Such a boring saturday
I've only been up for 90 minutes so far, and already I'm doing boring stuff. Like...messing around with all my USAA stuff.
For example, I just finished changing the premium on my renter's insurance. I'm now covered for a lot more, which is good. I don't think it's been updated for 4-5 years now. Long before David ever moved in with me. I updated the total value of my property to be about $20k. Who knows if that's accurate or not, but I figured it was a good nice number because of the fish tanks, TV, and my computer equipment. I also upped the levels of my coverage and stuff like that.
I also updated my valuable personal property insurance to include my wedding ring (I honestly can't remember if it was already on there or not) and my flutes. My Yamaha is worth at least $1500, as far as I can tell, possibly more. I put it down as worth $2500 just to be safe. My old student flute I put down as $250.
I decided that I'm not going to mess with my auto coverage. It's pretty comprehensive, beefy, and I don't have to worry. Though if I were to get in an accident with my Saab, regardless of how small it was, it'd probably be listed as "totaled" because it's worth so little money. 14 years is a long time to keep a car around, especially with as little care as I've given it over the years. Being a poor college student meant not getting regular maintenance on my car.
I'm also (how many times can I use the word also in this post? Also Also Also!!) thinking about applying for a credit card through them (USAA). But I'm wary of credit cards, so I haven't decided if I want to yet. Especially since it went so well last time I had one (NOT). Both Dave and I ended up being unemployed for a few months while we had one, and it took us 3 years to pay off the damn $2000 debt we got on it from buying food/gas etc. It probably didn't help that I was really bad about forgetting to pay it. Whoopsie! Actually, I'm really bad about paying all my bills. That's why I've got everything on automatic payments now (except rent, because my landlord refuses to join the 21st century. Good thing they're so disorganized they don't notice when I mail it in 1-2 weeks late!).
Why am I on this financial kick? What, the exploding economy isn't enough of a reason? Okay okay, it's because with my Turbo-Tax I got a free membership to Quicken Online. I'm sure I've mentioned that before. It seems to be working better than MS Money, because I can look at it any time I think about it, and not just when I'm at home playing World of Warcraft. I'm doing a good job of saving some money ($100 every week goes to my savings account) and paying off my student loan ($200 every paycheck goes to that. If I keep paying at that rate I'll have my student loans paid off in just over 3 years. Like...3 years and a month or two). Glad I don't have any other debt I need to worry about at the moment, or I'd be in a serious pickle.
I do need to think about what's going to happen with my car. It's old, it's not doing so hot, and repairs are EXPENSIVE AS SHIT. Like, seriously. I'd like to get a newer car but I'm not sure I can handle another payment right now. I've got a standard of living I'm very comfortable with, and if I pay any more each month, I probably can't maintain that. I know Adam would front me money if I really needed it, but I hate having to do that. I still owe him about $250 (maybe more) for a couple of things that I just *had* to have, and wasn't sure if I could cover it without dipping into savings. I probably could have, I guess I'm just a mooch like that. I know he doesn't care, because he's never been unemployed since graduating High School, and because of his living arrangements, he could squirrel a large portion of that away without having to worry.
I guess there's a benefit to living at home your entire life.
Unfortunately, I don't think I'll get the job I applied for at UMB. Adam's said they're now looking for someone who's more of a network admin instead of a tech, and while I have some experience in that area, I'm by no means qualified. I can always keep my fingers crossed, but I have little hope my financial situation will change. I really need to start working on getting a certification or two. That would probably drastically increase my hireability by companies. I can't always be a jack-of-all-trades for my career, especially since I'm a master-of-none. I'm planning on working on some server stuff this weekend and starting to rip into one of those MS test-training books I downloaded last week. It'll give me something to focus on that'll allow me to go farther than what my degree allows.
I did do something proactive and downloaded copies of two of my credit reports (I can download the third later this year). There's nothing out of the ordinary on there, thankfully, except for how often Capital One requests my credit information (26 times between 4/13/07 and 5/16/08. WTF?). Most of the credit requests come from banks & CC companies, some of the others from student financial institutions, but those stopped after I paid off my last un-consolidated loan (yay!), and a few from USAA and utility companies from when I moved to various apartments. So, yay! Nobody's stolen my identity! Except for my late CC payments, I have a pretty clean credit report. There's lots of closed loans on there from when all my student loans were consolidated but other than that...:D
I'm going to stop babbling now. LOL
EDIT: I was wrong! I'll have my student loan it paid off in just under 3 years! Yay! My current principal is $15,396.37. Round that up to $15,400 to make it a nice round number. Divide by $200. Divide by 26 (half the number of weeks in a year, since I'm paying every other week, and it comes out 2.96 years. With my super low interest rate (it's fixed at 2.875% thank god), it probably wouldn't take me much longer than that to pay it off! :D :D :D *squee* Now, if I can get my car to last me 3 years without costing me too much extra, I'll be golden! LOL like that'll happen.
Edit 2: What I really need to do is log into chase and cancel my credit card. Fortunately, there's no balance on it right now, so there's nothing I have to pay, so I can't be late on a $0 payment. But still. I don't like having that floating around. Maybe after I cancel that I'll get a USAA card. Or maybe I should wait to cancel that card until after it goes to a positive status (Yes, there are 5 late payments on that card, between 2005 and 2008. It's a really bad track record).
