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Buyer (Or Seller) Beware

As you know I am cleaning out stuff n in our home. My goal is to clean out the basement, garage etc. and reduce the family items that have accumulated over the years. We have made tremendous progress and are now down to items that may have value.

I have to admit that this is challenging. I don’t want to toss something of value. On the other hand, I don’t have the time to do all the research involved. So what am I supposed to do?

I found a company that buys gold, silver, coins, stamps etc. They seemed reputable. I have sold items to them in the past. I brought more items to them last month. One item in particular, a Movado watch, I knew was worth something, but I had no ideas how much. They offered me $40. My gut told me that was too low, so I declined. Before I left, he upped the offer to $50 – again I declined.

I took it to the local watch place that replaces my watch battery and asked them. The owner wasn’t in, so I left the watch. Imagine my surprise, when the owner called and we spoke. He offered me $123 for the watch. $73 more that the other place.

In this case, seller beware. Take the time to do the research necessary before you think about selling items. You might get more that you expected (a pleasant surprise), but you don’t want to sell and item to find out that you practically gave it away. I guess I have my work cut out for me over the summer.

Single Use vs. Reusable

I grew up with a mother that recycled and composted, so reducing and reusing is in my blood.

Our town was one of the first town’s in the state to ban the single use plastic bags at stores. They encourage you to bring your own bags. If you don’t bring your own, they will give you a paper bag. I personally keep my reusable bags in the back seat of my car, so that they are always available and with me. Also, when buying one single item, we skip the bag and take the item without a bag.

In addition, we have been reducing our single consumption items in favor of reusable ones. We are eliminating the plastic in our lives. We have switched from plastic bags to reusable silicone bags and from plastic containers to glass jars (mason jars are a great inexpensive alternative). We try not to purchase items in plastic instead looking for alternatives.

We now make our own cleaners in reusable glass jars – no more single use bottles from the store. You can believe how inexpensive it is to make your own (besides not having a single use container to toss). Baking soda, vinegar and essential oils can clean just about everything for a fraction of the cost of store bought cleaners.

We have eliminated the private trash collection service from our home and now take our own trash to the transfer station – we our down to one bag of trash per week. This eliminated a $100 a month bill! I love saving money.

Share with me what reusable things you do.

Time To Order Your Second Credit Report Of The Year

For your 2nd report of the year, use Equifax

Hello, it’s Jill again, reminding you to get your finances in order so you can relax this summer.

How to Order Your Credit Report

The only authorized source for your report is AnnualCreditReport.com. You won’t be charged and they won’t force you to sign up for “credit monitoring

”. It’s yours to review by law for free!

To Learn More, Visit www.AnnualCreditReport.com:

Select your state, then click Request Report.
Fill out your information, then click Continue.
When it asks you to select a service, select Equifax.

Not comfortable ordering online? There are other ways to order your report:

Mail your postal order by downloading the form at AnnualCreditReport.com
Call in your order at 1-877-322-8228 FREE

What should you do with your report?

Review it for accuracy!
Follow the instructions to correct any errors.
And, always remember to keep copies for your records.

Were you hoping for your credit score instead? One option is to take a look at CreditKarma.com, Quizzle.com or CreditSesame.com. They won’t give you a FICO score, but they come close by providing a close approximation of your score. And, there’s no charge for you.

May you have a relaxing and successful summer!

Take Time For Fun In Your Life

We were away and now back and ready to go. Yes, we took another cruise to the Caribbean on the Celebrity’s Equinox.

We had perfect weather 85 and sunny everyday. We did lots of fun things – relaxing at the pool, watching shows, comedians an magicians. Here are some photos of our day on Sapphire Beach, St Thomas, breakfast on our balcony, our glass blowing experience and more.

You Can’t Have My Information

There are so many ways that scammers can get your information. It’s getting harder and harder to stay under their radar.

Personally, we request do a lot to be off lists:

Mailing List – we opt out of catalogues and unwanted mail. We shred a lot – most information with our name and address.
Phone – we are on the Do Not Call list and we subscribe to NoMoRobo.
Contests / Warranties – we don’t do this either. For warranties, we keep the receipt of purchase with the information in case it’s needed in the future.

We were very careful and put minimal information in the newspaper with the last death notice, we were responsible for. We give serious thought to what is posted in social media.

This is a constant effort that needs daily attention.

Do you want to know ways scammers get your information? They can get it through your trash, through your incoming / outgoing mail, over hear you on the phone and so much more. There are ways you probably don’t even realize. Here’s an article from AARP 7 Ways Scammers Get Your Information.

Spring Cleaning And Changes

To my subscribers, starting with this weeks issue of my newsletter, Money Choices it will now be coming from jill@jillrussofoster.com

As you know, I have been cleaning up and streaming-lining things in my life. And this is one of the changes happening.

Shortly, I will be eliminating the email address book@jillrussofoster.com. Please make a note of this updated email if you want to reach out to me and make sure you have whitelisted jill@jillrussofoster.com so that you don’t miss out on anything.

What Can You Do With $20.00

In honor of Money Smart Week, let’s talk about cash. Do you have enough? Are you living paycheck to paycheck? My philosophy about money is that is comes down to make choices that are right for you at this particular time of you life. Let’s start with $20.00 cash. What would you do?

A $20.00 may not seem to be a lot of money, but it can be. If I gave you $20.00 bill, what would you do with it?

