The Social Marginal

I know it has nothing to do with the scope of this blog, but I had to post about it because I’ve just fallen in love with it.  A couple days ago I was shopping at target for some CFLs and my fiancee spotted this pad on an end-isle display and pointed it out to me.  My laptop has an extended battery that generally gets a little hot and sits unevenly on my lap, so this thing is just a godsend.  Thirty well spent dollars later I had a Belkin Cushtop.  Sure, it might only cost them less than a dollar to make and you could probably make your own for dirt cheap, but this thing just is so comfortable and fits so perfectly for me, I’m truly in love with it, enough that I wanted to take a break from the regularly scheduled programming and share it here.  And go figure, Amazon has it cheaper and if you buy it via the link below, you help to support this site (I would never link and recommend it if I didn’t use it myself and support it).  I highly recommend this product for anyone that constantly has a laptop sitting on their lap (as I do when I’m writing, managing finances, or just trading securities).

As I posted yesterday, I’m in the process of paying off all my credit cards, especially the ones that Rate Jacked me for no reason at all.  Well Bank of America seems to have Rate Jacked over a million people with perfect payment histories for no reason at all.  I’m proud to say that the balance is now zero and they are now forever sock drawered. I also have an emergency checking account that I keep with them that I will be closing thanks to their rate jacking decision.

In other news, I’m working on an article about not spending more than you can afford (duh, huh?) but trying not to make it cliche and giving some good example and alternatives.  Look for it in the next couple days.  I also removed the AdSense ads as they’re pointless right now and they take away credibility as to why I’m writing at the moment.  (Not saying that ad money or referals are bad, you can shop via the Amazon link in the Blog Roll and earn me money to support the blog with your regular Amazon purchases, heh heh)

 Update 03-01-08:  I feel like a sell-out, but I wanted to keep the card open to decrease my total credit utilization.  I called Customer Support today and asked for a rate reduction since they rate jacked me without any real reason, other than a high utilization, and that they were just trying to profit from customers who actually had good payment records.  Last time I did this, when I had a balance, they just apologized and told me it was policy and they couldn’t lower my APR from what would soon be 27.99%  (Millions of people got jacked to these sort of rates effective in May).  This time however, explaining the situation and telling her that I wasn’t all too happy with BoA, and with a Zero balance on my card, the courteous Customer Service agent transfered me to Retention.  So I got there, told them “I don’t authorize any hard pulls” (also note that my credit report does not reflect any of the zero balance paydowns yet, they still show the high utilization across the board for the most part), and explained the whole story and asked for a lower APR.  He said “Let me see what I can offer you”, came back a couple minutes later, and told me that they could permanently decrease my APR to 12.99% ‘Fixed’ (which at least is an acceptable rate, but not one I would carry a balance on).  I immediately asked that if I ran up 90% utilization on the card and held it at that for a year or two, providing I always made payments, even minimums (worst case situation), if it would stay at that 12.99%.  He responded “Certainly”.  I’m almost tempted to try it, just to see if they were lying, but I don’t want to spend the money on interest doing so.

So, the moral of the story is that if you got Rate Jacked by BoA, whether or not you can pay to Zero balance (tell them that they’ll lose you, and your ongoing profit if you can’t, or that you’ll balance transfer, or something else), ask to get sent to Retentions and ask for a lower APR.  I’m guessing you might have a good chance at getting the Rate Jack that should have never happened reversed.  If you’re in this situation and able to try this, please do so and post a comment here with your results, I’d be very interested to hear them.

As I posted before, I have an addiction to credit (worst of all one that I can afford and that I can pay off and quit utilizing if I just buckled down and did it) and I’m finally putting an end to it.

Below is my account statement as of this morning with my Chase Credit Card.  After they purchased First USA, they rate jacked me to 24.99% for no reason other than high utilization (I had a high income, a perfect payment record, and always paid just a little over the minimum), I was basically their perfect customer, the one that made them the most money.  Too bad for them that I won’t be anymore.

