Identity theft

You can freeze your credit for safety, and then un-freeze it when you are planning to shop for a loan. Cuts the risk way back.

As far as accounting for every penny, what's the point? I give myself a $500 "walking around money" budget every month. Who cares if I spend it on Subway sandwiches, movie tickets, fuzzy dice for my rear view mirror or triple latte doube foam skinny something or others? What difference does that make in anyone's book keeping? It goes under "discretionary expenses". Bigger expenses are just as easily tracked manually. A $200 dentist bill is just as easily entered into your book keeping system off the cash receipt as from the bank. Need to keep them for tax reasons anyway.

Safety? We're not talking about carrying around fuel money, we're talking about a few 50's. So what if you get jacked even once every year. Compared to identity theft, that's nothing.

Besides, it's amazing what you can get done in case of emergency by waving a couple of Benjamins in front of someone........

 

$500.00 lasts a whole month?

you're good..

 

must be the .17 cent top ramen noodle packs 3 times a day 7 days a week or is it beans and rice and rice and beans?

 

My CC is set up to notify me as well. I'm guessing that most cards can be...probably just a matter of calling in and asking for it.

Its been a week or so now that I recieved a notification of $299 charge to my card. I called them and told them I hadn't used my card for anything anywhere in over a month. They took the $299 charge off as fraud and sent me a new card, asking that destroy the old immediately.

Purchase notifications on cards is a great thing to have. "Good" identy theft protection is another "must have" these days.

 

Food is not "discretionary spending". It's groceries. We budget $400 per month for groceries, but are usually a bit below that, not counting half the steer we put in the freezer every year. For food / groceries we usually use a debit card at the store and Costco -- but that is just two stores, not every subway shop across the country with minimum wage workers looking for easy money.

$15/day for blow-money is about all I need, but I'm rarely more than two nights out on the road, and I run very hard when I run. Drive-sleep-drive - unload, load, drive-sleep- drive. Since getting off coffee, all I get at the truck stop is some hot water for herbal tea.

 

I got a letter from the Gooberment because I had a security clearance in my past life. Seems as though my info is one of many who was hacked. They are offering me 3 years from one of the identity protection companies, not life lock. Guess I better take them up .

 

You waste 6k a year? Why? A little better planning and that money could go a long way, with a little research you could put a lot towards your retirement. Wasting money never helped anyone.

 

Well, you can't spend EVERYTHING on wine, women and song........

Crap, if 6K a year makes a difference if I can retire or not, I need to find a better racket than the current one.

 

180k+, plus interest. Sure, ill take it.

 

But if he is paying himself a very low wage and using that to buy essentials with, as long as he doesn't have to prove what it's for, there could be some tax advantages to it.