Car Charger Upgrade.

Six years ago I bought an electronic cigarette in an early attempt to quit smoking. It was trendy. To charge the device it could be hooked up to a USB. I received a wall charger and a car charger. Eventually I quit smoking altogether but I kept the USB car charger. I used the charger to power my iPod in my 98 Lincoln. I would hook one wire up to the tape deck and the other wire up to the power source. Technology.

I started doing deliveries in my car and needed to charge my phone while on the move. Plugging in my phone actually drained my battery. Other drivers were able to charge their phones in their cars, what was the problem? I decided that the Lincoln was old so it must not be putting out the right amount of power and forgot all about it. When I needed to charge my phone I just did it at home.

Recently I bought a new car. I brought my old car charger with me. My new car has a USB slot built right into the dash. It will charge my phone just fine but I filled up a thumb drive with music so I needed to use old car charger for charging my phone. Even with the new vehicle the car charger drained my battery. That makes no sense.  

I looked into it and the E-cigarette car charger has a lower voltage level than a traditional car charger. E-cigarette batteries were blowing up when charged at a higher voltage level so they made this custom one just for their batteries at a lower voltage. When I discovered this I went to dollar tree and picked up a proper charger with a higher voltage for $1.06. It charges the phone just as fast as plugging it into the wall.

I had a suspicion that it was the car charger for years yet I took no action to fix the problem. Why? It is because my default mode is:

Do not spend money.

When you are so focused on not spending money you often make do with things that don't make sense then justify it later with fuzzy logic. You create a habit of saying no. You convince yourself that saving a few dollars is worth having a non-functional phone charger in your car for years when you could spend a dollar to get one that works. The never spend mindset has a cost too. My desire to save money overrode logic and my desire to find an actual solution to this problem. 

The real danger is that you begin to accept the idea of things being good enough or even subpar if you can save a few dollars. Saying no all the time is harmful if it's your default thinking. It spills over into other areas of your life.

I have been losing some weight lately. When I was at my heaviest I told myself, why buy new clothing now? I'm planning on losing some weight so I'll buy some when I get thinner. Now I am a little thinner and some of my shirts and pants are too big. Not huge but they don't quite fit right. I have been telling myself, those are perfectly good shirts, I should wait until I have lost a few more pounds until I buy some new clothing. When I get down to the weight I want, what excuse will I tell myself then? This system is cursing me to constantly wear ill-fitting old clothing. It's easy to talk yourself into anything. Each step seems harmless but taken as a whole the process leads to a bad outcome.

I need to shift my thinking. I have decided that good enough is not good enough. I can still be responsible in my spending and stop fooling myself at the same time. Famous Psychologist Jordan Peterson has a rule in his book "12 rules for life" that says, "treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping." Would I let someone I care about drive around in a car that was breaking down all the time? Of course not. Then why would I let myself do it? I allowed myself to do that for the last couple years. I knew I needed to make a change but I didn't because I thought I could save money. In the end it cost me more to maintain the old car than to buy a new used car. It also cost me a lot in stress and emotional energy.

I want to be able to say yes more. This is my new default mode. How can I afford this? Instead of a no followed with a bunch of logical sounding excuses. 

Drinking for Science.

For the last few weeks I have been looking at an adult Santa costume on Amazon. I want to take a fun holiday picture with my girlfriend and thought a Santa suit would be the perfect addition to make the photo memorable. Even with my free shipping through a prime trial membership the cheapest suit that would fit was priced at $100. The price listed starts at $60 for a medium but when you put in XXXL then it jumps up to $100. They should call it a fat tax. For something this frivolous I thought this was too much to spend. There had to be a way I could get it for a discount.

I have begun to do open mic comedy shows around Austin so I joined the Austin comics Facebook group. One of the other comics posted an opportunity to be involved in a science experiment as a test subject. The pay? A $35 Amazon gift card. They needed test subjects to get drunk in their laboratory so they could test out some eye scanning devices. Sounds like a fun little Friday.

I sent in an email with my information and went in the following Friday. As promised they gave me a product code for a free Lyft ride. The driver showed up and I was on my way. She asked me what I was up to and I explained that I was going to go get drunk for a science experiment. Not sure that she actually believed me but she did get me to the right address.

When I arrived they scanned in a picture of my face and made me an official badge.

