#59: Money & Finance:Credit, Money Management, and Saving

1. Credit

I read the article on how credit scores work, and watched some of the videos. One surprising thing for me was the recommendation that you don't cancel old accounts. I have been angry at one of my cards for their greedy policies, and wanted to write to close it. I have had it a very long time, though, so I guess I will just cut up my card and let the account sit there and age. I took the Credit Quiz and missed one question, related to this issue of cancelling old accounts.

I recently was alerted by Kelsey-Seybold clinics that an employee laptop had been stolen, and that my personal information could have been compromised. I was advised to place a fraud alert with one of the credit monitoring services, so I filed with Experian by phone. It was a very easy process, and the alert was also passed on to the two other main credit bureaus. The alert will be kept in place for 90 days from the day I filed it.

When Experian notified me by mail that they had placed the alert, they recommended that I check my full credit report, which I just did online. That also was an easy process, and I got my report instantly online for free. There were no surprises or obvious errors in the report.

Since I had never seen my credit score, I did decide to purchase it for $5.95. While my score was good ("Prime Plus"), it was not as high as I thought it would be since I have had many accounts over the years and always paid promptly. The reasons for the lower score are kind of bizarre in my opinion. For one, I seem to be penalized because the report "does not show any recently opened credit accounts." My score is also lowered because my report "does not show any real estate loans, such as a mortgage..." It seems weird that having faithfully paid off a long-term mortgage doesn't count for anything in this wonderful world of credit!!


2. Money Management

I use Microsoft Money to manage my finances. I enter what I have spent, and categorize each expenditure, and a "budget" of sorts is prepared to let me know where my money goes. It is helpful to know what my monthly expenses are, but I don't obsess about staying within prescribed limits. Many people resist working with budgets because they see them as "rules" rather than as useful mental "guidelines."

Microsoft Money also has modules for handling credit cards, tracking investments, and planning for future purchases. If you wish, it can translate your data into charts and graphs that give an alternative way to view your finances.

3. Savings and Retirement

The Harris County retirement package is certainly one of the excellent fringe benefits of working for the library system. It is one of the reasons often cited in job interviews about why people want to work for Harris County.

I had opened an online account with TCDRS in the past, as I am tantalizingly close to making use of it for retirement. The numbers are looking good -- too good to retire!!

I have been to the retirement seminar to get information for planning, so I knew quite a bit about TCDRS, but looking at the site was a good review. Most helpful is the page of forms, such as estimates of benefits, change of address, beneficiary designations, etc.

#58 Money & Finance:Banking, Budgeting, Spending

1) Banking

My bank does offer online banking for free. I have used it to go in and look at my balance, and to see if a particular check or deposit has cleared, and that has been very handy. However, I have been reluctant to go purely "paperless." I like having that paper statement in hand when balancing my account or entering data in my Microsoft Money program.

I have not used the service to pay a bill, although I do have many bills set up (with the utility companies, phone company, etc.) to make automatic deductions from my back account. That is even easier, as you don't have to enter amounts each time. I also have many automatic deposits made (like my paycheck). I have never had a problem with these kind of deductions or deposits.

I know the bank is very interested in protecting the security of my account. It is critical to their business. If I follow common-sense practices for protecting my login information and passwords, I should continue to have no problems.

I appreciate the possibility of being able to get e-mail alerts for deposits or for unusual activity. This gives added peace of mind, and would help detect any situation before it gets out of hand.

2) Budgeting

Of the free budgeting tools discussed, www.mint.com looks most intriguing. I signed up for a free account, but was a little disappointed. It was very quick to set up an account, but when I tried to enter data for six of my accounts, only two of them made connections. The checking account popped up right away, as did one credit card account. However, others had messages like "Legalese has changed on your account" or "Unable to connect, try later."

I currently use Microsoft Money for managing my accounts, and was tempted by the automatic transaction entry and categorization of Mint. It could potentially be a big time-saver, as I now spend multiple hours per month on updating. The time-saving feature may eventually be true, but up-front, Mint is still a lot of work. All of your accounts already have to have online logins established, and the categorization involves a lot of tweaking. I think Mint might be useful for my son, who does not have the patience to do the data entry for a program like Microsoft Money.

My biggest concern is a security issue. While it would be convenient to be able to access my data over the Internet in one place, I am still uncomfortable that it could be too accessible to hackers. After creating my account and trying it out, I deleted it. What it it did inspire me to do is to explore the newer editions of Microsoft Money, to see if easier data capture is possible with that program.

I definitely would never use a site like rippleplay.com. The latest "news" update on the front page was from July 2007!

3) Spending

I read the article on cutting spending, but I have already incorporated most of these suggestions in my lifestyle. One that is on my "to do" list is to investigate bundling our telephone with our cable/internet package. A great savings for us came with the discovery of Skype. Using this service, my husband can talk overseas with his relatives for free. Best of all, they can add web cams to the process, and even see each other! The quality of the transmission is pretty amazing, and it's hard to believe that their words and images are crossing thousands of miles.

