Miscellaneous Day Here at the Blog

Wow, has it really been over a week since I posted?  I've been commenting here and there on other people's blogs but I keep falling asleep about the time I usually start writing my own posts.  I also had a flareup of a chronic back problem on Tuesday.  I ended up taking a T3 around 11 pm, which meant there was definitely no blogging that night!  I'm the sort of person that, if drowsiness is a possible side effect of a drug, I'll be out cold.  It was still acting up in the morning, so I took 2 Advil at that point.  Luckily, it's better now.

I do have a variety of things to mention.  First of all, another one of my comments was featured in this week's Monday Mailbag on The Simple Dollar!

I've won a Starbucks card from Betty at Bouncing Back from Bankruptcy and I'm thrilled about that!  I can already taste my decaf white chocolate mocha with extra whip!

And I commented on Give Me Back My Five Bucks that Krystal should do one of her December Goals (to come up with her goals for 2010) as one of her famous challenges since all of us PF bloggers are probably planning a similar post sometime between now and New Years.  She said it was a great idea and that the post would go up soon but the post that appeared was her 2010 goals!  Now she's off to Vegas and I'm not sure if she's planning to do a challenge post or if I should do one.  I certainly can't post my goals for next year yet because I'm still working on them.

The next little while is going to be very busy.  I have lots of evenings coming up with parties or other events I need to attend.  I don't normally go out much in the evenings, unless I have to go back to the office or occasionally to attend a class for an hour or so, once a week.  And, a couple of times when I'm not going out, I'll be babysitting my granddaughters because Eldest Daughter also has parties to go to.

We have to seriously think about whether we're going to go to the house during winter break but we have to co-ordinate dates with ED, S-in-L and the girls too.  They'll be away or off part of the time but there are also days when people have to work.  Plus, going is contingent on getting 2 new winter tires because winter tires (and carrying chains) is mandatory through the Hope-Princeton all winter.  I'm still not quite sure how all the money is working out.  We did get the fuel oil delivered yesterday and I paid them via telephone banking this morning, once I'd confirmed the exact amount.  So, that's a relief.  I've also called and left a message for my next-door neighbour, asking him to check to make sure the furnace is going on.  If we had already run dry the reset button has to be hit in order to get the furnace running again.  And it would probably also mean another clogged sensor (with the gunk from the bottom of the tank) and another furnace servicing.  I really hope it's okay but I'm trying to focus on the fact that we have a year's supply of fuel oil now.  If we have to service the furnace I'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Actually, in the last couple of days I've started to worry about the car again.  It's been making a kind of groaning noise when you back out of a parking spot and it's progressed to sometimes making a noise as you start or stop.  It sort of sounds like a transmission issue and I'm so not dying to have to drop more money on the car at this point.  I'm still pretty touchy about the $2,600 or so we've spent over the past couple of months.  Son-in-Law will probably take it in to the place he goes to one of the days that he drives it next week.

Too tired to write any more now.  Goodnight!

Small Town Friendliness

I've noticed a number of times that small town friendliness is still alive and well. Now, if we could just teach those skills to folks in the Big City.

I've posted the other day about my bad experience with my major bank. It's not just that they weren't helpful. The girl was rude. But that's an extreme example. Let's look at something a little more representative at the same bank.

I've had an account there for probably 10 years. Back then, they were great. The tellers recognized you when you came in, called you by name and so on. Eight years ago they merged with another major bank. Staff started to change, policies changed, some aspects of telephone banking didn't work the same, there were some new holds on deposits but nothing that would be a total deal-breaker.

Currently when I go in I'm often asked by the teller to swipe my debit card and enter my PIN or show photo ID before they will do anything for me. Doing something like making a deposit to my husband's or Eldest Daughter's accounts seems to be a Suspicious Activity. Everything costs. Two books of 25 cheques cost over $20 recently (when they used to be free).

When I go to a branch of this same bank in the Okanagan the tellers are friendly and never ask me for my PIN or photo ID. Even when I didn't have my passbook one day this summer and wanted a printout of my account activity all they did was swipe my card to get my account number. They call me by name, even though the tellers at my "home" branch no longer do.

