Dreaming of the Lotto

I woke up this morning planning on what I was going to do with the THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND dollars I won in the lottery. I was so happy to pay off my house and bills and remodel and do the backyard. I was talking about building the wall I wanted and I was telling my family all about it. Then I woke up.
My husband had a dream we won a million dollars in the lottery last week!
I buy a ticket whenever I think about it but I am going to think about it a lot more. I have to say that I know people think it is a big waste of money but I like it. I like gambling a little. I am a miser when I go to casinos giving away only twenty or so dollars and I am fine with it because I go very rarely. I enjoy the thrill of what might happen. So two dollars a week is not that bad. I think it is fine.
What a great feeling it was to wake up this morning thinking of getting out of debt. That is the feeling I get reading I Will teach you. I feel like I am really going somewhere.
All these years just buying things on a whim and now I am looking around and selling these things for so much cheaper than I paid. I want to surround myself with only things that I really love, that are totally beautiful or have sentimental value for me.
I am hoping to get my husband on this money making bandwagon and start earning 100 extra per month. Together it will be easier. I think that we did a really good job in June and are starting out July great. Funny that it took a twenty-eight year old (Ramit) to make a thirty-five year old and forty-one year old grow up!
It is The Fourth Of July. Happy 4th everyone! I am off to ready the house for our family barbecue!

To blog or not to blog?

I am not that brand new to blogging. I have been blogging for about six years and I am looking at it in a new way. I never thought of using a blog to make money. I did sign up for Google Adsense with my original blog but never earned a dime. Life took over and I stopped blogging except for the occasional post here or there.
I also joined a website called Sparkpeople.com and started a blog there but I guess I never really considered it a blog. Weird huh? Well now I am noticing all these people blogging for profit and of course on my quest to make more money each month I am wondering: Am I a blogger?
I know it is funny that I never thought of myself in these terms but I did today and I was sort of shocked. I guess it is like me saying I don't cook but I cook almost every day, until someone says you are a good cook I don't see myself that way. Truth is I enjoy writing down my thoughts and (even though not a damned soul is reading this) I look forward to comments that may or may not appear! I think I am a pretty good writer. Grammar is one of my favorite things ever, along with spelling. I do like the chattiness of a blog though. Not so technical, more conversational.
Now I am wondering if I should try harder to get freelance jobs for blogging. How do you do these things?
I feel like one of those old ladies that are popping up in technology classes saying "when you say 'right click' what do you mean?" No I am not that bad, but I am not that good either. Or maybe I am. I guess I just need someone to tell me.
On a personal note I did look up Ramit Sethi on Facebook (no, I am not a stalker - or am I?) There were around five Ramit Sethi pages, I guess it is a very popular name in India (most of them were in India.)
I did not request to be his friend (even though he has around 1000 of them.) I think it might be too stalker like.
He did not have a fanpage, I would have become a fan.
I will teach you to be

More Money

One of the tips from an email I received from Ramit's I Will Teach You To Be Rich newsletter was about earning more money. He of course gives tips for freelancers but I am not a freelancer. (That would be so cool as a teacher...I will teach 18 students this year for this amount. Every time you the contract changes my money goes up! Haha!) I already mentioned my selling old books via bookscouter.com and my intention to sell old DVDs but as Ramit points out I am going to eventually run out of things to sell.
Obviously as a teacher I am never going to earn a whole lot more than I earn now. I have my Masters degree and am at the highest pay for my field. Unfortunately it is not that much. So unless I go into administration (a lot of work for not much more than I am making now) I need to think of more ways to make money.
Ramit suggests perhaps selling something that you make. You need to be sure that it is something that people want. I am not sure what I can do that people want. I am a very creative person in general but not specifically you know? I was browsing blogs the other day and so many people are so amazingly talented. The artists, the jewelry makers - these people can really sell their wares. I don't have wares. I wish I did. I have hobbies but I guess I don't make as many as some people. I guess more importantly I am not sure if people want what I do. My family of course thinks what I make or do is great but what are they going to do tell me how awful I am?
I wish I could get paid to read. Is there a job to pay readers?

