Hi y'all!
I did blog for like 7 days in a row! I missed yesterday because after all that running around and cleaning and some meal prep, all I wanted to do was sit down and watch the new Supernatural and get sucked into YouTube.
I did so many adult things! I was super proud of myself ( believe me, since I've been working from home, and have little actual contact with other humans besides my family, any sort of adulting is HARD)!
So, Thursday, after my husband got home from work around 1:30, I got up and got ready, then sat at my desk and made a bunch of calls I'd been putting off. I'm not a big fan of making calls. Once I'm on a call, I'm usually okay, I just don't like calling people or answering the phone. I know it's weird. ANYWAY, I called the loan company we had agreed to make a payment to that day (first payment in 3 months), and asked what we needed to bring to refinance the loan since they'd offered to help us get current and maybe lower the payments and skip December's payment. God bless them!
Then I called another loan place in the same town as the first one and asked if they could work with us on our loan with them as well. We'd missed one payment in Sept, and the monthly payment is $305, which is just huge for us right now, so the guy said he'd see what he could do and call me back. He did eventually get back to me, and they could also totally work with us, and not only lower bills, but skip December's payment! God bless that guy too!
Also called Comcast, and the lady I spoke to was very nice and helpful. Turns out, my Internet speed was 250 mbps. WHAT? I thought it was like 105, which is high, I thought. Anyway, they said they could take off our premium channels that we never watch, and take the Internet down to 150 mbps and lower our payments by $60 after all the dang fees. So, I totally agreed to that. We keep the X1 package with the voice remotes and DVR, yay! I know a lot of Dave Ramsey people would be shaking a finger or screaming at me, but I have to have pretty decent high speed Internet for work, and the cable is the only entertainment we get. We don't go to the movies unless we win tickets or get an amazing deal thru the AMC app or something. Of I want to! The new Fantastic Beasts (omg Jude Law) and Aqua Man (omg Jason Momoa) and lots of others, but we can wait til they come up for rent and we can all sit down to watch it for like $3.99 on the big screen TV my new son-in-law got us.
Then I called UMB about my HSA account and how I'm supposed to get my husband and kid's prescriptions when the card keeps getting declined. The first time was using the new HSA card, but the transfer hadn't gone thru yet (they never told us to fill out a form and send it in). Then when I called, someone said I can use the old card to access it since it hadn't tranferred, but when we tried that, the card was declined and we found out it was an expired card. So, we found the new one they had sent us (I had forgotten about it because I knew we had the new HSA bank (HAH, this has been a total fiasco)). So, we got the new card activated, and went to use it today, November 30th, and it was declined again! When I called to find out why, they said the HSA management company my employer uses cut off all the cards on the old HSA accounts TODAY! They were supposed to remain active until Dec 4th, but they did it early, and they refused to reopen them. So, now what we have to do, is wait until the 4th, then my HSA account with UMB will belong to me instead of the management company company (don't want to name names, but they are certainly run by Lucifer himself), and then UMB can finally issue me a new card to access the funds, and send it. That'll take about a week to ten days after the 4th, so no access to the main $475 HSA account I have in the UMB account until around December 15th. But get this, if I send in yet a second form to transfer (they never got the first one I sent via snail mail apparently), that'll take well over 30 days to complete, so screw that! I'll just wait. In the meantime, we have to pay for prescriptions out of pocket and send in the forms and receipts via their website to be reimbursed. Thankfully that is an option, but they said it can take 2-7 days, so thank goodness I found a little wiggle-room for that in the budget this pay period. Oh, and to give a little perspective, we were informed by my employer that they were no longer going to be dealing with the HSA management company and were going to a new one which meant transferring all the HSA accounts to the new bank. We had less than a month to create a new account on the new bank site, and they'd get with us to transfer stuff. Well I was never contacted, and time went on, and I assumed it was just all being done automatically. They said not to use the old cards from Oct 13th - 31st, and then Nov 1st, the new cards would work. Well, they did for my FSA (which is only for vision and dental expenses), but not the HSA. Turns out, there were forms we were supposed to fill out and send in to make the transfer. The guy on the phone admitted they never actually sent out the forms. Yeah, so that happened. But Anyway, it's all sorted now. I understand what is going on and what happens next. That's a long way from where I was a month ago, for sure!
Then I also called State Farm to ask about my car payment (our car note is financed thru State Farm). I was late with it last month (regular payments have always been $324 due on the 30th), but did pay it on the 15th of this month, and now of course the Nov payment was due. I had the money and went to pay it, and saw different numbers than normal. When I paid October's bill a couple of weeks ago, I elected to go ahead and pay the late fee of $16 (rounding numbers for ease) with that payment, so I could just get back on track. So it was normal 324+ 16 = $340. So, this month's should just be $324. But it's not. It's $308 But not only that, it said "Amount of bill: $308 Then it listed a Late Fee of $16 bringing the total to the $324. What? So, I called them to see if anyone could explain to me what was happening. And what was I expected to pay. For some reason the guy on the phone was just not getting it. He kept trying to explain how it made perfect sense (it doesn't). Finally, he said, just pay the $308, and it'll be fine. I told him I'd have to enter it as an "other amount" because it was still asking for the total $324 (while detailing it as 308 + late fee of 16), and he said it was fine to use the Other option and enter 308 manually. I made sure he clarified that was okay and got his name. I assume the calls are recorded, so that saved me $16 this month simply due to State Farm's website or system in general cannot do math.
