund, which is a mix of European and Pacific Rim stocks. It's been doing splendidly as far as index funds go, but I want to try something different this year. I'm not interested in bonds, because I've got at least 35 years before I can even touch this stuff* and bonds are too conservative at this point. I've considered the Vanguard 2045 Target Retirement fund, but I don't think I want to take that route yet.
Any recommendations?

*Not true, the contributions to Roth IRAs can be withdrawn at any time without penalty.

Not really financial tip

2007-04-25T11:31:00.000-04:00

A tip to help preserve personal privacy when traveling by airlines.
This observation is based only upon my limited experience, and involves a very small number of airports, but if you hate getting your bags at the airport "randomly inspected," make sure you do this to improve your odds.

When you take a carry on bag though security, ALWAYS have a plastic bag containing liquid items. Do this if these are the only liquid items you have, and if you're only bringing them for this purpose only.

My husband and I had the crazy luck to be returning home from a week's stay at my parents house the day of the liquids ban. We were lazy and simply left our liquids at my parents house and carried on our luggage per usual. Since we had three bags between us, no checked baggage claim stub, and reported no liquids, our bags were unmercifully searched. The TSA agent tried to argue with me that my spare set of contact lenses in their blister packs needed to be disposed of. I pointed out to him that they were prescribed medical devices and he quit being an ass.

Since that day they've allowed meager quanitities of liquids aboard aircraft, and my experiences the half dozen or so times I've flown have been similar. If I put liquids into a ziploc and point them out to the TSA agent (a wee bottle of lotion, hand sanitizer, a chapstick), they leave me alone, but if I tell them I checked all liquids, or have none at all, they unmercifully harass me, looking for that forgotten half-teaspoon of saline. I travel light as possible, and to have some bonehead rifling through my tightly packed baggage really hacks me off. Plus, they never repack it nicely.

This may not work all the time, but I've had great luck with it.

State of the Blog Address

2007-04-23T13:14:00.000-04:00

I can't believe this blog is seven months old! I started it in order to while away the hours while my beloved spouse was deployed, and he's been gone almost as long as the blog has existed. I'm glad it's lasted, as it would be wholly typical of me to have created one, updated it six or seven times, then abandoned it altogether. I've been so busy that it feels like I haven't posted since January, but there are entries here, so I guess I have.

My sitemeter is currently showing just under 7000 hits, which is respectable as far as I'm concerned. I agree with Ramit of Iwillteachyoutoberich that site stat fixation is a waste of time, though I still like to know that my content is being read, at the very least. I really like to see what sorts of google searches bring my site up. The biggest search match (which is responsible for the huge traffic surge back in December and for which I still get regular hits) is "2007 BAH rates" or some variation thereof. This tactical decision brought me a surge of traffic, though it appears it wasn't lasting. Oh well. I still have a fairly steady, albeit small audience, which is amazing given the recent lack of effort towards the blog.

The layout still sucks. Actually, that's not true. I LOVE the three-column layout, and would keep it at the expense of well-organized archives and labels, though I'd love to be able to integrate the two. However, I don't want to modify my layout too much, or people will stop recognizing my blog. It's unsettling to me when someone overhauls their blog and changes the layout and color scheme so dramatically that I don't recognize it anymore. Also, I'm pretty weak HTML-wise, and I'd hate to ruin my lovely blog whilst on a vain quest for labels, or something. You should have seen the nightmare of trying to upload and modify this existing layout. Anyway, upgrading the aesthetics is not a priority. As Flexo succinctly put it, content is king!

Lately I've been getting emails about advertisements. I'm inclined to believe they are spam and ignore them, as they are not at all personalized, usually beginning with "greetings blogger" or "hello dimestodollars.blogspot.com." I guess this means either I am developing some reach, or I have come above the spam radar. Either way I should probably be flattered.

Thank you to all of you who read this site, who link to this site, who enjoy this site, and who glean any benefit whatsoever from this site. If there's ever anything you need or would like me to address, don't hesitate to email me.

And now we return to my irregularly scheduled blogging.

Living on $46Kish per year

2007-04-22T13:54:00.000-04:00

It seems everyone (not really, but at the very least JLP and Flexo) has recently posted about the CNN Money article profiling five families living on $46,000 per year, which is the current median income in America. So I'm going to do the same! Just kidding. This past year I've noticed that Mr Dimes and I have an annual income that is not too far from the median (when he deployed, it was right at $48K, now it's up around $54K, though the wealthiest of the families profiled is earning $60K, so we're in the realm of the median). After reading the article, I decided to make a lovely pie chart to illustrate our expenses. Hopefully you can read all the tabs. I suppose I should be honest and say this budget is somewhat speculative, as I haven't had my spouse home for the better part of a year, in which time gasoline prices have increased but so has his paycheck. Forgive me for referring to myself in the third person ;-)

Hampton Roads, VA
Mr. Dimes and his wife, Dimes.
Job: Mr. Dimes is a naval officer
Dimes is a seasonal tax preparer, budget counselor, and occasional substitute teacher.
Income: Mr. Dimes makes about $4400/month; Dimes has earned $4500 so far this year but it represents a majority of her total earnings for the year as tax season has just concluded. She supposes her total annual income will be below $6000.

