If you lose your wallet, say on a trip to the store, then go back and find it in lost and found, or with the clerk, and all the cash is accounted for, none of your personal info (soc sec cards, licence, etc) are missing, and your credit cards are all there, is there anything you need to do?

Just because everything is in your wallet, which I know is REALLY good news, it may not mean you’re ok not reporting it. If you kept any passwords in your wallet, say for your ATM, you absolutely need to change that card and or your password, then remember not to keep the new password in your wallet.

As for credit cards, it’s nice that they’re all there, but just to be safe you should call and let your credit card companies know. This way if any odd charges do show up, they’ll have the scoop. Lastly, you should also monitor all your accounts for a couple of months (if you don’t already) just to be sure no wacky charges show up.

Have you ever lost your wallet and gotten it all back in one piece?

[image via stock.xchng]

Saving for a rainy day, or building an emergency fund and paying off debt are both smart financial moves, but obviously it’s tough to do it all at once so what should you do first? Should you pay off the debt or sock away cash in an emergency fund?

• Aim for creating a small emergency account and put a larger bulk of your cash into paying off your debt. Why?
• Paying off debt builds confidence which better prepares you to handle your finances. It feels good to save as well, but it feels much less stressful to have less debt.
• Paying off debt is building a better savings. While an emergency fund will grow if invested or even if placed in a decent saving account, it won’t grow at the same high rates that debt does. The sooner you pay off debt and cut out those hefty interest charges, the sooner you can save up a much better emergency fund.
• Money expert Dave Ramsey notes that paying off debt in full builds a momentum that “snowballs” into more and more results. Basically, once you get the satisfaction of having a debt paid off you’ll like the feeling and it’s easier to push onward, paying off more and more. People do like instant gratification and are more likely to follow through when they get it.

Since you do need some money for a rainy day, save up about $1000 vs. the many thousands you should have in an emergency fund. That $1000 will tide you over until you finish paying off your debt, then you can add more cash to your savings account.

What do you think - rainy day or debt first? AND why…

[image via stock.xchng]

We’re finally selling our house.  You’d expect me to be jumping up and down with excitement, but I’m not.

You see, almost four years ago we bought a house.  We lived in it, fixed it up, and cared for it.  We wanted to make it a special place for our family.  Now here we are selling it and taking a loss.  A big loss.  We actually have to borrow money to sell it.  You may be wondering why I would be borrowing money to sell a house.  Well, it’s been on the market for eight months.  As you can imagine, the upkeep on a home can be very expensive and then add to it rent and utilities in another location, and it leaves us with little money left each month.

For eight months, we have been paying a mortgage, insurance, taxes, and utilities on a house we’re not occupying.  All of this while the housing market is down.  We’ve had people interested in the house, but none that could come up with the money.  The city where the house is located has seen a lot of lay offs.

You may be wondering why I wouldn’t just hang on to the house and wait until the market picks back up.  There are several reasons for this. 

1)  This is the first offer we have received on the house.
2) We don’t know when the market will pick back up again.
3) The financial strain needs to stop.
4) The market where the house is located is far worse than it is here.
5) Houses where we currently live cost a lot more.
6) Interest rates are the lowest they have been in many years.
7) Reasons #5 and #6 equal the reason we can afford to buy a house now.

Let me make this clear:  I hate debt.  This is not the road I want to take, but right now it seems like the only option.  And with rates being the lowest they’ve been in years, we can actually afford to purchase a house here.  The money we’ll save in interest far outweighs the loss on the other home.

I’ve had several people suggest a shortsale on the house, but everything I’ve read about shortsales messes with your credit.  (Shortsales are a better alternative to foreclosure though.) 

Sorry, this is no money saving lesson for today.  This is just a lesson learned and some thrifty struggles, weighing options, and finding the best way to get through it.  I’m hoping things are financially well your way.

images (c) Karen Weideman

It’s pretty easy to check your credit report, and you should at least annually. It’s smart to look your report over because one, bad credit can stop you from getting a new credit card, an apartment, a car loan, and plenty of other things, and two, there may be incorrect info on your report. Either way, you need to know in order to fix your credit. Another reason you may want your report is if you’re planning on car shopping, buying a home, or doing some other large activity involving credit. This way you know where you stand and can bargain for better rates.

