Lewies Blog

Money is tight at the moment so I went hunting around the house for loose change. I was interested to determine how accurate the Coinstar machines are, so I decided to count each denomination and record how much the grand total would be. I worked it out the the following.

That works out to roughly 4.3 kg and converts to just under 9.6 pounds. My nephew and I dumped all the coins into a bag and headed over to Wegmans to cash in/out. To get free coin counting, we looked at the different gift cards available, but did not find anything of interest. A gift card for the store we were in would have been perfect. We decided to get cash with a service charge of 8.9%.

All the numbers came up fine except for the dimes. It short changed me by 10 cents. My nephew had a dime with is spare change and threw it into the machine. With a service charge of 8.9%, we were able to get a coupon for 97.92. Great, I just paid eight cents for nothing since I’m getting 92 cents in change back. The cashier was a bit confused with our coupon. He entered it into the system, but the computer wouldn’t let him process it. I had noticed that the coupon stated that a manager signature was required. The manager who came by agreed with me and said that the cashier did everything correct.

When I got home, I started moving the original containers for each coin to the side of my desk. I noticed a rattling in one of the boxes and found the missing dime! I showed it to my nephew and he got a silly look on his face as I handed him the dime.

So today I ate chinease.  Half the time, fortune cookies are horrible at giving fortunes.  It’s usually a statement, or some wise saying.  Today I got one that was just plain insulting.

You should be able to make money and hold on to it.

And to make things worse, it had a smiley face at the beginning and end of the fortune.  Ok, so this cookie is assuming that I either don’t make money, or I can’t hold onto it.  Even worse, applying “In Bed” or “Between the Sheets” onto the end of it makes it sound like I’m paying for services, or servicing others.  What is up with that?

They should have worded it different like “You will be able to make money and hold on to it.”

Is it ludicrus to sue a chinease cookie company for punitive damages or misadvertisement?  I kinda expected a fortune in my fortune cookie and ended up being insulted.

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.