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Yesterday, I received a notice from the rental car company telling me that I didn’t pay toll on one of the toll booths in Chicago, Illinois. Didn’t pay toll? I would never skip that and I live in Southern California.
As my blood started pumping faster and I was beginning to fill with anger, I remembered one thing “Maybe it was the customer visit I had in May”. I read further and got to this line: “Citation Date: 05/08/2008”. Doh…
On the letter, it says that it’s actually the government that caught it so the letter was only to notify me that they called the citations department to change the responsibility to me and also to charge me a $15 administrative fee. I called Alamo and to my surprise, the lady was willing to waive the $15 fee (I guess they were never expecting anyone to pay).
She also told me that the government will be mailing me a letter citing the charge and asked me to wait for the letter to come. “That will take 8 weeks” she says, I say “Great………”
To this minute, I still cannot figure out why I would miss a whole toll booth. The date seems to be reasonable, but I do not remember running pass a toll booth at all. After much thought, the only thing I can think of is that I paid and didn’t wait for the green light to notify me that they received payment.
At this point, I don’t even know how much the charges will be. Those tolls are nothing more than $1, so hopefully the penalty is not that much.
What Good Came Out of This?
I did learn a few things after this incident though.
Be patient and always wait for the green signal before leaving the toll booth
Always call the number on the citation notice to get clarification
Always ask for a discount (they might even waive the fee)
Now I wait. Hopefully the citation from the government will come soon and I can put all this behind me.
Now that I plan to quit my job and pursue my own business, it’s time to look into how I should handle my current 401k account once I leave the company. As I don’t have a huge 401k account balance, the penalty if I don’t do anything will be relatively small but this doesn’t mean I should neglect this. After all, managing our finances successfully means making sure that we take care of all the little things so let’s explore what I can do with my 401k. [ continue reading… ]
Ever since I decided to become a full time blogger, I’ve spent many hours worrying thinking about my finances. It’s not that I believe Emma and I will starve one day, but what will happen when my income is cut to 25% of what it originally was? How will I feel when the checks aren’t coming on a regular basis?
My gut instinct is telling me that it is not good for me because my worry intensifies when I spend more energy trying to analyze the situation. So, I decided to write this post to help me organize my thoughts and also listen to everyone’s comments on what I should do. Thanks in advance for your support and advices.
What Happens When I Start Worrying About My Finances
At the beginning, worrying about my financial situation was good. The concern helped me decide whether going full time was the right choice for me and Emma, but once I decided and made the choice, worrying about it didn’t help at all.
Worrying further raised many questions about the future. The more questions, the more I wanted to know and the more time I spent trying to find out possible outcomes, the more questions were raised.
What I Should Do Instead of Worrying
Do Something Constructive Once I decided to go full time, I should stop worrying and start facing the situation. I knew that there would be no way to know what would happen in the future, so the time I spend worrying was totally wasted. Instead, I should do something that actually helps the situation. In this case, I can spend time thinking of ways to grow my blog (or write articles) instead of thinking about “what if”.
Think of the Positives There’s no substitute for attitude and outlook. In order for me to stay positive, I should remember what I have going for me. These include:
I have a substantial emergency fund to weather any downturns
If the whole online industry really tanks in the future, I can always find another job so it’s not the end of the world
Emma is extremely supportive of what I plan to do
Emma and I are frugal enough that our expenses are low to begin with.
Not having a great income will force me to think creatively in ways to save money. This will be allow me to share what I learn on the blog
MoneyNing already has great readers like you that I can speak and talk things with, which is not true with every business ventures that first start out
Listing these out really helps remind me that it’s not as bad as I thought. The future is as bright as our minds let us to believe, so stay positive.
What This All Means for You
When it comes to our finances, we all worry at times. Next time this happens, turn the situation around by:
The personal finance community totally ignores the importance of my contribution. Without me, life would be so different since everyone would have to carry so many coins. I have decided to contribute my story to the public. I am a dollar bill.
I was once available everywhere. You might know my other siblings instead of me depending on which country you were in, but my brothers and sisters were available in every country. I was a critical part of the financial system.
Slowly, I became less and less important. I think people call it inflation, which to me is such a useless phenomenon. What society decided to do was give people raises and then make everything cost more. No one cares about this because they are still able to afford similar things but why have inflation? Who does inflation help? I keep telling everyone to to stop buying things that go up in price so the demand goes down, keeping inflation intact.