Another suggestion for saving at holiday time is to share your family news through a blog, rather than buying, printing, stamping, mailing holiday newsletters. We created an online journal in December of 2008 in the midst of the financial crisis, so that we could share pictures and thoughts and ideas with our friends and family in a cost-effective way. What could be better than FREE! Take a look at http://agafiteijournal.blogspot.com/

For fun, I took the quiz to see if I have a spending problem. I was surprised that I got only 85 out of 100, until I reviewed the ones I missed:
*** I learned that Treasury bonds have higher interest rates than CDs, which is good to know as they are also safe investments.
*** On the question, "What happens when you get a raise?", my response "I don't notice" was considered not correct. I guess most people must get bigger raises than library employees do.
*** On the question, "Which investment portfolio is likely to earn the best return over 10 years?", the answer considered correct was one that include 85% stocks. This must show the age of this quiz. Stocks have certainly been in the tank in the current economy, and I doubt that this is really the right answer now.

My biggest advantage in saving money is that I HATE SHOPPING.

Potluck #57: Texting

Cell phones have been shrinking in size over time, but I guess there is a practical limit to that unless an alternative to texting by keypad is developed.

Have you ever sent a text message?

I avoided owning a cell phone because I did not want to be "trackable" by anyone, at any time, at any place. But during Hurricane Ike, my husband's cell phone became invaluable. I learned to text, as for weeks it was often the only way to communicate with family, friends, and co-workers. It wasn't pretty to watch, as I learned everything the hard way (no YouTube available at the time!). I kept grabbing people and asking questions like "How do I type a number? Get a capital? Correct [MANY] mistakes?" I am a little better now, but still not very fast.
Now, I find it is often the only good way to get my son's attention. E-mail is too "old-fashioned" for him. He seems to think that if he can't get it in seconds over his phone, it is not worth reading. I still don't have my own cell phone, but I am precariously leaning in that direction.

I appreciated learning about the http://www.txt2day.com/ website that I can use to send text messages from my computer. I used to be able to do this through the website of my son's cell phone provider, but they removed this service a while ago. I tested http://www.txt2day.com/ just now, and got a reply back within a minute.

Do you use text lingo? Did Lingo 2 Word help?

Text lingo is about the same as the shorthand that developed earlier for Instant Messaging. Recently I enjoyed reading the book "TTYL" by Lauren Myracle that chronicles, in IM format, the day-to-day experiences of three girlfriends as they begin tenth grade. The Lingo2Word site would have helped me decipher many of the phrases like OMG, WTF, TTFN that I found in that book.

I enjoyed playing the 60-Second Challenge in Lingo2Word to see if I could translate five text messages in less than a minute. The most I ever got was 2 out of 5. I learned a lot by playing, though! The challenge also includes some "real language" shorthand (TGIF) and some of the "pre-text" computer shorthand (GIGO). Those I knew! The Lingo2Word site could come in handy in the future. I think it would be especially helpful for anyone who texts with young people. Kind of a "teenspeak" translator.

Finally, what are your thoughts on the texting and driving after reading the New York Times article?

Listen to yo' mama: Don't even THINK about texting and driving! Talking on the cell phone is almost as bad, but at least your eyes can be on the road, even if your brain is not fully engaged.

Potluck #56: To Tweet or Not To Tweet...Twitter

I learned about Twitter as part of the committee for the original iHCPL. Together with a couple of other folks, I captured some of the more quotable quotes from iHCPL participants in a Twitter feed on the blog. For this exercise, I logged in and added a few new ones. It's amazing how time flies. The last time I did an entry was 202 days ago!!

Exercise 1) Browse a couple of different Twitter profiles.

I looked at a few of the celebrity profiles and could find none that I cared to follow. TMI.

I think I will stick to reading the status updates of people I know in Facebook, rather than opening a personal Twitter account.

Exercise 2) Use the search feature to find tweets about a topic.

I searched for the "Barbara Bush Library" and found this tweet:
"Sadly my TV watching is on pause while I visit the infamous Barbara Bush Library (right down the street) for tax help."

Also found a tweet that one of the staff must have entered:
"Knowledge Exchange @ Barbara Bush Library 2day @ 2:30p. Call 281-376-4610 for info. BYO project or conversation!"

These verify what the Forbes article said: "Most important, Twitter can be an effective way to build a customer-centric organization that not only communicates authentically but also listens to customers and learns from that interaction."

I used Twellow to find some Tweets on raw foods, organic foods, and vegetarianism. I think tweets are better thought of as a path to information, rather than as a place for the information itself.


Exercise 3) Post your thoughts about Twitter to your blog.

The Twitter site boasts that it is "a modern antidote to information overload." I think I agree more with Entertainment Weekly that described it as "a time-stamped list resembling a short-attention-span blog."

I think that Twitter is just a passing fad, even though I currently hear EVERYONE talking about it. It was mentioned in an article I read this morning in the "Conde Nast Portfolio", and as I am writing this post, Meghan McCain is on the Larry King Show talking about how Twitter is her favorite thing. I heard Stephen Colbert talking about it last night, and it was a topic on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" this morning. I think Twitter will be around for a while, but will lose its glamor and probably will be usurped by other sites (e.g. the status updates of Facebook)and become less important as a stand-alone network.