For example, I just finished changing the premium on my renter's insurance. I'm now covered for a lot more, which is good. I don't think it's been updated for 4-5 years now. Long before David ever moved in with me. I updated the total value of my property to be about $20k. Who knows if that's accurate or not, but I figured it was a good nice number because of the fish tanks, TV, and my computer equipment. I also upped the levels of my coverage and stuff like that.
I also updated my valuable personal property insurance to include my wedding ring (I honestly can't remember if it was already on there or not) and my flutes. My Yamaha is worth at least $1500, as far as I can tell, possibly more. I put it down as worth $2500 just to be safe. My old student flute I put down as $250.
I decided that I'm not going to mess with my auto coverage. It's pretty comprehensive, beefy, and I don't have to worry. Though if I were to get in an accident with my Saab, regardless of how small it was, it'd probably be listed as "totaled" because it's worth so little money. 14 years is a long time to keep a car around, especially with as little care as I've given it over the years. Being a poor college student meant not getting regular maintenance on my car.
I'm also (how many times can I use the word also in this post? Also Also Also!!) thinking about applying for a credit card through them (USAA). But I'm wary of credit cards, so I haven't decided if I want to yet. Especially since it went so well last time I had one (NOT). Both Dave and I ended up being unemployed for a few months while we had one, and it took us 3 years to pay off the damn $2000 debt we got on it from buying food/gas etc. It probably didn't help that I was really bad about forgetting to pay it. Whoopsie! Actually, I'm really bad about paying all my bills. That's why I've got everything on automatic payments now (except rent, because my landlord refuses to join the 21st century. Good thing they're so disorganized they don't notice when I mail it in 1-2 weeks late!).
Why am I on this financial kick? What, the exploding economy isn't enough of a reason? Okay okay, it's because with my Turbo-Tax I got a free membership to Quicken Online. I'm sure I've mentioned that before. It seems to be working better than MS Money, because I can look at it any time I think about it, and not just when I'm at home playing World of Warcraft. I'm doing a good job of saving some money ($100 every week goes to my savings account) and paying off my student loan ($200 every paycheck goes to that. If I keep paying at that rate I'll have my student loans paid off in just over 3 years. Like...3 years and a month or two). Glad I don't have any other debt I need to worry about at the moment, or I'd be in a serious pickle.
I do need to think about what's going to happen with my car. It's old, it's not doing so hot, and repairs are EXPENSIVE AS SHIT. Like, seriously. I'd like to get a newer car but I'm not sure I can handle another payment right now. I've got a standard of living I'm very comfortable with, and if I pay any more each month, I probably can't maintain that. I know Adam would front me money if I really needed it, but I hate having to do that. I still owe him about $250 (maybe more) for a couple of things that I just *had* to have, and wasn't sure if I could cover it without dipping into savings. I probably could have, I guess I'm just a mooch like that. I know he doesn't care, because he's never been unemployed since graduating High School, and because of his living arrangements, he could squirrel a large portion of that away without having to worry.
I guess there's a benefit to living at home your entire life.
Unfortunately, I don't think I'll get the job I applied for at UMB. Adam's said they're now looking for someone who's more of a network admin instead of a tech, and while I have some experience in that area, I'm by no means qualified. I can always keep my fingers crossed, but I have little hope my financial situation will change. I really need to start working on getting a certification or two. That would probably drastically increase my hireability by companies. I can't always be a jack-of-all-trades for my career, especially since I'm a master-of-none. I'm planning on working on some server stuff this weekend and starting to rip into one of those MS test-training books I downloaded last week. It'll give me something to focus on that'll allow me to go farther than what my degree allows.
I did do something proactive and downloaded copies of two of my credit reports (I can download the third later this year). There's nothing out of the ordinary on there, thankfully, except for how often Capital One requests my credit information (26 times between 4/13/07 and 5/16/08. WTF?). Most of the credit requests come from banks & CC companies, some of the others from student financial institutions, but those stopped after I paid off my last un-consolidated loan (yay!), and a few from USAA and utility companies from when I moved to various apartments. So, yay! Nobody's stolen my identity! Except for my late CC payments, I have a pretty clean credit report. There's lots of closed loans on there from when all my student loans were consolidated but other than that...:D
I'm going to stop babbling now. LOL
EDIT: I was wrong! I'll have my student loan it paid off in just under 3 years! Yay! My current principal is $15,396.37. Round that up to $15,400 to make it a nice round number. Divide by $200. Divide by 26 (half the number of weeks in a year, since I'm paying every other week, and it comes out 2.96 years. With my super low interest rate (it's fixed at 2.875% thank god), it probably wouldn't take me much longer than that to pay it off! :D :D :D *squee* Now, if I can get my car to last me 3 years without costing me too much extra, I'll be golden! LOL like that'll happen.
Edit 2: What I really need to do is log into chase and cancel my credit card. Fortunately, there's no balance on it right now, so there's nothing I have to pay, so I can't be late on a $0 payment. But still. I don't like having that floating around. Maybe after I cancel that I'll get a USAA card. Or maybe I should wait to cancel that card until after it goes to a positive status (Yes, there are 5 late payments on that card, between 2005 and 2008. It's a really bad track record).