Fortunately this is just one of many such posts in the near future.  That same day I sent off a check (decided to do it the old fashioned way instead of online like I always do) to Bank of America for a little over $6,000 for a card which they recently rate jacked me and over one and a half million other customers on.  Again, I had high utilization with a perfect credit and payment history on it, but they raised my rate to an outstanding 27.99% out of nowhere.  Hell, I even have an ‘emergency’ checking account with BoA (which I will be cashing out and closing soon) that has earned no interest for quite some time.  Of course, I also have a thirty year fixed mortage with Chase with a perfect payment history and that didn’t seem to effect their decision when it came to lowering my rate with them either.

After each of these rate jackings, I called the companies and asked about them, staying extremely calm and professional in my inquiries all the way through, and they both said that it was just part of a ’standard review’ and ‘due to my credit record (I check it almost daily using AMEX’s Credit Secure, it’s perfect, so it has to be the utilization) and that there was nothing they could do, have a nice day.  Well, fortunately, there is something I can do, and I’ve finally gotten around to doing to it, I’m paying them all to Zero.

Earlier this year I was accepted into Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business to participate in their MBA program.  This was a great accomplishment for me (as I have not been a student for some time) and something which I always wanted to do.  With that, I also knew that I would have to make some compromises concerning the current job positions I hold and that I would have to figure out ways to work around them to allow myself to continue bringing in an income while going to school, as one of my primary concerns was that I did not want to incur student loan debt to go back to school as I saw it fairly counter-productive (this is arguable and different for everyone and every situation, that’s not what this is about).

To switch topics briefly (don’t worry, they’ll merge momentarily), my Fiancee, ever since I first met her, has expressed her life long goal of attending Vet School and becoming a Large Animal Veterinarian though she also had a desire to finish her current path in school and move into the corporate world and felt that doing Vet School ‘on her own’ just wouldn’t be feasible.  Not to brag, but she’s a brilliant woman, she graduated with a degree in Medicinal Chemistry and landed a job at one of the world’s largest Pharmaceutical Companies that pays a nice starting salary and provides and excellent benefits package (the reason for our recent relocation across the country, as noted in previous stories).  There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind, or anyone else that knows her, that should she apply herself, she could easily be accepted into one of the top ten Vet Schools in the United States.

So here’s where our stories merge.  I was planning on starting Duke in Fall and scaling back on my contracting work and relying on her job to off-set the income, a plan of which she was completely supportive of and always encouraged me to do.  As the planning went on, between what she expressed and what I observed, though she had been excelling in her position and constantly impressing her colleagues, I knew that she would not be happy in the Pharmaceutical profession in the long term.  So there came the dilemma, do I go to Duke to get my MBA, a degree that, while it would satisfy me, would not immediately advance my own career (I own my own company), or instead do I continue to work and encourage my Fiancee to finish her dream of becoming a Large Animal Veterinarian.  Well, I think the answer is pretty obvious to anyone with a heart whom loves their spouse.

I thanked Duke for their interest and consideration in me, notified them that I would not be attending, and informed my Fiancee of my decision.  At first, she was very reluctant to believe that I would give up the opportunity and even felt angry to a degree that I would throw it away ‘for her’, not wanting the guilt associated with it.  But with it came a new responsibility for her, and something I think she needed, and some of those in her family felt she needed as well, that by me doing so she would be motivated to finally move forwards towards Vet School with fervency and dedication and make her Dream a reality.

With this arrangement, I will continue to be able to work and bring in money to pay for her Vet School and she’ll be able to leave her job (after an appropriate amount of time, we don’t want her burning any bridges by leaving relatively shortly after coming on board by choice) and dedicate herself completely to Vet School.  It’s pretty much a perfect situation when everything is considered and weighed for what it truly is.  Also, as a business decision, in the end her degree in Vet Medicine will also be much more profitable than what I’d be using my MBA for (an executive resume for our corporation) and give us the freedom and flexibility to relocate where we’d like at a later point in life.

