One Caveman’s Financial Journey

Last week, my bank sent me new debit cards that I didn’t request or want. Ours weren’t set to expire until late next year, but these were forced upon us by our bank and replaced our existing cards. Why would they incur the extra expense of sending out replacement cards for cards that didn’t need replacing? So they could add RFID chips to them!

Now I have these “touchless” cards that I believe are nothing but trouble waiting to happen. I don’t see how it’s any more convenient to tap my card against a reader and signing a receipt instead of quickly swiping it and entering my PIN, but that’s beside the point. I only use my debit card for PIN transactions anyway, so I’m going to see no benefit by possessing this card. In fact, the chances are this card could someday cause me nothing but pain.

You see, since all you have to do is get near one of these cards with a reader to access it, there is nothing stopping someone from loading up a reader in a purse and brushing past me to read every chipped card in my wallet. Likewise, there is nothing to stop someone from hiding a “skimmer” near the legitimate pad to siphon away my information. And with a powerful antenna, it’s even possible for the subversive individual to be nowhere near me to read my cards.

But that’s only the half of it!

When these cards are eventually replaced, you will cut these up just like you do any other expired card. But now, you’ll have to take care to cut through the chip hidden somewhere inside your card, otherwise a clever fellow could potentially steal even more useful information than if you had left an unshredded statement in the garbage - and he wouldn’t even have to dig through it. It is not obvious where the chip is on my card, so I had to go searching for it. After scouring over it and holding it to different angles of light, I finally found a slight rectangular imperfection in the plastic, leading me to believe that is where the chip resides. You can bet that is the first place that will be attacked by my scissors when this card is put to pasture.

Be careful with this new technology. It doesn’t take much today to steal your credit card information - just wait what it will be like when the criminals have built their own readers and casually walk around the mall to collect the data off of hundreds or thousands of active cards in a single trip. Call me paranoid if you wish, but I think I may be contacting my bank about deactivating these chips or going back to unchipped cards. I rather appreciate the “inconvenience” of being forced to present my card for withdrawl instead of entrusting it to the airwaves around me.

Yes, you read that correctly: I paid a stranger $29 to send me a pound of worms via Priority Mail. But, you see, these aren’t just any ordinary worms. These are Eisenia fetida, otherwise known as Red Wigglers.

Last week, I stumbled upon a post on DIY Life titled, “Start your own worm composting bin” and I was enthralled. The idea that one can wrangle a bunch of worms into eating your food scraps and waste paper and turn it into super-charged dirt for your plants or garden quickly caught my attention. I immediately showed it to my wife and she surprised me by becoming just as excited about the concept as I was. (I had no idea my wife could be such a tom-boy!)

I am always looking for ways to reduce the trash our house sends to the landfill, but solutions are hard to come across that are both economical and subdivision-compatible. For example, I would love to have a compost pile, but there is no way it would fly in my subdivision. And I would also love to be able to recycle more, but our area provides no curbside pickup and storing the recyclables until we have enough for a trip to the recycling center quickly becomes unmanageable due to space and bugs. That is where my wonderful worms come in…

I made an inconspicuous home for my worms to do their work that can stay in or outside and won’t smell or make any noise or look too out-of-the-ordinary. My starter system was easy to make and relatively cheap. We were able to purchase a new 10-gallon plastic storage bin for $5 and I already mentioned the $29 for the worms, for a final total expense of $34 - and the great part is, I never have to spend another dime if I don’t want to as long as we take good care of our worms. Although, I probably will upgrade to a larger wooden box if the experiment succeeds and our worms dramatically increase their population. (Here is a resource covering one way to build your own worm bin.)

Once the worm home is set up, you have to put together a bedding of a 6 inches of soggy paper shreds and a handful of compost. After that, all you have to do is feed your worms a regular diet of common household biodegradable trash (except for meat, oils, and dairy). That means, if I manage my bin well and I grow a lot more worms, I might never have to throw away any spoiled or scrap food and I could keep my shredded credit card applications out of the trash. Just think, my worms could help save me from the risk of identity theft!

If you want to order some worms for yourself, I recommend Acme Worm Farm (yes, I realize how “Wile E. Coyote” that sounds) since their prices were among the best I found and they had good reviews. My worms should arrive sometime early next week and I guarantee I will be writing more about this experiment after they arrive and when they start showing results.

If you would like to learn more about vermicomposting and building your own worm bin, you can check out these resources:

• Start your own worm composting bin
• Home Vermicomposting
  
• Red Worm Composting
• Cheap and Easy Worm Bin
• 5 dollar, 1/2 hour Worm Composting Bin(s)

Ahh, lunchtime… My midday sanctuary from (and at) work. Oh, how I love the tasty treats you provide me each day!

When I started looking for ways to turn around our family finances and really save some money, lunch was the first money leak I took care of. I was driving out from work, purchasing some extremely unhealthy fast food, and driving back to consume the “meal” at my desk. Not only was it adding to my waistline, it was also lightening my wallet.

Consider, for a example, the medium Quarter-Pounder with Cheese Value Meal at McDonald’s. If you order it with a medium Coke, you’ll consume 1,100 calories and 46g of fat and since I haven’t been to McDonald’s in ages, we’ll say that it costs $5.30 after tax (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). And that’s just the food!

According to Google Maps, the nearest McDonald’s to my office (the one I used to visit) is 2.1 miles away. Last month, I estimated that I spend 23.44 cents per mile driving my truck. That means that the 4.2 mile round trip to McDonald’s also wasted another 98.45 cents just to pick up that weight magnet of a “meal.”