Banks

Ramit has a very strong opinion about banks. His second chapter is devoted to "Beating your Bank." I have never had that strong of an opinion about banks. I had an account with Bank of America in college and on through my first job but then I was charged a $30 fee on a one penny overdraft and that soured my taste for them. According to Ramit it right well should have!

He says, no fees, no overdraft charges, large interest rates - that is what the goal is.

I belong to a credit union which is good unless they have fees. I screwed up last month and I had overdraft fees (used the debit before the paycheck was deposited - I swear I am like a small child when it comes to finance...somebody needs to put me in the naughty corner!)

Anyhow, emboldened by my recent success at lowering my APRs with my credit card I called the bank to get the overdraft fees waved.

This is a small credit union where they know us by name and even have called us when there was suspicious spending on our card (our card number was highjacked at a local gas station and someone was spending right through Mexico - jackasses!)

This call was going to be so hard. I found it easy to be tough with Jana, a person I never met before but to be tough on the sweet ladies from my own credit union?

I made the call. I talked to Diana and told her that I made a mistake but that I wished to have the overdraft fees deposited back into my account.
She told me I had to put a letter in writing for a review. I asked if email would do and she said yes.

I wrote:
Dear Diana,
I would like my overdraft fees reversed and the money to be deposited back into my checking account. It was a mistake that will not happen again. I have been a member of this Credit Union for a very long time and do all of my banking through this credit union. I appreciate your help in this matter.

I called back later that day and she said she would call me the next day.
She never called but the charges were deposited back into my account that day.

Now do you see why I am crushing on Ramit! He is a genius!

Now I need to research banks. Ramit loves him some online banking...I guess I am going to have to research that.

As I wrote yesterday, I finished the book Julie and Julia and I watched the movie afterwards. (I like to do that read the book then watch the movie.) I really liked it. I like how they showed the life of Julia Child a lot more than inthe book...she was an interesting woman. My favorite quote from the movie - Julie: "I am such a bitch." friend reply (what was her friend's name anyway...did they ever actually say it?) "yes, you are." Julie: "Do you really think I am a bitch?" Friend: "Yes." Julie: "I know."

Credit Cards

Credit cards. They are so great and they are so horrible. I guess that is beside the point. The point is that I need to start using them responsibly and making them work for me.

The next step in IWTYTBR (I Will Teach You To Be Rich) in the credit card chapter is to take an inventory of all of the APRs on your credit cards. Then to call the company and negotiate down that APR. There is a script in the book for you to follow in case you are not confident in telling your credit card company what you want (that is me.)
I am not a confrontational person. I work with Kindergarteners all day for Pete's sake! This was going to be very hard for me.

I got a bill ready with all the information. I read (out loud) the script in the book and with shaky hands I dialed the number. I got through remarkably fast and was on my way to talk to Jana.
Jana: "Hello, my name is Jana, how may I help you today?"
Me: "Hi Jana, I am going to be paying down my credit card debt more aggressively and I would like a lower APR."
Jana: "Let me just say congratulatons on your decision to pay your cards more aggressively. Let me have a look at your account....okay, I see that you have been on time with your payments and I just want to congratulate you for that. Hmmmm....hold on just a moment while I see what we can do for you." (puts me on hold.) "Okay, let me congratulate you again on both paying your card on time and deciding to pay your cards more aggressively. I can go ahead and bring your APR down by 1 percent."
Me: (fueled by Ramit's saying that I should ask for 50 or 40 percent and being congratulated at my good deeds)"You know Jana that is just not going to work for me at this time. I would like you to bring it down 40 or 50 percent."
Jana: "Ma'am why do you think we should bring it down that much?"
Me: "Well Jana, I recently returned to work after some time off. I received my Masters and a substantial raise because of this. I am currently looking at a very aggressive approach to paying my debt and I would like you to lower my APR by 40 or 50 percent. I will also tell you that I have been receiving offers from other cards offering me interest rates at half of what you are offering or 0% on balance transfers. I have been a customer for quite a long time and I would hate to have to take my business elsewhere but as you can see I can't pass up these lower interest rates." (I swear I think Ramit must have inhabited my body because I was ready to rumble - over finances!)
Jana: "Let me put you on hold for a minute."
You know when you just know -- I knew! She was going to do it...I could hear it in her voice. I played the game and I won.
Jana: "Ma'am, let me go ahead and congratulate you on being a customer with us for such a long time and on improving your financial situation. I would now like to offer you an APR 40 percent lower than your current APR."
WOOHOO!!!!
I did it. I did it. Go Ramit, Go Ramit!
I think it helped that Jana was so congratulatory too. It was like "great job for being a customer. Great job on paying your bill, great job for calling to lower your APR..." Ego boost.