While rent is obviously their biggest expense, the couple receives BAH (aka Basic Allowance for Housing, which is tax free given to military personnel for the express purpose of finding off-base housing) of approximately $1300/month. The BAH is determined by the area where they're stationed and by paygrade, and would disappear entirely if they lived in military housing.

Utilities includes electricity, water, land and cell phones, renter's insurance, and cable. Food accounts for groceries and occasional eating out. The "other" category includes cleaning supplies, clothing, liquor, entertainment, incidentals, and whatever else was not neatly categorized.

Vehicle costs include gasoline, insurance, registration and a monthly allotment for maintenance, repairs, or replacement. The couple owns both of their vehicles outright and hasn't had a car payment in well over a year. Aside from normal vehicle expenses, the couple also allots some money to a travel fund, as family lives far away and a pair of plane tickets can cost $600 or more.

The couple is lucky to have minimal healthcare costs. Tricare covers most regular healthcare, but corrective lenses need to be paid out of pocket, as do dental premiums and some other associated costs.

Student loan repayment and charitable contributions make up the remainder of the small budget items.

The couple currently saves a quarter of their income. Why? Probably because it has grown so quickly in the past year that they haven't figured out where to spend it. (They ask you not to give them any suggestions, by the way) They contribute to Roth IRAs, and have been working at building an emergency fund. The couple plans to start a family in the near future, and has decided it is very important for them not to be reliant on two incomes.

"Plus, we're moving within the next year," says Dimes. "Promotion or not, it's a shore assignment, so he's going to get paid less. May as well bank it while it's there, rather than getting used to spending it."

Good deal? Guess again

2007-04-21T13:40:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if you've seen one of these before, but in Norfolk, VA, they just had a home raffle, and the winner was a woman from Richmond, VA. Anyway, tickets were $100 apiece, and the home up for grabs was a 3-bedroom, 2500 square foot home valued at $700,000. The home was made of donated materials and labor, and the tickets were sold as fundraisers for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
For a mere $100, you could have a new house valued at $700,000. Would you buy a ticket?

Would I buy a ticket? Hell no. I'd contribute to St. Jude but I couldn't take a risk of winning the house. If you were to win, do you know what will be coming in the mail in January, courtesy of St. Jude? A 1099. Yes, the house is considered a prize, so you owe income tax on it. Yes, that little $100 winning raffle ticket would increase your 2007 income by $700,000. Yeouch. We're talking a tax liability of around $230K. How's that for a good deal? You'd probably have to take out a quarter-million dollar bank note just to pay the tax bill, or hurry up and try to sell the house in order to do the same. Of course, if you sell the house, and there are any gains, you'd have to pay tax on those as well.

All things considered, I'd rather play the lottery. At least if you win, the payment is in cash.

A scare- why communication is important

2007-04-19T00:38:00.000-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, I logged into our online account to see which transactions cleared over the weekend. For some odd reason, Navy Federal doesn't update their transactions until Tuesday, so I customarily check on Tuesday or Wednesday and Friday. Anyway, as I'm skimming the transactions, I notice an ATM withdrawal from a foreign country I've never been to and one that Mr. Dimes has been to in the past, but not recently. Naturally, I am immediately concerned though not outright panicked. I email him and ask him if he's currently in port and if he's used any ATMs in this country. Naturally my fear is that he used some sketchy ATM which stole his account information and now someone is sucking our account dry. And halfway around the world, to boot!
I give him 24 hours to respond to my email before I call NFCU and have them cancel his ATM card. Luckily, he responds in just a few hours and informs me that they are in fact in port, and yes, he did use the ATM. Sigh.
This is one of those time when I'm not sure whether to be relieved or aggravated. Generally he's very good about telling me about financial transactions or port visits before the stuff starts posting to our accounts, but this time he dropped the ball. However, I'm very happy that I don't have to sort out bank account fraud that occurred halfway around the world.
If you're on deployment, it's very important that you keep the spouse at home apprised of what you're doing with money, whether you're gambling, buying gifts, or just paying your mess bill. If you're the spouse at home, you also need to stay on top of things and make sure your deployed spouse isn't deprived of cash. Civilian families need to keep the lines of communication open as well, but for military members, who often have to overcome large distances and communication lapses, keeping one another informed of your financial dealings can save hundreds of dollars in bank fees and hours of frustration.