So I guess the moral of the story is, when faced with such a situation, don’t just look at it at face value and from your own selfish point of view, consider the ultimate outcome and what it really means to both parties and take your own feelings out of the equation.  You’ll end up making a rational decision that you should not regret and one that should end up being beneficial to both parties.

So I sit and ponder in my massage chair this morning (it’s where I ‘wake up’ and write from) why my Fiancee and I never fight about money or finances.  For many couples it’s a staple of their relationship and has been the downfall of many more, but I can safely say that it won’t be of ours.  Why?  Because we share everything, hide nothing, and we trust eachother completely when it comes to the finances.

It started when we moved across the US together, we didn’t have a lot of financial accounts and such in both of our names, but now that we are here, we are both on all of each others bank accounts, credit cards, etc.  You see, when we moved back here, we needed a home and a responsible loan to go with it.  I could qualify for a mortgage easily, and her, not having an established job (she was moving back here to start one), could not.  So I ended up getting the mortgage for the house we found in my name and I chose to trust her enough to put both of our names on the actual deed with survivorship rights.  This was a big step, and it opened the door to complete financial trust.  From that point on she made sure that I was named on every bank account and financial related product she had, and vice versa.  We had opened the doors to not only a new house and a new chapter in our lives, but also to complete financial trust.

 In day to day activities, I handle one hundred percent of financial activities for both of us, whether it be keeping track of the checking accounts, contributing to both of our IRAs, or just watching the savings and the stock portfolio.  My fiancee is fine with that, she trusts me with it even though a large part of it is her money, she would even if I chose to tell her nothing about what I did.  But I do tell her what I do with our money every day when I get a chance (I try to summarize it as to not make it so boring), I let her know what stocks were purchased and what money was moved to high yield savings accounts or to this or that so that she feels that she is active in the managing of our finances, and I always ask her if there is anything that she’d like me to do with the money that I haven’t already.  This method works very well for us and I suspect will last indefinitely, we’re lucky that way, we’ve already jumped the financial hurdle in our relationship.

Another thing I did, and something which I recommend all partners that are financially adept in a relationship with a less financially adept individual, is to educate them on finances.  Discuss it with them, buy them some books, magazines, whatever they’ll read.  Constantly show them articles about stocks in magazines pertaining to companies that interest them already, it’ll open them into reading and learning about that company’s business side, understanding market terms, and then wanting to expand and know about others.  No matter how stubburn the partner is (trust me, mine was stubborn to start with) about not wanting to educate themselves on the matter, with persistance, it does work.  And most of all, after they start doing so, start asking them what they’d like to do with your money (and actually do it!), make them feel as though their new knowledge is not wasted and that they’re making a difference in your finances.

So to sum it up; trust each other, share everything, be completely open about finances and discuss them often, educate your partner in business and economics if they aren’t already, and most of all include them in investment decisions.  Sounds pretty much like common sense, huh?

 There are a lot of areas of our relationship where I’d say that we aren’t the best role models, but this is one where I can safely say that we are.  I hope you apply what you’ve read to your relationship and make finances an open, exciting topic in your relationship rather than a taboo that is to be avoided.

What isn’t there to like about Netflix right now?  America wants cheap entertainment.  Netflix is an ‘unlimited’ subscription based model that fits right into the budgets of millions of dollar weary Americans to provide that entertainment.  The interchangable DVD business, sure, that won them their market share and help them beat the pants off of Blockbuster as an underdog, but what’s going to really make them great?  The age of online delivery of content. 

