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We are moved in to our new apartment and pretty much all settled at this point. Thanks to my wife, everything went extremely smooth. She not only helped coordinate everybody to help with packing, but she also found a good moving company to do the actual moving. Just to give you an idea of how efficient the whole thing went, we got married on Saturday Feb 9 with nothing packed, rested the whole day Sunday and was in the new apartment by Tuesday Feb 12.

So before I say anything else, I’ve got to say THANK YOU to my wonderful wife! (Okay, on with the article…)

Thinking back, there would be one thing we thought could’ve been better, which was having a smaller moving bill! The moving company told us that they charge $100 / hr for their service from the get go. When asked about what the total charge would be, the mover told us that it is quite difficult to calculate it since they haven’t seen our place and don’t know how long it will take. He went on further to say that we can just wait for everything to be all set and done and then talk about it at the end. We agreed to this, and it was our big mistake.

On moving day, the movers came and very carefully moved our furniture, taping up everything to make sure nothing can be damaged. This wouldn’t be bad normally but we instantly knew we would be in trouble because it will take a long time. As the day went on, our bill kept on going up. What ended up happening was that they took 5 hours to move our 1 bedroom apartment (1 hour was to drive from the old apartment to the new), totaling $500 at $100 per hour. At that point, there weren’t much we could do since we already agreed to calculate everything at the end and we were aware of the $100 per hr charge. We were able to negotiate it down to $400, but it was still a lot of money.

We are fully aware that if we set the price in the beginning, the movers could’ve taken 3 hours to move everything instead of 5. However, as it is advantageous for them to take their time, they did! Next time, we will negotiate a final moving price before we give them any commitment. This is known as negotiating from a position of strength because they want our business and we are the decision maker. If they want our business, they will have to give us a satisfactory final moving cost and not try to charge us by the hour.

That is what happens when you try to heat up a sandwich wrapped with tinfoil in the microwave. Immediately after I pressed the start button, I heard a buzzing sound and I saw sparks from the tinfoil to the ceiling of the microwave. Then the tinfoil started catching fire and luckily I was hanging around the kitchen because I was able to press stop in time before disaster happened. Otherwise, my apartment could end up like this.

Needless to say, my sandwich was a little burned and had a weird smell. After replaying the scene in my head, I realized that it could have been a financially catastrophic mistake. Not only will I need to buy a new microwave, I would have to pay for damages to the apartment and probably anything else that was damaged depending on how far the fire reaches. All the damages because I was careless and did not know any better.

This brings up a good topic for personal finance because carelessness and lack of knowledge keeps us from becoming wealthy.

Being Careless Kills Our Personal Finances
How many times have we lost money because we were careless? Many of us pay late fees because we forget to pay the bills, while some others amongst us pay overdraft fees because we mistimed our cash flow. I am not saying to start counting every cent here because that will just drive us insane, but stay organized!

It would be interesting if we start keeping track of the cost of carelessness. Costs like the ones I mentioned above could be tracked and analyzed. I wonder what the extra cost will add up to be if we had to make another trip to the grocery store because we forgot that one ingredient we needed for our Thanksgiving Turkey.

We are humans and ultimately will be careless once in a while but we should try to minimize it! I am sure if we make a conscious effort to stay on top of everything, it will help us not only in our finances but also in other parts of our lives (career comes to mind)!

Lack of Knowledge
The lack of knowledge probably cost us way too much money. Acting on stock tips, purchasing a product when a better and cheaper equivalent is available, and not being able to negotiate fully on large ticket items like cars and houses all fall under this category. Just like carelessness, this is preventable and all we have to do is slow down! Stop acting on impulse and stop diving head first without doing some homework.

With the Internet, we can find information on everything we ever want to know. If we wanted to buy a Honda Civic, an online search would reveal how much people are willing to pay for it; when they bought it and even the dealership they bought it in. Having this information is vital because we basically know the dealer’s bottom line, allowing us to just dictate that price to them.

Search engines also allow us to read up on product reviews and do comparisons much easier than before. Many of us are taking advantage of this information already and so should you. Never overpay for a product again.

We do not have to be a genius to stay on top of everything and not act on impulse. Start now and your wallet will say thank you in the future. It will slow down our money leaks, not to mention reduce our risk of setting our place on fire!