You can get a free credit report IF:

• You’ve recently been denied credit for any reason. You have to request the report within 60 days.
• You’re unemployed and are actually planning to apply for work within 60 days of requesting a report.
• You’re receiving public assistance.
• You think your credit report may contain errors due to fraud - for example, someone applies for a credit card, bank account, or car loan in your name (or using your social security number).
• You haven’t had a credit report sent to you during the past year - everyone is entitled to one free credit report a year (BUT note that it won’t be in-depth).

To get a free credit report you’ll need to contact one of the major credit bureaus:

• Equifax
• Experian
• TransUnion

All of the above send pretty much the same report if you’re getting one free. They each also offer in-depth credit reports, but it’ll cost you. Something important to note is that if you check your report, it won’t lower your score. This common misconception is likely due to the fact that other people checking your score can lower it. Say you apply for credit every two months - THAT can lower your score, but you can check your own credit.

So have you checked your credit lately?

[image via stock.xchng]

If you’re getting married or considering a life with a significant other, then you should discuss money matters before hooking up for the long term. Some money issues just need a little discussion, while others are MAJOR warning signs that late on there could be problems.

Things to discuss:

Your spending priorities: Are both of you interested in saving for a house, kids, a car, or is only one of you into that? Do you have different spending styles? I.e does one of you live to shop while the other is a minimalist.

Do you agree on how much money should go to charities or other community organizations?

Do both of you anticipate long-term employment, or is one of you considering a career switch or quitting work entirely somewhere down the line?

Do you agree about loaning money out to friends and family - how much and how often?

ISSUE: Your partner and you balance the checkbook differently.

Not too big a deal, but keep separate accounts. My ex and I shared all our cash equally, i.e for bills and what-not, but kept our actual money in different accounts because I’m anal, and need to balance my checkbook daily, while the ex liked to call the bank once a month to check his balance. He always sort of knew what was going on, but that’s way too casual for me.

ISSUE: One of you has debt.

Sort of a big deal, but it could be worse. Just getting married or involved for the long-term won’t mix your credit scores, so long as you don’t open any joint accounts. However, renting and setting up utilities can be hard if the place needs both your names and one of you has sucky credit. The best thing to do is to make sure that the partner with poor credit is working on it, trying to improve it and in the meantime keep your names as disconnected as possible when it comes to credit cards and loans. Poor credit is not great, but doesn’t have to be a partner deal breaker (like the issue below).

ISSUE: Your partner gambles.

A HUGE deal. Take it from someone who knows folks who have been there. A gambler is a huge financial risk if you get involved for the long term. You can’t change their habits, they’ll need to. You may end up hiding your wallet, getting into debt, or dealing with a violent individual who is mad that you don’t like their habit. THINK very, very carefully before getting hitched with an addicted gambler (who is not in recovery).

[image via stock.xchng]

From inactivity fees to balance transfer fees to double ATM fees and more, banks can really stick it to you with all the lame excess fees.

To avoid fees do the following:

Read the fine print: Of course this is an obvious, but many people don’t read all the fine print information before signing up for bank services. Some people also don’t read the mail their bank sends them later on which may have change of service notices that can include new fees. If you do get mail later that says new fees are active, call your bank and complain.

Ask for one-time forgiveness: If you accidentally bounced a check (or incurred some other fee) ask nicely and your bank may cancel the fee. Keep in mind this is a one-time deal; you really should bounce checks. If you’re guilty of multiple offenses try balancing your checkbook more often.

Stay with your bank then ask for fee waving perks: I recently opened a second checking account, but through the same bank branch. I was totally prepared to pay for new checks, however, the on-phone teller and me chatted for a while, and he surprised me by offering free checks since I stayed with the bank vs. opening my second account elsewhere. Yay! If you’re a loyal customer, you’re more likely to score cool fee waving perks.

Stay a REALLY long time: The longer you stay with a bank, the more likely you are to get fees waved. If you’ve always had a fee-free checking account and all of a sudden the bank decided to charge a monthly fee, you can point out that you’ve had fee-free for five years and want it to stay this way.

Go above the teller’s head: If the first person you speak to won’t cut a fee, ask to talk to their supervisor or call back later to score another teller who may help you out.