They are already on the forefront of subscription based (not priced per episode) online movie streaming.  Their “Watch Now” service works outstanding, it gets raves from everyone who uses it.  Best of all, they’ve now made it unlimited to all subscribers.  So you can have a low tier DVD exchange subscription and get unlimited access to stream from their catalog online.  Many think to themselves that this is neat and all, but we don’t want to watch movies on a computer screen, we want it on the big TV screen.  Other than the obvious solution of hooking your computer up to your TV, Netflix is already on top of this with upcoming solutions.  First, they are publicly in the works with LG to produce a dedicated set top box for streaming Netflix material to your television, well, that works fine for some people.  But here’s where they are going to ‘win’ the battle for online subscription based movie delivery services, by focusing on content and dropping their delivery payload on every possible device imaginable that has already saturated the marketplace (note: this is pure speculation at this point and driven by rumors and my mad intuition).  It is rumored that Netflix, due to the small and easily portable size of their content delivery payload (client software), is in talks with Microsoft for the Xbox 360, Sony for the Playstation 3, and others as well (I would love to see it on the AppleTV, but it would be direct competition with the pay-per-view iTunes service, but who knows) to get their client on their products as soon as possible.

 This would mean that as long as you had a Netflix account and an Xbox 360 (or any of the aforementioned devices with the Netflix client software), you could stream movies from their catalog of almost 10,000 streamable movies and television shows (just at this point, it keeps growing by the day) at no additional cost in DVD-ish quality on a high speed connection.

 I normally wait these things out and not take sides, but if Netflix gets their software for their “Watch Now” service on some consumer electronics devices quickly and in turn into millions of living rooms, like the Xbox 360, it’s over, they will have won the Online Subscription based content delivery wars. And the best part about it all is that they are continuing to focus on an all-inclusive subscription based service instead of trying to get greedier and add pay-per-view options to the mix.  They know who their audience is and they know what they do well and they are taking it all to the next level.

 So, I’m not recommending any stocks, but I will tell you that yesterday I bought a LOT of NFLX.  And maybe I’ll take it in the pooper on it all, or maybe I’ll have made a great educated bet.  Only time will tell.  Ok, I’m done with my Jim Cramer impersonation, time to go back to being mild mannered Clark Kent.

So I’m taking the plunge and finally asking my girlfriend, whom I live with, own a house with, share every bank account with, our dogs with, and much more to marry me.  Yeah, a bit backwards, eh?  Regardless of why we’re not already married, our relationship just always worked and we always trusted each that we’ve gotten to the stage where we act and treat each other like we’re married, better yet, like we’re in a good marriage (without the constant fighting, but we still bicker a bit of course).

So we’re both environmental whackos and anti-violence whackos (especially when it comes to being against violence for the gain of others, like Conflict Diamonds), and before you start making any assumptions, I served my time in the military, I jumped out of planes and such, I actually saw some of these African countries first hand and the internal warfare, I got hurt pretty badly; I think I’ve earned the right to my bleeding heart opinion.  So the engagement ring has always been a sore point for me, I knew it had to be something special, not necessarily expensive, just something that exuded our shared ethics and would be a symbol of our commitment to each other and everything around us that she would be proud to wear.  And then I found Brilliant Earth jewelry, what a great company.  All of their diamonds/gemstones are certified conflict free and ethically mined and even their precious metal is ethically mined / recycled (many companies will recycle to cut costs, these guys do it, aside from being able to cut costs, because they actually care about the amount of pollution and waste the mining process puts out, or at least they say they do, which is good enough for me until I learn otherwise).  I started browsing through the diamonds and settings and I decided that I’d finally found something that was ‘right’ for an engagement ring and took the plunge and put one together and ordered it for my girlfriend, it should be here on two weeks.  So that means I’ll be proposing in a a couple weekends officially, so please send positive vibes my way that I can make it something special for her.