After being ushered into the lab area, which was the company breakroom, I was weighed and then given my baseline test. This was to measure my reactions while sober. Then the experimenter instructed to follow a bunch of dots on a screen. When finished I was returned to the lab area and given my first drink. It was 135 ml of Vodka with some orange juice mixed in. This is slightly over 3 standard shots of liquor. I was told to finish my drink within 10 minutes then in 20 more minutes the next test would begin.

Before my next round I took a breathalyzer. .033 was the first reading. Then .07 and finally .099 after my third round. I had become legally drunk in the state of Texas. The experimenter told me that I could stay as long as I wanted and enjoy some snacks. They brought in 6 domino's pizzas for the researchers and other participants. I ate an entire pizza along with some cliff bars and a tea. I was chatting with the staff quite a lot which they undoubtedly perceived as rambling. I was certainly "feeling it" and decided it was time to go home for a nap. When I told the experimenter I was ready to head home she presented me with my Amazon gift card and a post-it note with another Lyft promotion code to pay for my ride home. After a semi-coherent conversation with my Lyft driver I ended up in bed for a nice nap. It was about 7pm.

The next day I put my $35 credit toward the purchase of the adult Santa suit. In the end it cost me about $62. It arrived the very next day. They also have a 100% no questions asked return policy so after the pictures I may decide to return it and save even more but even if I keep it I think it was a good idea. You cannot put a price on fun. This must be a psychological bias but I feel like I got a great deal even though I technically paid full price for this. My enjoyment of the costume has been increased by my feeling that I somehow beat the system, even though that mental asthmatic is illogical and only in my head.

Update (1/1/2020)

I ended up sending the suit back. They issued my a 100% refund but it came in the form a Amazon gift card credit on my account instead of cash. I returned it before Christmas but I would have had the entire month of January to decide. Sweet. 

Free pool.

I've taken up swimming laps for exercise. Back in Michigan I always took swimming for granted since there were so many lakes. We lived on a lake when I was a kid so we went swimming almost every day during the summer. Here is Texas there is plenty of warm weather but no water. Lucky for me there are lots of pools available in Austin run by the city.

Each pool is run a bit differently. Many of them are neighborhood pools that are outdoor unheated pools that anyone can use for free. Some of the pools charge an admission. This is no problem most of the year since there is plenty of places to go for free during warm weather. The problem starts when it gets cold out. 

During the winter the city closes almost all of its pools. There are only 4 open during the winter. 3 of them charge an admission fee of $5. This seems like a small amount until you start swimming 3 times a week. That's $15 a week and $60 a month. My membership to planet fitness is only $10 a month.

There is one pool that does not charge admission called Big Stacy. The reason is that they allow Homeless people to come in and use the showers for free. They receive a government grant that covers their operating expenses because of this. There is usually not a line for a lane since most of the people are not swimming. Last time I waited in line for a shower and a guy came out with his dog. He had given his dog a shower too. There was hair all over the shower and I decided to just dry off and skip it.

One fine day I decided that it was time for my swim. I drove up to Big Stacy only to find that they were closed for the month for routine maintenance. The sign also said that I could go to the Bartholomew Park Pool which would be free for the month to accommodate people such as myself who had become addicted to their swimming fix.

I drove 25 minutes in rough traffic to this pool. When I arrived they were closed. The winter hours were from 1pm to 5pm and it was only 11pm. At this point I had 2 options. Burn two hours at a coffee shop reading and fooling around on the internet or I could drive to another pool and spend $5 on the admission. Going home without a swim was not an option. 

As I drove over to Deep Eddy I began to concoct the story that I would tell the person taking the admission at the desk. I would tell them my tale of woe about how much of a hassle it had been to finally arrive at an open pool and implore them to allow me to enter the pool for free. It was also about 45 degrees out which is unusual for Texas so I was not even certain they would be open. When I arrived I had this elaborate story all worked and put my most persuasive look on out only to find that it was off season so they were not even charging an admission fee. Score!

I successfully swam my laps and felt great afterwards. All it cost me was 4 hours of hassle and a quarter tank of gas. I learned to call ahead so I can avoid swimming through traffic all day.

New Belt(s)

For years I had a nice leather belt. Lately I started losing a little weight so the belt needed to be modified. I put in three new holes to make it tighter over a year period. This produced a small sense of accomplishment every day when I would get dressed. I would look at the belt each morning and feel good about the progress I had made. Sadly the belt started to fall apart around the buckle. It finally broke. It was beyond a simple repair and needed to be replaced.

I usually wear my shirt loose around the waist. No one actually sees my belt when I'm walking around. All it needs to do is keep my pants up. Purely utilitarian.