Well, that's over (or not).

2007-04-18T12:48:00.000-04:00

Hooray! The income-tax filing deadline has finally passed! I hope everyone has either submitted their return or filed an extension. If you or your spouse is currently or has recently been in a Combat Zone, you automatically receive an extension without having to apply for one. Just make sure when you do file your taxes that you write the name of the military operation and the date of deployment on the top of the return. More information can be found here.
You can still electronically file your returns until October, so as long as you get them done by then, you should be able to get your refund in short order.

And now that I'm back to gainful unemployment, I might actually update regularly!

Why it's good to have a cushion in your primary checking account

2007-04-06T10:29:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday I took a rent check down to my landlord like a good tenant does. Yesterday I looked at my bank account balance to find they had auto-drafted my account for the amount of my old rent. Uhm. I had just renewed my lease and had opted NOT to have auto draft because the new rent amount was higher and since we might PCS before the end of our new lease, I'd rather not have them meddling in my bank account. Of course, despite my efforts it happened anyway. This morning I popped down to the leasing office to politely demand my money back. The fella who works down there destroyed my auto-draft authorization, and told me, "Well, Dimes, by the time that we can refund your money, you'll be owing us this pesky rent again, hyuck hyuck hyuck." I decided we would avoid a clusterfuck and just told him to KEEP the extra rent, and I'd pay the balance on May 1.
My rent is pretty high, far and away our biggest monthly expense, and imagine it being drafted twice in the same week? All told two months' charges were just under $2200. And today my student loan payment is being drafted out of the same account. This would be a perfect situation for a bounce, except that Mr. Dimes and I wisely keep a fairly ample cushion in our primary checking account. The better part of one month's expenses, at least.
I'm a big fan of people who keep their reserve funds in a high-yield savings accounts, and I also agree with the people who think that credit cards can function as a suitable emergency account. However, in some situations, ready cash is king. If we kept a low balance in our checking account, we could overdraw before the money could be transferred out of savings, and in this particular situation, credit cards are useless for rectifying the situation, even if they can be used for groceries and gasoline until we're made square again.
So keep situations like this in mind, folks. And if you're moving to the Hampton Roads area, I can give you a suggestion of who NOT to sign a lease with. :-)

Beware of one-size-fits-all financial advice

2007-04-03T11:12:00.000-04:00

It's great to see all the gurus out there who claim to have all the answers regarding financial management. It can be fun and informative to read their various guides, plans, and frameworks in a quest to become wealthy, financially free, debt-free, or whatever. But really, you've got to be judicious in interpreting what you read, because not all advice is created equal, and not all advice is appropriate for everyone.

From time to time I watch Suze Orman, and I am struck by this. She seems to operate under the assumption that her viewership is significantly wealthier than the average American. She may have enough demographic data to know if her viewers are wealthier than average, but her advice isn't always sound for everyone. Ironically, Suze doesn't exactly practice what she preaches, as far as the investment game goes. And for her callers, she vastly oversimplifies the financial aspects of their difficulties. Husband a money bully? Divorce his ass and move away! Spending too much? Spend less! Uhm. What great insights.

I actually have a bigger quibble with David Bach, which I addressed several months ago after reading a few of his books. Bach operates under the scenario of most favorable return. He illustrates the power of his "pay yourself first" by creating almost impossible situations to inflate his numbers. He operates on the assumption of a consistent 10% return and a current tax bracket of 33%, along with a retirement tax bracket of 0%. These are preposterous assumptions, of course. How many of you are currently in the 33% bracket or higher? Most military personnel are in the 10%, 15%, and 25% brackets right now. I'm fairly certain that marginal tax rates will increase between now and retirement age. And who gets a consistent 10% return on their money? For a person with a lower income, a different strategy is needed.

Mass-market gurus do not take on individual clients, and therefore their advice should be taken with the requisite grain of salt, as it is not tailored to specific needs. If you're looking for specific financial advice, it is best to visit a financial planner or financial counselor. In fact, you may even benefit from visiting more than one. Individual situations are complicated and vary widely, so it's imperative that you find someone qualified to understand your own financial goals and help you create a plan to achieve them.

Half a MILLION dollars for college?

2007-03-28T22:03:00.000-04:00

After not receiving the annual "price hike letter" from our alma mater, this evening I decided to look up their tuition rates for the 2007-08 academic year, since I'm sure kids are receiving their acceptance letters this week. I know the tuition and fees are getting exorbitant but I was absolutely shocked at what I managed to find:

Jan. 19, 2007 -- Undergraduate tuition at [school] will cost $34,500 for the 2007-08 academic year — a $1,700 (5.2 percent) increase over the 2006-07 current academic year tuition of $32,800. The required student activity fee will total $345, and the student health fee will be $679.

