New Account

I've opened up a new online checking account through INGDirect. I already had my savings there, plus an old 401(k). I'm still going to be using for now my current brick and mortar bank, but those days are coming to a close in the future. I have everything automatically withdrawn from my old account, so I'll slowly switch everything over, probably after taxes come in.

My current brick and mortar bank charges a $8.00 a month fee. The fee was originally $10 but they lower it $2 for setting up automatic deposit of your payroll. This fee is supposed to go away after a year. Also, the past 2 months, they've been charging me $5.95 to use their bill pay service. This is something I do not use nor ever signed up for. Apparently this is a free service if I pay 3 bills a month, and I was magically signed up for it without my knowledge.

I made a phone call on the 17th to find out why I was being charged this fee, and to see about getting that $8 fee taken away from my account. Well, since I overdrew my account by $4.00 and my payroll hit the very next day back in January, I'm not eligible to have a free checking account. But they did tell me they will be crediting my account $5.95 for 3 months (next month will be on there too because its a month behind) and unsubscribing me from billpay. Well it's been almost 10 days and I've not had my account credited anything. I'll be calling tomorrow to check on this. I'm simplistic I guess. That's why I want everything automatically withdrawn and I opened up the checking account where I have my savings and that 401(k). Makes it easy for me.

Eating Out

Eating Out. Seems like this is the new American Dream. I know me and my family love to go out to eat. And I've noticed that we are beginning to do this more and more. I work nights and she works 2nd shift, so we see each other a few minutes in passing and we usually have 1 day off together. I think that's where it comes from. I hate cooking and can't cook a lot so that doesn't help much when I'm home with the kids, however, I'm more likely to cook than she is.

What really stuck with me and inspired this post is the price of eating out. I'm not talking about a sit down, be waited on, family restaurant, I'm talking about McDonald's and other fast food places. If the entire family is eating, we can usually expect to pay about $22.00 at McDonald's.  That's to high! Not when I can pay 4-6 dollars for a frozen pizza and feed the family, or cook a good home meal and still only be using about 7-8 dollars. 

This is something me and my family definitely have to work on. We could definitely have a lot more money to spend on things that we would rather do. October is an especially bad month for us with eating out, and it has been for the last 6 years. Why? McDonalds has Monopoly going on! It's like crack.

Setback!

If I would have started preparing sooner then I wouldnt be in the predicament that im in. I knew when I got paid that I was going to have a small amount of work done to my car. Replace a fuel filter. I masked the mechanic to look at some other issues with my car as well and see whats going on and to give me prices. Well, my 35 dollar out the door fuel filter turned into 136 dollars because my brakes in the front were almost gone, and the rear was getting there. While we were investigating further, we concluded i needed a new wheel hub and not a wheel bearing like i originally thought (money saved) and a transmission mount. Ones $100 and the other $111. So my next two checks will be replacing these things instead of putting money in the emergency fund. These types of things is what the emergency fund is for, and makes me wonder if I should be putting back a little more than a $1000 before i start on rebuilding my credit.

On the bright side I no longer smell gas after driving for a while (my fuel filter was leaking and had a lot of metallic crap in it, he kept it to show to me), my gas mileage has improved, and im not getting a violent vibration in the front like i was getting. The vibration is what made me think wheel bearing in the first place but replacing the brake pads solved the problem, yet i wouldnt be applying the brakes when i felt it. I dont know, cars are weird i guess, and im far from being a mechanic.  Hopefully next time I'll be prepared for this.