No one is listening though, because I am now pretty insignificant. Some countries even decided to turn my brothers and sisters into coins. Why? It cost more to create them and they are heavy. I overheard a few days ago on the highway when someone couldn’t even use me because the toll machine only accepted coins. Arrgghhh.
Another invention that sucks is those evil credit cards. Credit cards makes not just me but all of cash useless. I hear that people who are irresponsible end up racking up those credit card debts. Those companies seem to find a way to lure you to get into debt. In the old cash days, things were so much more logical. You have money, you buy something; if you don’t, then save up for it. Nowadays, if you want to buy something, just get into more debt.
Not all is lost though. In some countries like the United States, 45% of the currency produced today are dollar bills. They say they end up producing more of us because we are fragile but I hear that we can last 18 months on average.
I just don’t get it, why does no one like me anymore?
PS: We are in danger, look what they are doing to me.
This is the graduation post of Motivation Monday as I believe I’ve found the ultimate motivation – passion. As some of you know, I’m going to be blogging full time starting in November of this year. Even though it is quite a few months away, I’m very excited at my new venture and cannot wait to get started. Even though my boss asked me to stay at work until the end of October, I have so many ideas of what I want to do with my blogs already and will try to implement them even if I lose sleep doing so.
In previous posts, I’ve spoke about passion as it relates to motivation. I told you that if you love what you do:
You won’t complain about the workload
You won’t feel Monday Blues
You won’t try to find excuses to slack off
Instead, you will:
Just do what it takes to accomplish the task
Think about it day and night without knowing
Have all the energy to talk about it
Feel happy working on it
I never knew what passion was. I hear other people talk about it but I never quite understood it, nor did I know how to find it. I knew finding my passion should be a priority in my life but I had no clue how to do it. As a result, I was a little frustrated for a few years of my life.
Luckily though, I stumbled onto blogging a few years ago when I started writing about money. It was fun to interact with others about this subject and it made me feel good to know that I helped a few people along the way.
As I got deeper into blogging, I slowly began to understand what passion was. I began to understand what it felt like doing what I loved. The time I spend on my blogs was long but it was fun at the same time. My wife asked me at the beginning why I could spend so much time in front of my computer but she slowly absorbed my enthusiasm and the answer began to feel obvious to her too.
To say blogging changed my life was an understatement, as everyone I knew began to see the changes in me. I was happier, more energetic and showed more enthusiasm in everything I did.
I really feel like I graduated on the motivation front. If you are on the fence of deciding whether to take the plunge of doing what you love, then I have to tell you to go for it.
There is no question that finding my passion motivated me. I hope that you will find yours too.
In our society, access to money is a big deal. We want instant access (usually via some form of plastic card) to money. And, in an era where lending standards are making it difficult to take out loans, all sorts of ideas are popping up to help us access — rather quickly — money that may be “ours”, but not as liquid as we’d like it to be. One of these is a 401k debit card that is being offered.
How a 401k debit card works It’s pretty straightforward. You pay a setup fee and other fees to have a debit card linked to your 401k retirement account. Now, if you are not eligible for non-penalty withdrawal it is fairly obvious what is going on here: You are actually getting a loan against your 401k. I am going to repeat that: The 401k debit card is actually a loan against your retirement account. This means that you have to pay the money back with interest — just as you would when you take out a regular loan against your 401k. The debit card just eliminates the paperwork — and lets you borrow and borrow in a revolving manner as long as there is money in your account.
Why the 401k debit card is a bad idea First of all, the 401k debit card is a bad idea because you are taking money out of your retirement account. That’s always a bad idea if you are not, in fact, a retiree. It reduces the principal you have in your account, and can severely limit how much money you earn over time for retirement.
Another issue is that payments are made by the employee, through monthly statements. In a traditional 401k loan, payments can be made through payroll — ensuring that you are making payments and avoiding early withdrawal penalties. With the 401k debit card, no such protection is made. If you you miss payments on your card, you could default on your 401k loan, and that means you will have to pay the early withdrawal penalties, further decimating your retirement savings.
Bottom line: A 401k debit card really is no such thing. Perhaps it should be referred to as the “401k secured credit card.” Unfortunately, it is yet another way for Americans to trade their future financial security for instant gratification.
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