Walmart had belts for sale from anywhere between $9.95 and $14.95. I bought a stretchy belt that was reversible for $12.99. Black on one side, brown on the other. That's like two for the price of one. Problem solved. For about a month. Then the belt started to fall apart. The two layers began to come apart and the buckle began to get rusty. What a piece of junk.

Now I needed a new belt already. I felt like I wasted my money on the last one so there was no way I was going to return to Walmart. I still didn't want to spend a lot so I drove to a Ross clothing store. This is a discount chain so I was sure I could obtain a cheap belt. I found a nice belt by Steve Harvey for $14.99. It was also reversible and made of leather this time. After waiting in line for 20 minutes I took off my old belt and threw it in the trash right in front of the store. Once I put on my new belt I discovered that I had bought the wrong size since it was a few inches too short. After sheepishly exchanging it for a belt of the correct size I was on my way. 

The very next day I was going out to lunch with my girlfriend. I showed her my new belt. She agreed that it looked sharp. As we were getting out of the car I heard a popping noise. My belt had broken. The part that spins to allow the belt to be reversible had snapped. I took it off and left it in my car while we had lunch. I had to physically hold my pants up as we walked back and forth from the restaurant.

Lucky for me there was a Target across the street from the restaurant. I picked out a new belt. Brown, stretchy and not reversible this time. The sticker price was $19.95 but when I arrived at the register it was on clearance so it ended up costing $7.95 plus tax. So far this current belt has been going strong with no signs of damage for two weeks now. 

If you add it all up I have spent about $40 and 3 hours on belts in the last two months. I also suffered the mild embarrassment of my belt breaking. Not to mention the anger I feel at being suckered by shoddy belts. My original belt lasted for years. These others have been a huge disappointment. If I took all the money I spent on inferior belts and spent it on a higher quality belt this could have all been a non-issue.

In the future I need to remember to include a vision of the bigger picture. At each incremental step I made a logical decision to save money. When you look at the series of events as a whole my actions seem idiotic. This comes up a lot in sales. "Mr. Customer, are you buying for price or value?" It can be hard to know. The most expensive item isn't always the best value either if it is over priced. It is easier than ever to buy crappy merchandise and then just return it when it breaks. You get your money back but you do not get your time back.

I don't really have a good way to determine how to get the most value out of each situation at this time. It is something I will be reflecting on this month.

Satisfaction guaranteed

I purchase my groceries at the local HEB grocery store. I like the prices and selection. They have their own in house HEB brand which is reasonably priced. They also have a discount in house brand called Hill Country Fare. On the back of each one of their products they have a satisfaction guarantee that states: We hope you are satisfied with this product, if not, we will cheerfully refund your money. I bought a bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil a few weeks ago. It did not taste very good so I thought I would put their guarantee to the test.

Nowhere on the bottle is there any information about who to contact for a refund. I decided to start with the Hill Country Fare website. Hill Country is owned by HEB so I was directed to their website. I found a customer care line to call (1-800-432-3113). After navigating through the phone tree I was put on with a customer service representative named Fred. He told me that I could return it to the store I purchased it at for a full refund. I told him that I did not have a receipt and I could not remember which location I purchased it from. He said that if I present the credit card I used to purchase the item they could look it up. I fired up my Kia and drove over to the HEB I thought I purchased it from.

The bottle was half empty when I set it on the customer service desk. The clerk must have been in high school. I told her that I wanted to claim the satisfaction guarantee because I did not like the taste of this olive oil. She asked for my receipt. Instead I handed her my credit card and explained what the customer service agent had told me about being able to look up the item. After punching a few keys she asked me if I would like the amount returned to my credit card or would I prefer cash? Great Success!

This all went really smoothly. The clerk was even cheerful too which I was not expecting. They proved that they truly stand behind their offer. It is nice to know that there are still companies out there that do what they say they will.

New used car.

After my trusty Lincoln decided to break down again I decided to break down and buy a new used car. I have always driven a used car. Not being a car guy I have just driven whatever becomes available in the friends and family inventory at a good price. All I really want is something mechanically sound. Both of my jobs require me to have reliable transportation so when something goes wrong with my car my level of stress goes through the roof.

Before buying a new used car I went to my bank to secure a car loan. Improving my credit has been a little hobby of the last few years. At the time I spoke to Chase bank, my score was around 740. I assumed that getting approved for a car loan was similar to getting a mortgage. I would be approved for a certain amount based on credit worthiness and income. apparently that is not how it works at Chase. You go find a car first, give the information to the bank then hope that they approve you for it.

