Getting ready for 2016 and the Unexpected

I’m a planner, ever since I started paying bills back in 2003, I’ve done the best I could to plan for the unexpected, some time it works, most time it doesn’t. Today I was looking at 2016 and what I should expect, the normal stuff like Comcast, Gas & Electric, AT&T, 3 vehicle payments and my house payment; they come every month like clock work. It’s the other bills that don’t come every month that can surprise you; my water bill comes quarterly, February is HOA fees, March & September is Life insurance. After years of using the same spread sheet, I wanted to make a new one, something a little more flexible for me; as I was just about finished, I thought of one other Bill that comes along when you least expect it too or just plain don’t want it too; the dreaded MVA.

           Now in Maryland we pay this every 2 years, so it’s kinda easy to forget about, only problem is, it’s expensive, trucks\SUV are $187.00, cars are $128.00 and motorcycles are $104.00; so when one of these come in the mail you just want to sit in the corner and cry “why me, why do I have to pay this”. So I figured I had at least one vehicle due in 2016 for sure, a little research and low and behold, 4 out of the 5 vehicles I have are due, DAMN IT, 1 SUV, 2 cars, 1 motorcycle, to the tune of $547.00. Least I won’t be surprised when they come in the mail, but I sure was when I figured it out this morning; I’m still in the corner crying.    

Due Dates:

            I have one Credit Card, it’s the Discover It card, one reason I like this card is because it shows me my FICO score when the statement comes, I have really good score, then in only a month my score fell 50 points, and I had know idea why at the time. It took me 2 months to figure out why and it was only because my wife and daughter wanted new iPhones; We have been with our current cell phone company for about 5 years or so, paid the bill on time every month, never missed a payment, never even late with payment, so when my wife informed me that she couldn’t get a phone because the current bill wasn’t paid. I was like WTF!!!, I’ve never been late, it’s not due till the 9^th, it’s only the 5^th, I still have 4 days left. Unknown to me is that AT&T changed to dues date to the 2^nd of the month about 2 months before this; thanks for tell me AT&T, way to go. Now if I had looked at the bills a little more carefully, or just even look at the bill to begin with, I would have saw this, maybe, maybe not. I get email from my bank and it tells me how much it is and I go to Bill Pay, punch in the amount and day I want it paid, and all is well in my little world. So now I look at all the due dates on all my bills before I pay them just to make sure, and my FICO score is going back up, not as fast as it came down, but up is better then down in this case. Paying bills on time accounts for 35% of your FICO score, and that’s a lot; so check those due dates.

Update on ENB

Been a while since I’ve post anything, so let me get you up to speed with what’s been going on in  Everyday Normal Bill (ENB). So I couldn’t talk myself out of not getting a new Mustang, I bought that at the end of February, I traded in my Scion FR-S, payments are a $100.00 dollars a month more, so now I am car poor. I bought a new camera body this year,(Canon 7D Mark II) my other one was 10 years old, and broke, felt like the it was time to trade up, I’ve almost got that paid for, and I won’t put another dime on my Discover IT card unless it’s an emergency, lesson learned, I hate paying interest. Going to start posting more, that’s one of my goals for 2016; along with save more money and a lot of other things a talk about later. Every thing is going pretty smooth right now with my checking account, which is a good thing for a change.