So, we finally headed off to the bigger town to do the one loan refinance we knew we were going to be able to do for sure. On the way, I got that phone call from the guy at the other loan place, and they were happy to refinance for us to get rid of that September's late payment. We got rid of the disability insurance - which we did use last year when he had cancer, but what it paid was not worth the premiums, and stretching the loan out a little, he got our payments down from $305 to $239. He was only going to be there another hour, so we headed to that office first, and it was quick and easy, and we ended up getting $100 back from the refinance as well. So, that was super great.
Then we headed to the other loan place we originally set out for. It took forever due to their system being brand new and full of bugs, but finally we got that one all sorted out and they took our payments from $264 a month to $99 a month! And we got $100 back from refinancing that one too.
And on top of it all, Both of those loans don't have payment dates until January, so no December payments for either one!
So, as we left that place, we suddenly had a surprise $200 in our pockets. I was thinking about how I could actually pay rent on time or pay my Discover card current so it wouldn't get suspended etc. But the hubby and kid both announced they wanted to go out to eat, and he picked the Asian buffet place. of course. It's like $10 a person plus drinks. and no leftovers to take home. But I was hungry too, and we still had to go grocery shopping and clean the kitchen before I could even start on making dinner and it was like 5:30pm by then, so I gave in. After tip (when all the waitress did was ask if we wanted more drinks and bring us our check, but we still tip 20%), it came to $47! That's like a month's worth of groceries to Stacey Flowers. It bothered me so much, but I had to let it go. It was money I hadn't even expected to get. I was just going to think of it as someone treated us to dinner and then gave us $150. So, that helped.
After dinner, they both just wanted to go back to our town, so we headed off. I went straight to SavMor, the discount grocery store I always shop at, and told them they both had to come in and help me find the things and the best deals.
I'll do a separate post on the shopping trip and what we got and how the numbers ended up. Did we stick to the $138 budget? Did we go over? You'll find out! lol
For now, I've got to head to bed, it's 6:35am Saturday, and I've been up since 2pm Friday running more errands before work. But I'll talk about that in the next one. Have an awesome weekend!
Patty
I did blog for like 7 days in a row! I missed yesterday because after all that running around and cleaning and some meal prep, all I wanted to do was sit down and watch the new Supernatural and get sucked into YouTube.
I did so many adult things! I was super proud of myself ( believe me, since I've been working from home, and have little actual contact with other humans besides my family, any sort of adulting is HARD)!
So, Thursday, after my husband got home from work around 1:30, I got up and got ready, then sat at my desk and made a bunch of calls I'd been putting off. I'm not a big fan of making calls. Once I'm on a call, I'm usually okay, I just don't like calling people or answering the phone. I know it's weird. ANYWAY, I called the loan company we had agreed to make a payment to that day (first payment in 3 months), and asked what we needed to bring to refinance the loan since they'd offered to help us get current and maybe lower the payments and skip December's payment. God bless them!
Then I called another loan place in the same town as the first one and asked if they could work with us on our loan with them as well. We'd missed one payment in Sept, and the monthly payment is $305, which is just huge for us right now, so the guy said he'd see what he could do and call me back. He did eventually get back to me, and they could also totally work with us, and not only lower bills, but skip December's payment! God bless that guy too!
Also called Comcast, and the lady I spoke to was very nice and helpful. Turns out, my Internet speed was 250 mbps. WHAT? I thought it was like 105, which is high, I thought. Anyway, they said they could take off our premium channels that we never watch, and take the Internet down to 150 mbps and lower our payments by $60 after all the dang fees. So, I totally agreed to that. We keep the X1 package with the voice remotes and DVR, yay! I know a lot of Dave Ramsey people would be shaking a finger or screaming at me, but I have to have pretty decent high speed Internet for work, and the cable is the only entertainment we get. We don't go to the movies unless we win tickets or get an amazing deal thru the AMC app or something. Of I want to! The new Fantastic Beasts (omg Jude Law) and Aqua Man (omg Jason Momoa) and lots of others, but we can wait til they come up for rent and we can all sit down to watch it for like $3.99 on the big screen TV my new son-in-law got us.