Room-and-board charges for 2007-08 will be $11,632, an increase of $456 (4.1 percent) over the current year's charges of $11,176 for the full meal plan and newer student housing.

$34,500? Just for tuition? When I started a few years ago the tuition was $24,300, room and board was $8000, and there was NO student health fee. $34,500 was the recommended amount for an entire year, including books, transportation, and spending money. Glad to know you can't even buy a degree with that.

And if we extrapolate the growth into the future, what will college cost 20 years from now when I have college age children? By my calculations, it's going to cost around $539K for four years at my alma mater. And that's just for an undergraduate degree. Are undergraduate degrees really that valuable? Am I really earning so much more than I would be earning had I never stopped to get it? Is it really reasonable that parents and children work together to scrape up that much money for a no-frills degree? I'll tell you right now that I can't afford it, and many other people won't be able to afford it either. That kind of money represents the better part of a reasonable nest egg.

I think the college cost growth model won't be able to stand for long. The 2007-08 tuition figure is more than our 2006 AGI*, and the total of the costs added together ($47,156) is uncomfortably close to the median US household income. College is rapidly becoming a luxury.

*In order to increase sensationalism, I'm politely ignoring Mr. Dimes's Combat Zone Tax Exclusion, as well as his BAH and BAS. Our 2006 gross entitlements were in the ballpark of $50K. But still? College costs have exploded. When my parents were in college, their semester cost as much as my books for a semester did. Something's got to give.

Three days left to apply

2007-03-28T17:19:00.000-04:00

Attention all active duty military spouses! You have three days remaining to apply to the NMFA Military Spouses' Fellowship. More information can be found here. Upon completion of the program you will have earned a certification as an Accredited Financial Counselor.
This opportunity is open to all spouses of active duty military personnel, so if it interests you, apply today. It's largely self-directed, so your geographical location is of no consequence. The application is pretty easy.

Yahoo feed thingy sucks and strain

2007-03-25T20:02:00.000-04:00

I look at a handful of my favorite PF blogs on the MyYahoo feed page, but the update function on the product is unreliable. I've updated twice since the thing has last pinged my blog/been pinged by my blog/whatever, and it's the same case with a few of the other blogs on the site, but some other ones seem totally unfazed. Also, the number on the feedburner counter is constantly changing. I'm not hypervigilant about it but when you have a single-digit number of subscribers, you notice if they drop by three in a day. It's hard to get a statistical sense of what's going on when the statistical tools are being wonky. Anyway.

This page has been in existence for six whole months. A lot of blogs are flashes in the pan, so I guess that's nothing to sniff at but nothing to boast about either. Unfortunately it also represents the amount of time my beloved spouse has been away on deployment. Have any of you been separated from your spouse for that length of time? It's difficult and easy at the same time. Objectively it doesn't seem like he's been gone for very long, but when I consider that he's been gone for as long as this blog has existed, it gets tough. Then I start comparing myself to other servicemember spouses who have it worse than I do; submariner wives who don't have email access, army wives whose husbands are on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan, and I feel guilty that we have it "so easy." Heh.

I'm going to try to go to Borders this week and take a look at Suze Orman's new opus. I've heard mixed reviews, so it's worth taking my own look at it.

Rushing student loan payment revisited

2007-03-24T01:04:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I posted about hurrying to pay off my student loan despite its 3.625% interest rate and 20 year term. I didn't get the derision I had expected but I'm revisiting the issue. Honestly, in our household, the student loan repayment is our *biggest* financial issue at the moment. I am a firm believer of playing out the loan while our money accumulates the extra percent or so of interest, and my husband (also the primary breadwinner) is a fervent believer of paying it off, like, yesterday. Ironically, this same husband reportedly has a degree in finance. Anyway, we've had many many arguments about this issue. I keep telling him the money will get cheaper over time (as in, $165/month will be a lot less of our income as a percentage in ten years than it is now), that our money is yielding more in our money market account, and that we've paid far enough ahead on the loan that if we needed to short a payment there wouldn't be any penalty to us. Does any of this calm him down and make him consider the situation rationally? Hell no! He just stonewalls me.
Basically, in our marriage, this is that "same old fight" you get into, like who left the washcloth in the sink or whose turn it is to take out the garbage. It's unproductive and a damned waste of time. And honestly, it's really aggravating. The only reason I'm rushing the repayment is to keep my husband from getting mad at me. Not because it makes financial sense, not because it makes me feel better, not because we need to improve cash flow, but because Mr. Dimes, finance major summa cum laude (no shit, guys), gets antsy because I have a long-term loan. Nevermind my credit is a lot stronger than his is because of it.
Any suggestions? Rational arguments won't work here. In fact, the guy helped me create a loan payoff calculator and an amortization calculator and even concedes that we'd benefit from playing it out, but he won't let me do it. So what can be done, other than viewing the lost interest as a "family harmony" tax? I'd love to nip this sort of behavior in the bud, because I'm afraid his aversion to smart decision making is going to creep into other areas of our financial life and derail our long-term goals (for example, he's extremely averse to ANY retirement saving, compound interest be damned).

