Lewies Blog

I did one thing very different today.  I canceled a trial before I was billed for the real deal.  Over at Ancestry.com, I signed up for a trial account.  You can either choose to be billed immediately and each additional month for 29.95, or you can go with a 14 day free trial and pay an annual fee of $155.40 ($12.95 / month).

I went with the free trial.  Usually, I forget about trial expirations and such and let accounts expire.  Sometimes, services such as Ancestry.com will bill you immediately after the trial expires.  The extra hoop to jump through with this service is that I was required to call them within specific hours of the day as well in order to opt-out of the service.

Just 2 days to go and I called them up.  I had forgotten about it for most of the past week too.  So in reality, I just saved myself $155.40 in a service I wouldn’t use.

I guess this is one of the small things that I’m doing that is helping me get that financial comfort cushion in the bank.  I could really use that money on something else – like a set of new computers for my wife and I.  I think a lot when I go grocery shopping like this too.  I could get a snack, or put that money towards something else.  Yes, it’s only $5, but another way to think of it is that it is $5 extra in my pocket if I don’t use it.  It’s like rewarding yourself with your own money you don’t use.  Best of all, it’s tax free.

Usually, my money worries are because I’m in the red.  I’ve been in debt so deep with my checking account, that I’d be seven, or eight hundred dollars in the red each payday.  Now, I’m in the black.  I’ve lent out a lot of money, and I still have a nice cushion in the black.

It has me worried.  I’m hunting for where I may have gone wrong.  Was there a bill neglected?  I rarely read my mail.  I discovered a letter that my wife and her mother laid out for me that was dated back around February about my car insurance being canceled.  I thought this was the second time and that I’d been driving without insurance this whole time.  Last time it was just a day.  It turns out, that this was the same letter from last time, but warning me that my insurance was about to be canceled.

I’ve got a check from my car insurance agency too for the new policy number.  It says that I’ve overpaid my premium and refunded me $80.  I logged onto the website just to make sure.  I still had an account.

So for now, I’ll keep worrying until I find something. Eventually, maybe this cushion will build up enough that I can get new computers for my wife and I to play SecondLife a bit better.