Then I called UMB about my HSA account and how I'm supposed to get my husband and kid's prescriptions when the card keeps getting declined. The first time was using the new HSA card, but the transfer hadn't gone thru yet (they never told us to fill out a form and send it in). Then when I called, someone said I can use the old card to access it since it hadn't tranferred, but when we tried that, the card was declined and we found out it was an expired card. So, we found the new one they had sent us (I had forgotten about it because I knew we had the new HSA bank (HAH, this has been a total fiasco)). So, we got the new card activated, and went to use it today, November 30th, and it was declined again! When I called to find out why, they said the HSA management company my employer uses cut off all the cards on the old HSA accounts TODAY! They were supposed to remain active until Dec 4th, but they did it early, and they refused to reopen them. So, now what we have to do, is wait until the 4th, then my HSA account with UMB will belong to me instead of the management company company (don't want to name names, but they are certainly run by Lucifer himself), and then UMB can finally issue me a new card to access the funds, and send it. That'll take about a week to ten days after the 4th, so no access to the main $475 HSA account I have in the UMB account until around December 15th. But get this, if I send in yet a second form to transfer (they never got the first one I sent via snail mail apparently), that'll take well over 30 days to complete, so screw that! I'll just wait. In the meantime, we have to pay for prescriptions out of pocket and send in the forms and receipts via their website to be reimbursed. Thankfully that is an option, but they said it can take 2-7 days, so thank goodness I found a little wiggle-room for that in the budget this pay period. Oh, and to give a little perspective, we were informed by my employer that they were no longer going to be dealing with the HSA management company and were going to a new one which meant transferring all the HSA accounts to the new bank. We had less than a month to create a new account on the new bank site, and they'd get with us to transfer stuff. Well I was never contacted, and time went on, and I assumed it was just all being done automatically. They said not to use the old cards from Oct 13th - 31st, and then Nov 1st, the new cards would work. Well, they did for my FSA (which is only for vision and dental expenses), but not the HSA. Turns out, there were forms we were supposed to fill out and send in to make the transfer. The guy on the phone admitted they never actually sent out the forms. Yeah, so that happened. But Anyway, it's all sorted now. I understand what is going on and what happens next. That's a long way from where I was a month ago, for sure!
Then I also called State Farm to ask about my car payment (our car note is financed thru State Farm). I was late with it last month (regular payments have always been $324 due on the 30th), but did pay it on the 15th of this month, and now of course the Nov payment was due. I had the money and went to pay it, and saw different numbers than normal. When I paid October's bill a couple of weeks ago, I elected to go ahead and pay the late fee of $16 (rounding numbers for ease) with that payment, so I could just get back on track. So it was normal 324+ 16 = $340. So, this month's should just be $324. But it's not. It's $308 But not only that, it said "Amount of bill: $308 Then it listed a Late Fee of $16 bringing the total to the $324. What? So, I called them to see if anyone could explain to me what was happening. And what was I expected to pay. For some reason the guy on the phone was just not getting it. He kept trying to explain how it made perfect sense (it doesn't). Finally, he said, just pay the $308, and it'll be fine. I told him I'd have to enter it as an "other amount" because it was still asking for the total $324 (while detailing it as 308 + late fee of 16), and he said it was fine to use the Other option and enter 308 manually. I made sure he clarified that was okay and got his name. I assume the calls are recorded, so that saved me $16 this month simply due to State Farm's website or system in general cannot do math.
So, we finally headed off to the bigger town to do the one loan refinance we knew we were going to be able to do for sure. On the way, I got that phone call from the guy at the other loan place, and they were happy to refinance for us to get rid of that September's late payment. We got rid of the disability insurance - which we did use last year when he had cancer, but what it paid was not worth the premiums, and stretching the loan out a little, he got our payments down from $305 to $239. He was only going to be there another hour, so we headed to that office first, and it was quick and easy, and we ended up getting $100 back from the refinance as well. So, that was super great.
Then we headed to the other loan place we originally set out for. It took forever due to their system being brand new and full of bugs, but finally we got that one all sorted out and they took our payments from $264 a month to $99 a month! And we got $100 back from refinancing that one too.
And on top of it all, Both of those loans don't have payment dates until January, so no December payments for either one!
So, as we left that place, we suddenly had a surprise $200 in our pockets. I was thinking about how I could actually pay rent on time or pay my Discover card current so it wouldn't get suspended etc. But the hubby and kid both announced they wanted to go out to eat, and he picked the Asian buffet place. of course. It's like $10 a person plus drinks. and no leftovers to take home. But I was hungry too, and we still had to go grocery shopping and clean the kitchen before I could even start on making dinner and it was like 5:30pm by then, so I gave in. After tip (when all the waitress did was ask if we wanted more drinks and bring us our check, but we still tip 20%), it came to $47! That's like a month's worth of groceries to Stacey Flowers. It bothered me so much, but I had to let it go. It was money I hadn't even expected to get. I was just going to think of it as someone treated us to dinner and then gave us $150. So, that helped.
After dinner, they both just wanted to go back to our town, so we headed off. I went straight to SavMor, the discount grocery store I always shop at, and told them they both had to come in and help me find the things and the best deals.
I'll do a separate post on the shopping trip and what we got and how the numbers ended up. Did we stick to the $138 budget? Did we go over? You'll find out! lol
For now, I've got to head to bed, it's 6:35am Saturday, and I've been up since 2pm Friday running more errands before work. But I'll talk about that in the next one. Have an awesome weekend!
Patty
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I love getting comments, and I read every one. Thanks for coming by my site and reading my ramblings. I hope you have a wonderful day! -Patty