It’s been 26 days since my last post. As I expected, my financial situation has taken a plunge.

The total bill for the car repairs cost $1,360. That totally puts me in a place where I’m no longer keeping the $5,600 of assets. After this bill, I was definitely in the negatives for my net worth. After reallocating large chunks of my savings, I decided to pay this off completely after charging it on my Citi Driver’s Edge card for some rebates. And then I paid off my Citi Diamond Preferred card as well. That much amount of debt for me right now is not fun to look at. Now I only have three credit cards that carry a balance: my Am Ex Sky Blue, Citi Driver’s Edge, and BofA’s World Points (MBNA).
Because I paid off two credit card debts all at once, my emergency savings account is sitting at an ugly pitiful $755. I am at less than 10% of my goal now. Sigh.

Speaking of my savings account and as ratna commented on my previous post, FNBO kicked their rates down to an incredibly sad 4.3%. The fed rates getting cut is always a bad thing for online savings accounts. Surprisingly, Savings Square is still riding high at 4.80%. Maybe I should just join them. Here’s an updated list:

ING Direct is so pathetic. They chop down their rates more and faster than any online savings accounts out there. I’m surprised WaMu hasn’t made a cut since November. Impressive. I’ve tried to register an account with them online but it’s been freaking impossible because their system won’t recognize my information. Maybe I’ll try going into the branch next time. In other news, I’ve been using my Am Ex Sky Blue credit card for everything and it’s been working out great. I’m racking up points like crazy. I’ll be going away on a vacation soon. But probably later.

January 1st

3:48 AM: Food poisoning has me sitting on the toilet until 10 in the morning.

10:20 AM: Engine check light makes a return on my car’s dashboard.

January 2nd

8:22 AM: I call around to get an estimate on how much it’ll cost to do a test for the car. $65.

10:13 AM: Auto shop calls back with an estimate for initial, yet catastrophic, problem fixes: $800 for labor; $400 for parts.

10:15 AM: Four of five coworkers at my job are dead. One is paralyzed.

Just kidding, but I am transferring funds over to my checking account so I can pay off almost all of my Citi Driver’s Edge card off so I can have some room to pay for this massive disaster. Might as well earn rebates on the bill.

The $1,200 bill is only for the worst case scenario when everything is thrown into hellfire. It could get more expensive as more problems are found…

This Christmas break when I went home for the holidays my family has persuaded me to pay off the two credit cards I don’t use. Those two are just sitting in a drawer collecting dust and I’m making regular payments on them but I couldn’t really think of a convincing argument as to why I don’t pay those off other than it makes me feel better to have X amount of assets. Well, to pay those off I’m going to have to use up my “emergency” savings. What argument is there really?

The total debt is less than $2,600 but that’s more than half of my savings. The amount I have saved up is just pocket change compared to what most people have saved up but it’s my hard earned money. Although my net worth is going to stay the same, my assets will be dropped heavily!

I’ll have to do this next year when my interest for the savings account goes through, then I’ll pay everything off on my Citi Diamond Preferred and BofA World Points. Those two credit cards I’ll just be able to crumble up and toss away. However, Citi has been treating me extremely well and they sent me a letter asking what they can do for me regarding reward points, lower APR, and other services.

Also, I just got money for Christmas. Money is the best gift of all.

Normally I hate using coupons because the ideas seems so cheap. But it’s actually really smart. I’m not talking about the “save $.50 on this product” coupons, but the real awesome ones! Last night, I just used a coupon for $25 off on purchases over $50 at Staples. Ro-chan and I got a planner for my mom and one for herself. Why the hell are the planners so expensive? We got $55 worth of planers for only $30! Yeah!

I visit these websites before I go make some of the bigger purchases:

$lickdeals
DealMeIn

Those two websites have similar stuff but it’s always better to have more than one source. And on top of those two websites, I also google for coupons.

For about a month now I’ve been using my credit card to pay for everything. Generally, I used to put everything on my debit card except for major purchases but perhaps this was because I wasn’t so responsible with money, therefore, buying more than I could really pay for. Now that I’m more financially aware and mature about my personal finance, I am able to use my credit card for all my purchases and pay it off all of the statement balance at the end before the interest can be calculated. This way I get to take advantage of my reward points and build my credit at the same time.

However, using my credit card for everything means that my debit card will begin collecting dust and Keep the Change program, which is great, won’t be a factor anymore. But that’s OK since I have 2,394 point available right now on my AmEx Blue Sky. At 7,500 points, I can purchase any plane ticket up to $100. Assuming I charge $600 per month on Blue Sky, that’s already 7,200 points per year. My side goal for the future (in 10 years or so) is to have enough points racked up so I can use it all up on a trip to anywhere. Blue Sky isn’t American Express’ best airline rewards card, but it has no annual fees, no blackout dates, and especially, no expiration date for the points.

Also, I’m seeing rebates for my Citi Driver’s Edge card show up. I’ve made $109.07 worth of gas, grocery and drugstore purchases, and I am now seeing that I’ve earned 6.54 Driver’s Edge rebates. That’s about 5.996% rate on rebates, rounding up to 6%, on my first month of purchases. I’ve been reading all these stories about how people are earning huge rewards through smart rewards cards and I think I am finally getting a similar type of feeling. But on a smaller scale of course.