I did not like the idea of spending the time to find a suitable car only to be denied right at the end. My stepfather recommended that I try a local credit union. I walked into the nearest one and had a video chat with a loan officer over the internet. I explained that I would like to borrow around $6,000 to buy a used car. After giving him my info he processed my loan application my request was denied. Even though I had good credit, he said that since I had no payment history on a similar installment type loan they would not approve it. Apparently 100% on time repayment of my credit cards was not enough to overcome this hurdle.

With this information in mind I thought that I would have to hang onto my Lincoln a bit longer and hope just it didn't break. This lasted for about a month. The pistons started misfiring again when I was way outside of town on a delivery. At first I thought it was bad gas but after trying out a gas cleaner that did not clear up the problem I took it to auto-zone to have the codes scanned. They said it was a misfire in the 1st and 8th cylinder. I knew all about this as I had it "fixed" about 6 months ago for about $1,700. I figured all in I spent over $4,000 to fix a car worth about $1000 on the Kelly Blue Book website if it was in "good condition".  Mine was in whatever below "fair" is. I saw an almost identical car listed for $400 on Craigslist. It was time to cut my losses and let the car retire to the junk yard in the sky.

Lincoln Cartier 1998

 

I called my father and he agreed to co-sign my loan if I could not obtain one alone. I had been looking around at all the other cars on the road to see what was popular. I saw a lot of Toyota, Nissan and Kia vehicles cruising around. I kept thinking that it would be cool to drive a Kia Soul. I had forgotten that I had rented one and driven it on a trip to Vegas a few years ago. I found a used Kia Soul online at the local Kia dealership and took a Lyft to go for a test drive. I have a large body, so my main concern was, would I have enough room in this car? Driving the Lincoln was like cursing around town with your entire living room. Would my stomach mash up under the steering wheel? I fit just fine and the car drove well during my test drive. I told the salesman that I would like to buy it.

Kia Soul 2013 

 

The car was listed at $5,999 on the website. It had close to 100,000 miles. It was in good condition. Some scratches and a small chip in the windshield. The sales person came back with a grid showing a bunch of options. Some how we were now talking $9,000. After looking over the sheet I asked if it was all necessary. He admitted that most were just options. I elected to remove line items like paint protector off the total. With tax, license and fees it was going to be $7,200ish. He also agreed to replace the key fob and get me a spare tire that was missing. I was happy and we proceeded to see about the financing.

This is when the bullshit started in earnest. I let it slip that I had been having trouble securing a car loan and that I had a co-signer available if I needed one. He looked at my credit and driving record and figured we could work it out. I told him all of my income was from 1099 work and it could be difficult to prove my income. He asked me to pull up how much I had made doing deliveries this year. Apparently it was an adequate amount for him to proceed. Then he showed me some options for different service packages. Some of these service packages would have added as much as $200 a month to my monthly payment. I told him I did not want a service package at all and that I would pay my repair expenses out of pocket.

This is when he used his trump card. He told me that the bank would feel more comfortable approving my loan if I had a service package attached to the deal. This was my pain point and he exploited it. I said that if that was the case I would take the lowest possible service package which was the bronze service package. This would make my monthly payments rise from $150 a month to $180 a month. I decided that I could afford that amount so we moved forward. He was able to get the loan approved. I put down $1,750. The interest rate was a bit high at 9% but I was happy that I was able to get the loan on my own. I drove home my Kia Soul that same afternoon and started to think up names for my new used car.

The finance guy had given me a large envelope of documents. I looked through them. The loan amount for the car was not what I was expecting. It said that if I paid off my car in the allotted time the total at the end would be $13,300. WHAT!?! That seemed insane. I looked through all the line items and found that the "service package", which I found out is more commonly called an "extended warranty" was going to add $3,000 to my loan plus the interest on that portion. The finance guy also tacked on another year and a half to the loan term to disguise the expense and keep my monthly payment low. Instead of 48 months it was going to be 66 months.

I was pretty pissed off. It said right on the service contract that it in no way had any bearing on a customers ability to obtain financing. He led me to believe that the service contract was essential to secure the financing. When I thought back to the way he phrased it in his office, he said that bank would feel more comfortable but he never did say it was required. Technically he did not lie about this, just misled me to get what I'm sure would have been a nice commission. Lucky for me the contract stated that it could be canceled within 30 days for a $50 fee. I drove into the dealership the next morning and asked for my extended warranty to be canceled. I was told that he was unable to cancel the contract until my plates and registration came in. He also asked me to strongly consider keeping it. I left his office so I could go find a place to calm down. I came in the next day and talked to a different person in the finance department who told me the same thing. I would just have to wait.