And my credit union in the Okanagan prints me free books of cheques on the spot when I need them!

Today, I had another situation that really touched me. I know I'm running low on fuel oil and need a fill. The minimum delivery is 100 gallons and it cost in the $400 to $500 range when I've had fills in the past. I'm a little scared of running the tank dry because I wrecked a sensor in the furnace that way last year and had to spend $150 on servicing it.

So I called the fuel dealer today to find out how much a minimum fill will cost. The driver who delivers to me was the one who answered the phone. He told me the minimum charge currently is $415 and we talked for a couple of minutes about how I'm not going to be there until the 25th and about having my neighbour check the level to make sure I'm not about to run dry. I said I'd have to juggle things around to open up enough space on the credit card and he said that I don't need to worry about that. I've established a history with them and he's going to be in my area tomorrow. He asked if I want him to just deliver then and he would wait until I called back to put the charge through! I said sure and we left it at that. I should mention that I never gave him my address or an account number, just said my name and the name of the unincorporated town where the house is located at the beginning of the conversation! He knew who I was right away even though I only had two fills last year.

As for how I will pay for this, Hubby already transferred some money to me from his most recent pay and I get paid tomorrow. I have to pay down the card and keep checking until the space opens up on the card (probably a couple of days). Then I can call and have the fuel charged on the card. They were so nice they definitely go to the head of the line in terms of who I pay first!

Baby Step

Well, my UCCB cheque finally showed up today but I was stuck in the house with all 3 girls because today was a Professional Development day at Dear Child's school. Why was I stuck? Well, I had no car and no car seats. My son-in-law drove his van to work with 2 of the car seats and my hubby took our car with the remaining one. I really didn't mind that much because he hardly ever has it any more since he started riding his bike to work. Besides, I'll have to have the van tomorrow so I can ferry DC to and from school, plus pick up my Dear Granddaughter at school in the middle of the day. Days like that I pretty much spend my time buckling and unbuckling car seats containing small children.

The only reason I would have wanted a vehicle today would have been to drive to the credit union and I ended up doing that after work this evening. I put the whole $100 cheque into VanCity, which will forward it to my own credit union. I needed about $65 for the electric bill and just under $10 for the service charge at the end of the month and it was simpler to deposit this cheque than to deposit the $56 one that came on Friday plus a cheque from my own (deep in overdraft) bank account. There won't be an electric bill in December but I'll still have to pay the service charge on the account and that will use up another $10.

Now, my only concern is whether the transfer into my own credit union account will be complete by Thursday, when the electric bill comes out....

Whoa, I'm Leaving When?

Somehow in all the activity over the past week or so something has fallen through the cracks. That would be the fact that we're leaving for our rural home after Shabbat (i.e. Saturday night) and we're going to be gone for just over a week.

I have tons of things I need to do in preparation and Friday's a short day! I have to work until 3 pm, pick up our lulav and etrog, go to the deli for all the challah, cheese and meat we'll need to eat during our time away, pick up DC at 4, come home and make both Friday night dinner and Shabbos lunch. Before sundown.

Plus, I was supposed to set up a furnace guy to service our oil furnace and the plumber to finish the job he started in July, plus find out if I need a separate electrician to install a programmable thermostat or if the furnace guy can do it. We're there so seldom during the work week that we need to take advantage of that and we're probably not going to go back until winter break, so we really need to be sure the place is winterized okay. We were fine last year but, having had that water leak underneath, I want to be sure the pipes are still fully insulated etc.

I'm just freaking out a little. Yom Kippur went very well but it's still a loooonnng fast and I have a headache. Now my brain is whirling with all these things I need to do tomorrow and I don't know if I can do it all in the time I've got.

Once we get there we'll be really busy. We've got Sunday and Monday (which is a statutory holiday) to get our sukkah up and buy anything we need for it. The holiday of Sukkot starts Monday night and the first 2 days are holiday days (fancy food, no TV, no blogging, no shopping) so I basically have Sunday for anything I need to buy in town. We really loved spending Sukkot there last year but we were way better prepared! And we had a lot more spare cash.