Threaten: I’m not a fan of threatening anyone, but banks can be so shady with fees that this is a decent time to get serious. If the fee is lame and on their end more than yours (i.e a balance transfer fee vs. bounced check) tell them you’ll switch banks if they don’t wave the fee. I read somewhere once that it can cost a bank hundreds of dollars in advertising to score ONE new customer. They want your business.

Have you ever had luck getting out of a bank fee?

[Bank near Zion Nat's Park, Utah image via stock.xchng]

To get your free credit score try Quizzle.com, CreditKarma.com or Credit.com.  These sites do not offer the not the official FICO, but an approximation of it.  

The only place to get your free credit report once a year is AnnualCreditReport.com.  Accept no other source!

Thanks to Clark Howard for the information.

Welcome to part 2 in our series with Mom of 14.  Today she tells us how she saved money with her babies ( and she had plenty of them) and how she saves money with groceries.  Hope you enjoy.
I saved the family money by ALWAYS using cloth diapers (we’re talking the prefolded cloth with large pins and vinyl pants…no bum genius here). Amazingly, the 4 dozen received as baby gifts for baby #1 served me well throughout all 7 birth children and some survived for the babies I’m now raising. My children were all beautifully dressed….i had learned to sew at a very young age and made all of their dresses; pants; tops; nightgowns and pajamas; dress and play coats…everything except the undies and socks. Most of the time all laundry was line dried to cut electric costs and wear and tear on the clothes. i also shopped yard sales for toys and clothes that were like new and priced cheaper than i could make them.

We had a garden for all our vegetables and herbs.

As the girls became older and could babysit they would deposit most of the money (though I encouraged them to keep a portion out….kids need to have spending money.)

All loose change was saved and banked each year.

Stay tuned for the next installment and keep saving that money!

This is a guest post from a great friend of mine from up north.  She is a mother of 14 and has done a bang up teaching her kids to live within their means and not to waste cash.  I hope we can always learn from her example and live a debt free life.  This week she tells us how her family was founded on paying cash and saving money before it was cool to do so.

My husband and I were high school sweethearts…we met when I was 15 and he was 19. We knew even then that we would marry and wanted many children, so we began to plan early on for our future. He had an excellent job as a diesel mechanic and worked long hours. I babysat evenings and was always fortunate to get full time summer employment caring for children. We both lived at home and other than the essentials in life, banked every penny that was made. Here’s where the part that most aren’t blessed with comes in…Between all our savings and monetary gifts our parents had banked for us instead of letting us spend them on frivolous things, we were able to pay cash for a small starter home. We lived way below our means…at a time when our friends were going into debt for bigger, newer homes, we remained in ours.

One of the first things we did was to figure out how high we could go with a house payment based on our income. We took that amount each month and faithfully deposited it into our account and just thought of as a “house payment”. When the amount was high enough we would invest in CD’s and have the interest redeposit into the CD rather than receive an interest check, thus compounding the interest and watching the money grow.

Every income tax check was placed in our savings rather than spent. Every time one of the children received a monetary gift, it went into the account. We kept ourselves debt free (lol…this was long before anyone heard of Dave Ramsey). With him being a mechanic, our car was well maintained and we always paid cash when a new one was in need (new/used that is).

Thank you Mom of 14 and continue raising frugal kids.

Stay tuned to next Sunday when Mom of 14 tells us how she saved money specifically with her babies and food. This series will hopefully culminate with college being paid for without student loans or debt.  Stay tuned.

After some consideration, I’ve decided to add two new categories to Thrifty Mommy.

The first one is debt/credit.  I have no idea why we haven’t added it sooner because we talk a lot about the effects of debt.  I guess in the past we have just lumped it into financial matters.  No more!  I think debt needs a category for itself.

The other category is product reviews.  To save money, before I buy certain items I find myself surfing the web to find out what others say about the product.  We have tested products too, so why not pass on the helpful information to you? 

Don’t worry.  We plan to keep our integrity in tact.  I do not believe in giving an item a good review just because it was given to me.  In fact, earlier this year a product was given to me and I chose not to do the review because I did not have good things to say about the product. 

Our houses are full of products that we like and don’t like and now we can pass our opinions on to you so that you can make a frugal decision.

What else would you like to see at Thrifty Mommy?