Get rid of junk!

2007-03-23T14:01:00.000-04:00

Recently I've been feeling very busy, overwhelmed, and sort of forlorn. I'm busy with tax season and have been dealing with people who continually make stupid money decision after stupid money decision. When I get home I'm tired and I don't feel like doing much aside from watching TiVoed programs and I certainly don't feel like blogging.
A couple of days ago I finally stopped and took a look around my apartment and I'm amazed at what I see. Crap! Piles of crap everywhere! Old mail, receipts, print outs, promotional t-shirts and lots of other garbage. We've lived here for two years, which is the longest I've stayed anywhere since I was in high school, and we've had a lot of time to accumulate clutter. It's truly amazing. I don't remember bringing all of this stuff into the apartment, but it's gotten here somehow, and now I'm making it my job to get rid of it. The shredder has been working overtime and I've made a bunch of extra trips out to the dumpster. However, right now I'm at the point where it's looking worse before it will look better. In a day or two, everything will be more organized and the trash will be taken care of, for the time being, anyway. And I'll be less distressed by my cluttered environment.
A great benefit of being in the military is the opportunity to move every couple of years, so you can see the world and live many different places. However, when you move you have to take all your possessions with you. It's hard to keep track of your stuff when you have so much of it and it can be a hassle to move it all, especially if there's a lot of it you don't want or need. My suggestion is to go through everything and start getting rid of junk several months before you relocate, at least. My husband and I will probably be moving in the next 6-8 months, so doing a purge now will decrease the size of the purge we'll have to do later. We're nowhere close to exceeding our alloted freight limit, but still, why ship it if you don't have to? Why not take the dead weight to the junkyard? Or sell it?

Casey Serin Podcast Link

2007-03-22T20:37:00.000-04:00

If you want to take a listen to Casey Serin's podcast of shame, simply click here and download the file. The best part is near the end (1:39:20) when he gets very carefully ripped apart by the mysterious Nacho.

Sorry for being a conduit of drama, but this kid just amazes me. He's my age and has accomplished more (stupid impulsive acts) than I ever will.

*update!* The Casey Serin Dance Remix, by Casey Fannnnn, is available for download as well. To get it, type the three letter code in the box at the top and then click "download."

Combat zone TSP contributions are tax free

2007-03-18T19:11:00.000-04:00

If you're in the military and have gotten a chance to look at your W-2 this year (you should have, since you've got a scant month to files your taxes), you may notice an entry in Box 14. The entry you will probably see is an "E 06" followed by a dollar value. When you see this entry, you will probably also see a D and a Q in box 12. The D is your TSP contributions and the Q is the amount of your nontaxable combat pay.
The "E 06" is a very special entry indeed. It denotes the amount of nontaxable combat pay contributed to your Thrift Savings Plan. The great thing about these contributions is that they will never be taxed on withdrawal, whereas the rest of the TSP contributions function like a tax-deferred 401(k). If you were crafty enough to contribute to your TSP only while receiving nontaxable pay, and contributing to a Roth IRA the rest of the time, you'd be able to secure a tidy sum of tax-free retirement pay.

Took a risk

2007-03-11T16:24:00.000-04:00

So I applied for the NMFA Military Spouses' fellowship. I guess the verdict will be in within two months, though I'm not really hopeful. While I am actually a preferred candidate as far as their applicant criteria are concerned (ie, I have a degree in one of their preferred fields of study as well as work and volunteer experience in the financial service and military assistance fields), at this point it is probably a numbers game. There are already thousands of applicants and they only accept 200 people into the fellowship. Oh well, if I get declined I'm no worse off than I am now, and if I'm accepted I can earn a great new credential at a very low price!
Two months seems like a long time to wait to find out, though I guess it was about the same wait when I applied for college. Luckily I'll be very busy for the next five weeks with the end of tax season.

In other news, Suze Orman has jumped the shark with her Sapphic overhaul of her show, not to mention her new book.

Special opportunity for military spouses!

2007-03-10T00:04:00.000-05:00

Attention all active duty military spouses: The National Military Family Association has continued their Financial Counselor Fellowship program. From now until March 31, you can apply to the Military Spouse Fellowship for Accredited Financial Counselor program. The program, which is mainly taken via computer and correspondence courses, enables military spouses to become Accredited Financial Counselors through AFCPE. If you are awarded the fellowship you can earn this accreditation at no cost to you.
To learn more, click this link. To apply, visit this one. The application is pretty easy.
I know at least three people who are currently enrolled in this program, and they all love it. I wish I'd heard of it earlier, but I'll apply for this year. I don't have a lot of hope that I'll be selected, because there are thousands of applicants competing for 200 slots, but you never know. It's worth a shot, and how often do free educational opportunities come along?