I expect to blog on Sunday, at least. Monday is iffy. Then I'm off for 2 days and will probably post again Thursday because I'm sure I'll be going into town then. We're coming home Sunday evening, leaving after dinner. Because we only eat in the sukkah during Sukkot that just leaves Monday to deal with and there's a sukkah at the community centre that I can use for breakfast and lunch (though I'll need the van that day to take everybody there for lunch). Then the last 2 days start and they're also holiday days. There's a big meal and dancing at the rabbi's house (he has a sukkah that holds literally hundreds of people) Monday night and we're invited there for Tuesday lunch, which is the last meal we eat in the sukkah.

Now, all we need is good weather. There's nothing I love more than eating outside when the weather's good. There's nothing more miserable than sitting in the sukkah all bundled up as the rain drips off the skach (plant material we use for a "roof") into your soup. But it will be what it will be. And the Okanagan does average 300 days of sunshine per year! We should make sure we have a couple of logs for the firepit too. We can only use it certain days, but it's really nice to have it in there when we can use it.

Car Problems Cost Big Money

I mentioned the other day that I was having a problem with the car. What happened is that I drove to the deli, to Safeway, to the liquor store (all within half a dozen blocks of each other and about 10 minutes from home) and started to drive home when I heard a bubbling noise. I looked at the dashboard and the temperature gauge was just about to redline! Hello!? I drive to our rural home through 2 mountain passes and the car never even tries to overheat. How can it be overheating doing the drive I do pretty well every day (all this was just a few blocks from work)?

I turned off the air conditioning and turned on the heater and kept driving home, while keeping an eagle eye on the temperature. (This pulls heat from the engine away from the core and into the interior of the car, reducing the load on the cooling system.) I made it without boiling over but I was pretty freaked out. We didn't use the car over Rosh Hashana of course, but I was determined that it had to go in today.

The news is not good. There are 2 leaks (water pump and thermostat), it needs new timing, alternator and a/c belts and there's a loose tie rod end. That's the stuff we're actually having done now because it's either a safety issue or the car won't keep working without it. There's another job we're going to hold off on for now because all that I already mentioned, plus an oil change and winter check up is going to cost in excess of $1,600! It'll be ready on Monday, so that's how long we have to pull the money together.

Bottom line. We don't have it and we don't have enough room on our credit cards to charge it all. This is a real wake up call. I knew the cards had been creeping up (mostly for things like food, gas, DC's school clothes and rain gear for my hubby so he could cycle to work in the rain) but it hadn't really clicked as to how serious it was getting. It's one thing to say that you need gas but payday isn't for a few days, so you charge the gas and tell yourself you'll make a payment on the card that covers that fillup when you get paid, but what happens when payday rolls around and there are 4 or 5 other things more "urgent" than paying back that $30 to $100? Right. You know what they say about good intentions.

We have a couple of options that don't involve hitting up family for money or selling our possessions. One, my hubby can get an advance on commissions that will be coming to him at the end of October or, two, he could request an increase in his card limit (an option I'm not crazy about but he does have a lower limit than I do). I have some money in ING, but it's pretty well all already accounted for. I'll use the money in our emergency fund either towards the car or towards paying the plumber for fixing the leak at our rural home (we finally got the bill last time we were there and it was just under $300).

But, beyond paying for the repairs and the rental car the dealership arranged, what do I need to do? I have to get back into entering everything in Excel. I need to see exactly where a bunch of the money is going because we should be roughly breaking even on a month to month basis and it doesn't look like we are. Once I do that, we have to really sit down and talk about where the leaks are and how to handle them. Then we have to start working hard to get the debt back down. At the very least, we have to be vigilant about not increasing it.