You could:

Deposit it to your bank account or open a bank account
Buy something
Give it to help someone or a charity to help others
Have fun by brightening your day

I bet you can think of more choices. Your choices are unlimited. But instead of think about one thing to do, how about thinking about multiple things to do. You might be thinking that $20.00 is too little to do anything with, trust me it’s not.

What will $20.00 buy you:

Movie ticket and possibly popcorn too
Flowers for you or to give away
Picnic lunch on a nice spring day
Pay extra on a bill
Can of paint to refresh a room

My suggestion is to think about money is multiples. In this case, it’s not $20.00 maybe it’s 2 $10.00 bills or 4 $5.00 bills. Now what can you do with that? Now you can select multiple things on your list. Your choices are unlimited. Instead of thinking it’s only $20, think 12 months ahead – that would be $240. What could you do with that?

Finding extra money (no matter how small) can be put to good use. The choice is yours – do you use it today or save it for tomorrow?

Digital Clean Out

Another part of my cleaning out, is tackling my digital life.

#1 – I get tons of emails. Yes, I want to read all of the ones I subscribe to and have the best of intentions, but I don’t have then time. I have started to go through the ones I really want to read. I have started to clean out ones that I never signed up for. I have achieved and deleted thousands. I don’t want my life to be tied to the computer reading emails. So I have unsubscribed from many.

#2 – I have updated my passwords. When was the last time you changed them? I make sure to use a different one for each site. Yes, this can be challenging, but with the help of Last Pass, I can do this fairly easily. They can tell me if I have a duplicate password and the strength of my choice. They will even generate ones for me.

#3 – I have started to close accounts that I don’t use anymore. Like everyone else, I have lots of accounts with my information out there. I want to minimize this, so I am closing accounts. For example, I have closed my account with a college text book company. I finished my degree a couple of years ago and don’t have plans to rent or purchase another text book. So that account is closed. Now, more to go. My theory is the less information I have out there, the less that can be compromised.

#4 – Backing up my stuff. Many years ago, my office was broken into and my computer was broken into many pieces. Fortunately, I was able to hvae the computer restored and all information was salvageable. Ever since then I back up my files. I have a service that does this automatically for me every time my computer is on. When is the last time you backed up your files?

If you haven’t done this lately, now would be a good time to look your situation.

Cutting The Cord – Step 2

For those of you who have been following this newsletter – Cutting the Cord – here is our last step. If you missed – Cutting the Cord – Step 1, please read this first.

The home phone number is ported! The actual process was supposed to take 3 to 4 weeks. So I started the process thinking I had time to set up the new actual device. Well surprise – I didn’t. I started the porting process on a Friday afternoon and the number ported by Monday afternoon (2 business days)!. So that was great because it was fast. It was bad because it wasn’t easy to set up the new device. I’ll be honest with you, currently it’s set up wired. I haven’t been able to connect the wireless setting to this date. But the phones and voicemail work!

So our next step was the TV’s. Over the years, we had reduce our TV package / channels down to basic so there wasn’t anymore we could do to reduce our bill. In honesty, we already had some alternative TV options in the house so my husband can watch live sports. This past weekend, I did some exploring with our TV options. I added and set up the major networks apps for streaming live TV and on demand. We installed an app recommended by our alternative TV sources for all local over the air channels and set that up (that is a minimal cost as they suggest a $5/ month donation).

Called the TV provider to discuss the cost of internet only (vs. the triple play). I wasn’t happy with that call. I was told that we wouldn’t be keeping the current price for that portion of the bill, because we were dropping the triple play. It would go up by $15/month. I knew there would be alternatives to this service and I was on a mission to find them.

First, we disconnect the bedroom TV from the cable TV and re-set up the TV and all worked fine. The next day, on to the living room TV. Got that TV disconnected and re-set up. That was a little more challenging as this one had more components involved, but we did it. All is working without cable box!

Next, we called the TV provider to disconnect the phone and TV service. Again, I was told the internet only was going to go up by $15.00. Not what I wanted to hear. After a lengthy conversation, I was transferred to another department and there I got to a great helpful person. I explained our situation – how long we had been a customer, the original TV package we started with and all the down grades over the years.

Bottom line, is that we did get the internet service (same speed) for the price that we were paying for the triple play. And, they gave us the basic cable with the box and remote for no additional change. Yes, we did go through a lot of set up to configure the TV’s without cable and then back to be with cable, but now with a savings of over 45% per month. When the price goes up, we will be ready to fully cut the cord.

What We Spend Money On

Last week I wrote about what we don’t spend money on. Some of it may have surprise you. But we don’t live by candle light and never go anywhere. Today, I’ll share with you what is important to us and what we spend our money on.

Yes, we spend money on food – good food – healthy food – organic, free range, pasture raised food like our parents purchased. We make most of our foods from scratch and have home cooked meals most nights and bring our lunches to work. We rarely buy processed and prepared foods. Once the weather starts to warm up, I start my vegetable garden. It’s another way to have fresh food at a fraction of the cost. This is where we spend money. I like to think of this as back to basics. The same is true for our home. We clean with home made cleaners, made up of vinegar, baking soda, essential oils and water.

We also travel. We save most of the year to travel – sometimes local sometimes far. But we do this on a budget and look for ways to save with deals, points, miles and rewards. We are in the process of planning a trip for 2020 right now. It may seem far away, but to get the lowest prices you sometimes have to plan the travel when it becomes available. You may be aware of this with airfares that prices go up and up, the same is true for other travel plans.

What do you spend money on?