How to persuade a spouse?

2007-03-05T11:11:00.000-05:00

My husband and I come from financially divergent backgrounds. I was raised in a household where we experienced fairly frequent layoffs and where my mom stayed at home to care for the children (and she also watched other people's children to make money). Coupon-cutting, hand-me-downs, and infrequent vacations were big parts of our lifestyle. Frugality and saving are second nature to me, and making financial goals is commonplace.
My husband was raised in a household of conspicuous consumption. His parents burn through money at a mindboggling rate. They earn at least $200K/year and save very little of it. By this point they've probably paid off their mortgage (they've lived in the house for 30 years), but they drop hundreds of dollars every month on trendy gadgets, cushy services (OnDemand + satellite radio + meal delivery + grocery delivery + garment service), overpriced and inefficient vehicles (ever hear of the Lincoln Blackwood?), and take multiple lavish vacations per year. They provide major financial support to two grown children, one of whom should really be employed by now. They don't have much if anything saved for retirement, and they're quickly approaching that age. They seem to think they can work forever and maintain their lifestyle until they're in the ground. They sneer at us (and anyone else) for saving for the future, and refer to us as Chicken Littles. When asked what their retirement plan is, they're counting on 1) inheritances, 2) Social Security, and 3) sponging off their children.
Naturally, after having been raised in an environment like that, my spouse is not an enthusiastic saver. He feels that both of us maxing out Roths is overkill. I feel like it's minimally necessary since there are no guarantees social security will exist in the future, and he's a looong way from qualifying for a pension. Unfortunately, my spouse makes most of the household income, and whatever I can earn is subject to the military's whims on where to send him. Having to start over career-wise every couple of years is somewhat limiting on earnings, not to mention the impact of future children on my income potential.
So, how to clear out the dross his parents have been shoving into his head for the last quarter century? How to get him on board with MY financial plan, or at least find some middle ground that won't necessitate us sponging off OUR children? If any of you married folk have any secret tricks, please let me know.

NOT about the Dow

2007-02-28T12:07:00.000-05:00

I spoke to Mr Dimes this morning for the first time in months. It was just after 4PM his time, so I asked him if he could tell me whether or not I should buy after the "crash" yesterday. He didn't know. I told him he was no help. We need to work the timezone thing to our advantage! ;-)

This month we're putting $1700 towards the student loan, which is huge and represents a fruitful month. Debt reduction is a little more important than recreational investing.

Oh, and he's fine, by the way.

Rushing student debt repayment?

2007-02-25T13:22:00.000-05:00

Last night I was watching Suze Orman and she took a call from a guy who was stressing out about paying off his student loan. His interest rate was like 2.5% and she told him not to worry about it, because it's cheap debt and the interest is tax deductible and he should concentrate on other debt repayment. Normally I agree about that issue, since student loan debt is really cheap, as far as debts go, but in my own life, I have a really hard time practicing what I preach. I'm trying to pay my own student loan debt off as quickly as possible. :-)
While in school, I borrowed $26,500 in student loans. I consolidated the loans while they were still in their grace period and managed to lock in a 3.625% interest rate on a 20-year term. Since then, the rates on our savings accounts have grown to an amount higher than on the student loan, but we're still hurrying to pay it off instead of saving it or investing it. Rationally, it's not the wisest move, but I'll try and explain why we do it.

We don't have ANY other debt right now. The cars are paid off, we don't have a mortgage, and there's no credit card debt or other installment or revolving debt. It's the only thing we owe on.
We're not planning on getting a home any time in the near future. Yes, the lack of real estate ownership will doom us to a life of poverty (unlike this guy), but as a transient military family, it doesn't make sense to buy and sell and buy and sell every few years for the next couple of decades.
Should we get a car payment or some other recurring debt, we can drop the student loan back to minimum payments without incurring any penalty.
Probably the biggest reason is that the loan is a TWENTY YEAR term. Actually, it's 238 months, but that's close enough. The idea of paying for college until I'm 42.5 is just amazing. By the time I'm 42 I'll probably have teenaged children. Mr Dimes could be retired from the navy. Having a loan for such a long time is annoying, at the very least. It's a pain, a hassle, an irritation, and just something else to worry about.

JLP at AllFinancialMatters posted the other day about debt repayment schemes and several people commented about the psychological lift from paying off a given debt, even if it wasn't the biggest balance or didn't have the highest interest rate. I believe this is why we're anxious to finish paying off the student debt, just to be unshackled. We're making good progress too. In 27 months we've reduced the debt from 26500 to 18000. It's a more measurable decrease than if we'd only been paying as required, and really, it feels satisfying. Shame on me for forfeiting 1.5% interest by not playing it out.