But we can't stop spending money either. I'm not going to get caught being penny wise and pound foolish. We need to get a programmable thermostat and to have the furnace at our rural place serviced before winter because we aren't going to be there much once the snow starts in the mountains and I don't want to have the pipes freeze or some such nonsense just because we didn't spend a couple of hundred dollars on preventative maintenance. Also, last year we spent about $600 to $700 in fuel oil to heat the place over the winter and we should be able to save about 2/3 or more of that if we spend $100 on the programmable thermostat. So, yes, we're going to have to spend some money in the short term but it will save us money over the next 6 months or so.

Stay Warm, Save Money

Trent wrote a great post about minimizing your winter heating bills and it really got me going. Actually, all of this started the other day when he also linked to a post on how to install a programmable thermostat. I looked at programmable thermostats last year but chickened out of buying one because neither Hubby nor I is confident doing anything electrical.

I have an oil burning furnace at my rural home. In 2 rooms and the front hall I also have electric baseboards. The furnace is 40 years old and needs a servicing before winter. Last year I had 2 deliveries of oil for a total cost of about $700. My electric bill is about $30/month ($360/yr).
My next door neighbour on one side has what I believe is called a swamp cooler. It looks like an air conditioning unit, sits outside on the ground, heats in the winter and cools in the summer. I don't know how it is in terms of cost but the big downside for me is that it's noisy. I can hear it inside my living room when it comes on.

My other next door neighbour changed his oil burner for a pellet stove a couple of years ago. He buys all his pellets ahead of time and stores them in a little shed. He loves the pellet stove and says it's much more economical than their previous furnace.

I can't switch to the pellet stove myself because we're not there all the time and you have to feed the pellets into the stove every couple of days. I don't think any kind of new furnace (or a swamp cooler) is going to be good for me economically. The upfront cost is just too high. So, as long as the oil furnace works, my best bet is to keep it and do some of the other things like sealing the windows, weatherstripping doors, installing a programmable thermostat, changing the furnace filter and looking into an insulating blanket for the water heater.

Doing all the above I should be able to knock about $600 off my heating costs. Yeah, that much. The programmable thermostat alone should account for close to $500 of that. Since we only go for one day at a time during the winter I can set the thermostat to a very low level 6 days out of the week (in the low 50's, enough that the pipes don't freeze and that the place can be raised to a normal temperature in a relatively short time in the event that we arrive at an unexpected time or have to have workers in the house). Saturday evening the heat can rise to normal and stay up until dinnertime Sunday. That means I'm heating the house to my usual levels one day per week and to around 55 the other 6 days. If I was turning it right off 6 days per week I'd clearly be saving 6/7s of my oil costs, or $600. But I think I have to assume I'll spend at least $100 over the winter keeping the temperature above freezing.

A new furnace filter will also help, as will reducing the heat loss through the windows by sealing them with plastic this year. In fact, sealing the windows will also reduce the amount of heat lost from the rooms with electric heating, saving money there too. Weatherstripping the front door in particular would also reduce the heat loss in the front hall. Replacing the front door would be even better but costs too much.

If I'm going to keep my electric hot water heater I should buy an insulating blanket for it, but it's about 25 years old and I'm wondering if some of the nasty yellow colour of the water has to do with the hot water heater because the hot water is noticeably worse than the cold and it's worse when you start running the water than it is a couple of minutes later.

Replacing the tank with a new conventional tank would cost about $350 plus installation costs. But why do we heat the water 24/7 when we're only there 1 to 3 days per week at most? And, even when we're there, it's not like we're running hot water all the time. In many ways a point-of-use heater makes much more sense. It costs about $900, more than twice what a conventional heater does but its operating costs are obviously much lower. So, what to do?

I can defer payment for 6 months by putting the water heater on my Home Depot card, but I still don't have $150/month to put aside to pay for it. Maybe it would be better to just put away what I can for a while, hope that the existing water heater doesn't die on us, and wait until I'm in a better position to pay for it. In that case, I should probably spend $35 on the insulation.

If I really can save $600 in heating costs this winter, that's 2/3 of the cost of the point-of-use heater, or the difference between it and a conventional tank. Maybe that's how I pay for the tankless version.