Okay so by now, I am not sure if you have noticed but my husband has. I have developed quite the crush on Ramit. I keep telling my husband "Ramit says this and Ramit says that." He looks really dorky on the cover of his book, I am not sure what the bright pink shirt and barefoot look was supposed to represent but now he is unabashedly my main crush. He helped me lower my APR and I was empowered by it! The POWER!

I will zoom back down to Earth now.

I am done with step two to my financial stability...lowered APRs all around!
On a side note I finished reading Julie and Julia.
What an inspirational story! Only in America!

Ramit (raw meat not ram it)

I was at Borders with my daughter and husband, Molly and Rob respectively. We were doing our regular tag team browsing - I take Molly and read to her while Rob looks for his books then we switch. As I was looking for a quiet spot for Molly and I to read we plopped in a comfy chair with an ottoman in what turned out to be the Financial Book section. When Rob came to take over I grabbed a book called "I Will Teach You To Be Rich!" by Ramit Sethi. I Will Teach You To Be Rich Who can resist a title like that? The cover said it is a six week program. That is what I need - an actual program - like a diet for money! "Give me six weeks and you will be 10 dress sizes smaller!" Right up my alley!

I need to go back here and just let you see a snippet of my relationship with money. It is actually very close to my relationship with food and exercise if I really think of it. I am a miser...for a long time. I scrimp, I save (I decide to lose weight, I measure food, I eat healthy - I start my exercise regimen) then I collapse. We go out to eat followed by a trip to Borders followed by a trip to Target (I eat a piece of cake or chips and "don't have time" to exercise) and am right back at square one.

Unfortunately I am no financial genius nor is my husband. We are both the youngest in our families and I think that it made us financially challenged. We were always taken care of by our older siblings and parents. We are just stupid when it comes to money. We do live in an incredibly expensive city and while we earn enough to survive I know we could do so much better.

Hence the drive to stop this cycle and get on a path of financial gain and responsibility.

So I have read the first two chapters of Ramit's book. Let me just say that I feel like a doofus because he wrote this book targeting people fresh out of college and I am a thirty five year old woman who was fresh out of college in 1996. I think back to all the wasted money and I could just kick myself. BUT that is not why I am here. I need to stop looking back and move forward.

I am planning on making it a two part project - first, get financially savvy with the money I make and spend now and second, make more money. Getting ourselves out of debt, avoiding late charges and still having a little left over to occassionally go out to eat followed by Borders followed by Target is just the first half. I want to save money. I don't want a (recent) trip to the auto shop to totally get us behind on all our bills and in a black money pit of late charges. I also need to generate more money. I am a teacher and that is one of the downfalls of teaching. No matter how many hours I put in either at the school or at home - there is no overtime. (My husband does not have the possibility of overtime either.)

So back to Ramit:
In chapter one it is all about optimizing your credit cards. The first thing we did was sit down and list all of our cards, including monthly payments, total money owed and APRs. We decided which card we are going to pay off first. We decided to pay off the credit card with the lowest amount due first (The Snowball Effect- check out my savvy terminology!) We thought that it would psychologically feel good for us to pay something off. So there we are. I know, some of you are going to argue that we should go with the highest APR but according to Ramit (I just don't like saying Raw-Meat - don't tell but I call him Ram IT! in my head) you should not waste time deciding...choose one and do it. So we did!

Step one - done.