Two months left to file!

2007-02-18T00:06:00.000-05:00

There are only two months remaining until the deadline to file your 2006 tax return or an extension for it. April 17th is the cutoff date. If you're a slacker and haven't filed for the past several years, April 17th is the deadline for redeeming a 2003 refund. If you've been out of the country, otherwise indisposed, or just plain lazy, you've got two months to claim that refund, otherwise it's gone forever. If, on the other hand, you have delinquent taxes, there is no deadline for paying those. You'll owe them until they're paid.

If you're someone who is expecting a 2006 refund (or a 2005 refund, or a 2004 refund), I hope you've already started working on your returns and really you probably should have filed them already. Why let the IRS keep your money longer than they need to? If you are going to owe, no rush. You can electronically file at any time though and then just make sure you mail your check by April 17th.

If you're looking for a 1099 from Wachovia bank and it hasn't arrived, check this page. Apparently Wachovia (and several other firms, including Merrill Lynch, Edward Jones, and Morgan Stanley) got a special extension on issuing a lot of their 1099s this year. This is due to them needing extra time to perform required analysis on dividends before distributing the forms. I'm sure this is preventing a large number of people from filing in a timely manner. Luckily we don't bank with any of those firms, so we've filed and received our shiny refund already!

Real Obvious Life Lesson #1: READ THE DAMNED CONTRACT

2007-02-14T11:57:00.000-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day to all, and because I love you so much, and wish to forestall any future heartache, I will offer an important little nugget of advice. I suppose the advice won't be particularly helpful to the audience of this blog because I don't have you all pegged for dolts, but a little reminder can't hurt.

Before you sign ANYTHING, read the whole contract. If you don't understand it, consult a lawyer or other intelligent and disinterested third party BEFORE signing.

You're over 18, your signature counts. You're past the point where you can get out of a contract on an age technicality. Therefore, before you agree to something, you need to know just exactly what it is you're agreeing to. Otherwise you will be confused and look like an idiot when you're expected to hold up your end of the agreement.
I work in a tax office, and we have a number of contracts our clients are expected to sign as their returns are prepared. I've seen probably about 60-70 clients so far, and can count on one hand the number of clients who actually read anything before signing it, even our multi-page agreements. I can also count on one hand the number of people who have specifically asked me to paraphrase the contract, and while I know the gist of the arrangement, there are too many parts for me to simply rattle off. Besides, wouldn't I have an agenda in getting you to sign regardless of what the contact says?
The other day I had a couple who came in to complete a return, and while their return was very straightforward, they were dissatisfied with the amount of their refund. While the amount of the refund was substantial (over $2K), they were told by "the mortgage guy" that they'd be getting about $8K. I showed them that mathematically they couldn't get more than about $4300 in refund, because their withholdings were lowish and they made too much to qualify for EIC. Of course this was unacceptable to them, they were going to get a second opinion, because they'd only signed that mortgage contract on the promise of getting back huge tax refunds.

(I suppose here is Real Obvious Life Lesson #2: If you don't understand the tax impact of a mortgage, you're probably better off not buying a house.)

I asked if they had shared their tax information, both in terms of earnings and withholdings with their "mortgage guy" and they admitted they had not... but he'd SAID they'd get a huge refund from owning a house and such and such. BTW, they had an interest-only loan, by their own admission, and they were going to use their tax refund to help refinance but now they can't because the refund was too small and is not what "the mortgage guy" said it was going to be. I asked them if they had considered the possibility that "the mortgage guy" had told them whatever they wanted to hear in order to get them to sign the papers. From the look on the guy's face, you could tell he'd realized he'd been had. They left, presumably to get a second opinion, but probably to beat up the mortgage guy. As they were leaving I kept one of the agreements they'd already signed, and they asked me if that agreement required them to do their taxes with me. :-) (by the way, nope.)

Read the damned contract!