Altogether, my fictional McDonald’s trip cost me $6.28 and more than 1/2 of the normal daily allowance of calories.

To contrast that, let’s take a look at one of the lunches I make for myself now: Today I will have a bologna and cheese sandwich on wheat bread (with just a touch of Lite Miracle Whip), a Diet Dr. Pepper, and a bag of Baked Doritos. The soda and chips each cost $0.50 since I got them out of the cabinet at work. I purchased the bologna on sale for $1.50 for 16 slices, which comes to 9.375 cents per slice. The cheese was $7.38 for 72 slices at Sam’s Club, so that adds 10.25 cents per slice. There are 22 slices of bread in the loaf I bought for $0.99, coming to 4.5 cents per slice. And I’ll estimate way high on the Miracle Whip at 10 cents for the little bit I used. After adding on an estimated sales tax to my homemade lunch, I will have spent $1.50 on my whole lunch and just $0.50 on the sandwich I made for myself. On top of that, my lunch weighs in at a diet-friendly 439 calories and 16.5g of fat.

That means by not going to McDonald’s today, I have saved $4.78 from leaving my wallet and 661 calories and 29.5g of fat from entering my body. It took me less time to make and eat that sandwich than it would have to drive to McDonald’s, wait in the drive-thru, drive back, and eat - giving me more time to sit here and actually enjoy my lunch hour (not to mention give me time to type up this post).

If you have the means to bring your lunch to work (and you almost certainly do), you should really take advantage of its financial and health benefits. And if you don’t have access to a “safe” refrigerator, you can always bring things that don’t need refrigeration, such as peanut butter and honey (another of my favorites). Even a can of soup and a microwavable cup can bring you great nutrition for very little money. Give it a chance and you’ll be amazed at the savings you can realize.

Just when we thought we could get away with saving our economic stimulus package, two issues decided to pop up right in the same week.

First, the bill from my head MRI came in from the hospital. We knew it was coming, but we didn’t know when or how much. If I didn’t have insurance, the amount would have been over $2,300, but I only have to pay the insurance discount rate of $811. Fortunately, my brain is, as stated by the doctor’s office, “unremarkable.” I’m a little disappointed in their choice of words (it would have been nice to hear something like, “You have no tumors, but you do have great definition in your lobes”), but it’s great to know that my migraines aren’t caused by something growing in my head. Plus, this MRI will provide a great baseline later in life if something does start going wrong in my head.

Second, we got back our property reassessment (only 2 months late). Originally, they bumped up the estimated value of our house by $30,000, but on the reassessment they reduced it to “just” $15,000 over my purchase price. Considering the weakening of the housing market and the fact we have made no major improvements to our property in 2 years, I believe my house is worth no more than what I originally paid for it - maybe even less. We only have 30 days to appeal this reassessment to the state level, but this time we’re going to need some bigger ammo. As such, we have scheduled a full property appraisal so we have some new numbers to back up our assertion.

It will likely cost us around $300 for the appraisal, but we will save more than that in property taxes if I am correct. And, if I’m not, at least I will know for sure how much my property is worth right now and I’ll be able to adjust my net worth accordingly. It will be a small consolation prize, but at least it’s something.

All together, I’ll be sending out around $1,200 this week, which just happens to be the exact amount I sent to savings from my $1,500 rebate. At least we’ve gotten these expenses out of the way and we’ve basically broken even.  We originally planned to take these amounts out of the emergency fund, since that’s what it’s there for, but it makes more sense to avoid touching that money whenever possible.  But if the rebate hadn’t appeared when it did, this is the exact reason one should maintain an emergency fund - for large, unplanned expenses (true emergencies, not big-screen TVs) that would otherwise prevent you from paying your normal bills.

If you haven’t spent your rebate already, I hope you hold on to it and either apply it to debt or to your savings.  Strengthening your personal economy will be far more valuable to you, your family, and your community than artificially “stimulating” the global economy.  Don’t let this “found” cash burn a hole in your pocket and steer you away from your true needs.

On Wednesday, my tax rebate finally arrived and is now smiling back at me from my ING savings account. I know the government would like for us to spend it right away, but they’re not the ones who have to provide for my family! Now I’m debating on whether to put it into a CD for a while since ING’s CD rates are currently at 3.3% for 6, 9, and 12 months. We’ll see what the cavewife has to say about that.

It’s Friday, so that means it’s time to take a look around the web at what everyone else has to say (in no particular order):

• Mrs. Micah - You Made Yourself Into Who You Are
• DIY Life - Start your own worm composting bin
• Gather Little by Little - Surviving a recession - what you need to do now
• No Credit Needed - The Financial Realities Of Having A New Baby
• Get Rich Slowly - A Rather Obvious Metaphor for Personal Finance Couched in a True Story About Physical Fitness
• Blueprint for Financial Prosperity - Consider Bed & Breakfasts Instead of Hotels
• Frugal Dad - The Soggy Hotdog: A Personal Finance Wakeup Call
• Moolanomy - Frugal Or Cheap? Here’s A Test
• Wise Bread - Ten Tortilla Tips for Mealtime Madness

On a related note, I’m finding I have less time to browse the web and find great stories of the week. If you have published a great post that deserves some love, drop me an email and tell me about it - just don’t bother me with spam. Of course, I reserve the right to not include it, but I will give all worthy articles a chance!