Pot Luck: #55 Getting the Most Out of Facebook

I have had a Facebook account since the Social Networks section of the original iHCPL 23 Things (Thing 18). I currently have 51 friends and 14 applications. As a result of this exercise, I just added a Friends Wheel and some pieces of flair.

Facebook is fascinating, and as a result, an incredible sink hole for time. I never fail to learn something new about my friends, and am often tempted by new apps. I suppose if you had a business or service to promote it could be a productive use of time. As it is for me, it seems more like interactive TV -- sometimes educational, but more often just lost hours.

I appreciated the 10 suggestions about protecting privacy, and implemented one of them right away. I intend to work more with creating groups, to try to make the flow of information more manageable.

I like following Friend Suggestions, Are You Related?, reading comments on the wall, and birthday reminders. Its hard to believe there are 26 million users every month!

Books, Readers and Beyond: #54 Social Networking Through Books

Exercise 1: Membership in Book Clubs

I joined my first book club in the late 70's when I lived in Illinois. Those were the years when I was working for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and I met a bunch of terrific like-minded people. Some of us formed a feminist book club, named the Gutsy Women. This was a wonderful bonding among friends, and as I think about it now, it may have influenced my decision to become a librarian later. I had been on a science track before this, eventually earning a Ph.D. in Entomology. All I read was serious non-fiction, and I thought of reading as hard work. The Gutsy Women showed me that reading fiction was an acceptable pastime for intelligent people, and that reading could be fun. I was hooked.

Today I facilitate two books clubs, one at the Barbara Bush Library, and one at my church, Hosanna Lutheran. They are quite different from each other, but both are enjoyable. I would love to start more book clubs, but I am a sadly slow reader, and two required books a month is about all I can handle in addition to my personal reading.

I love the fast-paced face-to-face unpredictable interaction between readers discussing a good book, and I would never consider joining an online book club (unless perhaps I was homebound and couldn't get out).

Exercise 2: Implementing Book Clubs

I am helping to implement book clubs today by doing training for book club discussion leaders. This is offered as part of the "Big Read" grant happening from mid-April through May. The training session open to the public is on Friday, April 24, from 10 am to noon at the Barbara Bush Library. Any staff member who would like to offer this training at their own branch can contact me. I can do the training, help you do the training, or provide the materials for you to do the training yourself. The "Big Read" training will be focused on the classic book "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, but this training could be done at any time of the year, using any book.

The library book club that I host reads a wide variety of materials, from various fiction genres to non-fiction selections. The suggestions come from the participants. You can see what we have read by visiting our Library Thing site. Log in as "bushbookclub", password "barbara". By clicking on the tab for "Your Library", you can see the books this group has read and discussed over the last six years.

Books on Social Networking Sites

I searched again for "The Guide" by R.K. Narayan, as discussed in my first post for this exercise, with these results:

GoodReads: a rating of 3.9 out of 5.0, based on 282 ratings.

Shelfari: a rating of 4.0 out of 5.0, including 21 reviews

Library Thing: a rating of 3.61 out of 5.0, based on 343 entries; no reviews.

Books on Facebook: I had trouble finding this group on Facebook. The first one I found had comments all in Italian. The second was a controlled membership group that you had to be invited to join. All in all, this was not a user-friendly experience.

The sites where I found ratings were quite similar. It sounds like "The Guide" is a "pretty good" book, and one that I will want to read in-between book club selections!

Books, Readers and Beyond: #53 Finding Books Online [Exercise 3: Downloading an e-Book]

In 2008, I taught an adult Sunday School series on the book "Real Faith for Real Life" by Michael Foss. I bought the book from Amazon, and had the option to buy the e-book version at the same time for just $.99 extra. It was a good thing that I exercised that option, because I ended up giving the print version away to a student in the class, and had to depend on the e-book to prepare my notes.

With Amazon, you don't really "download" the e-book into your computer. Instead, you view it online through your Amazon account. This was one disadvantage --I had to be at my computer and online in order to read the book.

For the first few chapters, I was able to copy and paste lines into my teaching outline. This was great and a real time-saver. However, I soon hit the copyright "wall" and couldn't do this any longer. This meant that I had to flip back and forth between the book and my Word screen in order to make notes. This was NOT fun.

If you are just reading and not trying to make notes, an advantage is that you can highlight sections of the book, write online annotations, and bookmark special areas. To review what you have read later, you can choose to see just these sections.

I have to admit that I an really tempted by the Kindle 2. You can select from 230,000 titles, most costing only $9.99, and have them downloaded anywhere in 60 seconds. You can carry up to 1500 books with you at a weight of about 10 ounces. For someone who had to carry two or three volumes of the LC Catalog around during library school, that alone sounds pretty fantastic. The screen is supposed to provide an improved reading surface, and the battery is supposed to last 25% longer than the initial version of the Kindle. This sounds like a potentially BIG threat to print libraries as we know them.