How we earned $3108 from the IRS

2007-02-11T19:20:00.000-05:00

Our 2006 tax return is the third return we have filed since Mr. Dimes and I got married in 2004. During these three years, we have been able to take a special tax credit, which was set to expire this year but has been made permanent by Congress. The credit is called the 8880, or the Saver's Credit. This credit is available to single, head of household, and married filing jointly filers who make below a certain income threshold and who contribute to qualified retirement plans (Traditional and Roth IRAs and 401k/403b plans). The credit allows each taxpayer to claim a nonrefundable credit of up to $1000 based on their retirement contributions and on their income level. The amount you can claim is either 50%, 20%, or 10% of the first $2000 you deposit into such plans. And as it is figured on a per taxpayer basis, the maximum credit for a couple filing jointly is $2000. That's better than the child credit! It's also the only credit you can qualify for after the end of the tax year, as you're able to contribute to IRAs until April 15th.
For 2004, we were able to take a $1000 credit (I was a full-time student in 2004, and full-time students, as well as people under age 18 are NOT eligible for this credit). In 2005, we were able to claim a credit of $1308. We were in the 50% range, but our tax liability for 2005 was only $1308, which limited the credit there. [As an aside, I suppose a couple earning under $30K would never actually be able to receive the $2000 maximum credit as their tax liability would be capped well below that, but I'm not motivated enough to run the numbers.] This year we made enough money that we were pushed forward into the 20% range, so our maximum tax credit was only $800. However, I'm not going to balk at $800 of my tax dollars returned to me.
For soldiers and sailors who have received nontaxable combat pay, there's an even better deal. The HEROES Act (Heroes Earned Retirement Opportunities Act) allows retroactive retirement contributions for soldiers and sailors with excluded combat pay. If you served in a combat zone and earned nontaxable combat pay in 2004 and 2005, you can make a retirement contribution for those tax years in the IRA of your choice, either a Traditional or a Roth. (My advice: Go for the Roth. The money wasn't ever taxed, and if you put it in a Roth, it won't ever be.) Once you have made the contribution, go back and amend your 2004 or 2005 return and capitalize on the Saver Credit, if you can.

When saving water doesn't pay

2007-02-10T22:43:00.000-05:00

I have noticed an interesting phenomenon ever since we moved here regarding our water bill. It seems that no matter how parsimonious Mr. Dimes and I have been with our water usage, the water bill never budges. Yesterday I got the bill for the period between December 19 and January 19. During that timeframe I was gone approximately 20 days, but the bill was only three dollars less than the previous bill. Why is this? Well, see for yourself. (By the way, I didn't make the graphic. It was on the bottom of the billing history on the water company's site.)

The SEWER charges are actually the majority of the bill! While my water use dropped nearly two thirds (from 2250 gallons to 790 gallons) during the billing period, the cost of sewer barely budged. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of having a well-maintained sewer system, but if you think that simply reducing water usage is going to save you much money, make sure you examine your bill. Of course, many people want to save water for environmental reasons, but for purely financial reasons you could do far better. It's not worth giving up laundry and bathing to save $3/month.

Wednesday at noon is a magical time

2007-02-07T13:59:00.000-05:00

And of course, I tell you this just *after* Wednesday at noon, but hey, it's a lot of forewarning for next week.
Wednesday at noon is the weekly deadline by the IRS to accept electronically filed returns and have the Direct Deposit prepared by the following Friday. For those of you who are holding out for paper checks, first of all, I ask "WHY??" and then inform you it will be another week at least.
Anyway, if your electronic return was received and accepted by the IRS by noon today, your refund (if applicable) should be received by your banking institution on Friday, February 16th, if you opted for direct deposit. However, due to variations in your banking institutions, the refund may not be available for immediate use. Last year I believe our refund was held over the weekend and we received a letter in the mail notifying us of the irregular deposit (though it wasn't any larger than a regular paycheck). No matter, it's still a lot faster than waiting for a mailed check.
As for states, I cannot offer any guidance, since all states vary. My own state return must be mailed in because I file separately on the state, as Mr. Dimes has no source income from this state. This is a common occurrence in military marriages.

In other news, I (and probably most of you who read this) made the Top 100 Personal Finance Blogs as compiled by Your Credit Advisor. How flattering!

No love for Transunion

2007-02-05T12:08:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I decided it would be a good idea to take a look at my third credit report on annualcreditreport.com (for those of you who don't know, you are entitled to a free credit report each year from each of the three credit bureaus, but in order to get it, you need to go through this site). I've seen my Experian and Equifax reports, but never the TransUnion. Anyway, to make a long story short, it wouldn't let me see it online, so now I have to order it by mail or over the phone. What a drag!
I never understand why we aren't allowed to have unfettered access to our own credit reports. Banks can look at them on a whim and advertisers can look at them without your permission in order to try and offer you pre-approved stuff, but when it's your OWN report which can affect your ability to get loans and stuff, you're not able to look at it without paying. That isn't right.

What will you do with your tax refund?

2007-02-04T01:00:00.000-05:00

I used H&R Block's online tax refund estimator, and the number it gave me was actually about $1000 less than our actual refund. So it would seem we have a bigger windfall than we expected. What to do with it? If I were the sole decision maker in my household, I'd put half of it in the Roth IRA for 2007, and keep half in intermediate-term savings (aka the high-yield account). However, I'm not, and since most of this refund was Mr. Dimes's fault, I suppose some input from him is allowed.
What do you do with your tax refund?