 As we always talk about marriage, kids, etc as though they’ll just happen one day, and giving our living and financial situation, it’s sort of cheating in that I’m pretty definite as to what her answer will be, but that’s beside the point, I wanted something she can be proud to wear and can tell a story about that when people asked which could support her ethical viewpoint and open into meaningful dialog on the subject if she chose to allow it to do so, and this ring is definitely that.  Fortunately, with our planned wedding bands, we’ve already decided to have them tattoo’d on at the reception ceremony (I know, we’re not even officially engaged yet and we’ve been deciding such things as definites, we sort of do things backwards).

So if you’re out looking for an engagement ring or just a special piece of jewelry for a loved one, I highly recommend taking a look at Brilliant Earth, researching the company and their goals, and if they meet yours, seeing if you can find something that meets your need, or having them make it for you (I noticed that they do indeed make custom jewelry).  I know should I ever purchase diamonds for my girlfriend in the future (or perhaps any jewelry for that matter), it will be from a company like this, and I won’t have that whole ‘conflict diamonds’ excuse or the resulting guilt that would come from it to get out of it.

 Ah, and I paid ‘cash’, heh.  And no, not a whole lot.

Update 2-29-2008: Got the ring in today, looks amazing, the picture just doesn’t do it justice.  Highly recommend these guys at Brilliant Earth.  Also great customer service all along the way and they were even able to finish and ship it early to ease my anxiety of having it in time for proposal.

While I am not overextended beyond my means, nor am I struggling to make payments beyond minimums, I can safely say that I am addicted to credit.  I have a little over $60,000 in credit card debt (I’ve decided, again, the pay it off and without sacrificing anything it should be gone in a year or two, but that’s not the point).  I have something like 80% utilization on my personal cards while having plenty of money in high yielding savings accounts and the stock market.  I know what I should do in this situation, I’m just too apathetic to do so and would rather just plug away at it until it’s gone, while continuing to also contribute to my savings, retirement, etc.

 This has happened before, and I paid it all off before.  Before and shortly after my divorce, I amassed approximately $65,000 in credit card debt.  After I got out of my self loathing state, I went ahead and decided to clean it up and within a year or so, by working extra contracting jobs and scrimping where need be (I made less at that time than I do now), I paid it all off in a little under a year.  It was a very liberating feeling.  I lived for awhile sans credit, not because I was an anti-credit zealot (Ramsey) or anything, but just because I didn’t need it.  And when I started charging again, I still didn’t need it, I just wanted stuff (which I didn’t need) before I could responsibly pay for it in full.  So the charging began, and five years or so later, here I am again deciding to pay it all over and clear it up.

I’ve never been late on a single payment to any creditor in my life, and I intend to continue that trend, and I’ve never had an issue getting a home loan or credit approval when I actually need it.  But I need to stop cycling these credit cards.  I’m not going to cut them up (because I *am* responsible in paying them and not spending or getting into debt for more than I can realistically afford to pay back, and I have some fixed 6.99% cards and such that I’d like to keep around for future emergencies), but I have sock drawered them all and stopped using everything except for a Chase Freedom card (for the rewards) and paying it in full every month.

 While I’m not in dire need and I’m not some credit sob story, hopefully I can make sure my plan sticks this time.  My main concern and reason for wanting to change this behavior is that if I have kids (it’s a possibility these days), I don’t want their parents to be teaching them bad credit usage habits.

 Oh well.  Upwards and onwards.  If you’re out there, feel free to comment and share about your credit addiction anonymously.

Due to a move this year, and my own negligence, I sort of didn’t pay a quarter or two of estimated taxes, as well as switched from employed to self-employed during the year and moved to a different state.  Long story short, this made my taxes nice and interesting.  Five figures will be removed from my bank account on April 15th, 2008.  Woopidoo.

In better news, I finally got my Kindle in hand (took a month or so for them to fulfil the order, so the backlog isn’t too bad).  I am absolutely in love with this thing, I highly recommend it to any book lover or just someone who commutes a lot and wants to read the day’s Wall Street Journal or New York Times or such.  The eInk display on it is just amazing, zero eye strain after hours and hours of constant reading.