After I got back from my trip to Alaska, I drove back to the dealership to try once again to cancel my warranty. It was day 26 of my 30 day grace period so I was a bit antsy. The finance guy gave me the run around a bit more but finally relented. He handed me my plates, registration and a pamphlet on how to cancel the warranty myself online. He would not even take the time to fill out the paperwork for me. I'm sure most of his customers do not read the contracts over and just pay it so he must have been unhappy that I reduced his commission. The difference in cost is huge. Under the original terms I would have paid $13,300 total in five and a half years. By removing the $3,000 service package my car will end up costing $8,700 if I pay it off in four years. I intend to pay it off faster of course.

Was it smart to cancel this contract? They were providing a real service if the car broke down. It's not like they were just taking my money for nothing, right? The contract required a $200 deductible for each repair. It covered some types of repairs and not others. It would last for 36 months. If I got into an accident my insurance will cover it since I had to purchase full coverage in order to obtain financing. I will have to pay incidental car repairs out of pocket now. I bought it "As Is" so if the engine drops on the ground I could end up looking pretty dumb. While I do anticipate some repairs the car is only 6 years old so I expect it shall be worry free for the next few years, after which time the warranty will have elapsed anyway.

I went into the dealership thinking I was sharp since I had spent time selling phones for Verizon. I was completely bamboozled even though I had seen some of the inside tricks of the trade. Turns out there is a lot more to learn about selling. In the future I need to be better about not putting myself into a pressured situation where I need to make a decision quickly. It was fortunate there were some consumer protections to help me get out of the contract. It would have also been smart to read over the fine print before signing the documents instead of being in a rush to get the deal done.

What should I name it?

Leaky Tire Update

A few weeks ago I patched up one of the tires on my Lincoln. I assumed that this fixed the problem forever and went about my life. Until last night. I was doing a few evening favor food deliveries. I pulled into Chick-fil-A for a large order. The customer wanted 9 of the 4 mini chick combos and 3 milk shakes. I was told that they only serve the mini chicks for breakfast but I could order the large platter which would include a few extra minis. I told him that I would not eating it so it really did not matter to me. Little did I know that in less than an hour I would be eating it, and my words.

I went back to my car, mapped out the location to my customers house which was about 13 minutes away and began to back out of my parking space. Immediately I could tell one of the tires was flat. I pulled into a new space to check it out. Yes, the front passenger side was flat and a bit shredded. I thought it was the back passenger that was the problem before then I remembered I had the tires rotated when I had the patch put on. I sure am lucky to have this go flat in a parking lot and not while going down the highway.

I'm not a mechanic but I have changed a tire before on my old Sonoma pickup truck when I was living in Salt Lake City. I thought it would be a lot easier this time since I had shoes on instead of slippers. I have been cursing the day I bought this car from my uncle but to his credit there was a full sized inflated spare in the trunk along with a functional jack. I also received a little help from my "bonus dad" as he likes to be called. He likes to buy us boys a flashlight every year for Christmas so I also had a nice flexible flashlight in the trunk. That was helpful since it was dark out. I could have probably figured it out with the ambient light from the Chick-Fil-A but this was much easier.

I pulled everything out of the trunk and started fooling with the jack. I couldn't figure out how the handle was supposed to fit into the jack. For a while I thought it was missing a part. A guy came up and asked me if I needed a hand. I showed him my predicament. He showed me how to put the handle properly into the jack. He told me he would give me a hand while his wife was inside ordering chicken. We took turns jacking up the car and taking off the lug nuts. With the two of us it only took about 10 minutes. He said his name was Moses. I thanked him for his help and gave him my card. I told him if he ever needed a hand with something to give me a call. 

By this time the milk shakes had melted. I asked my favor handler what to do with the food but he just told me to eat the food or throw it away. They had already assigned another runner to that delivery. I ended up taking it home and feasting on Mini chicken sandwiches and delicious Chick-Fil-A sauce. I put the shakes into the refrigerator and they were pretty good after an hour. Through some oversight in the system I ended up getting paid for that run even though I never completed the order. Score.

The next morning I went to go look for a new tire. I had canceled an appointment with the discount tire down the road and left them a bad review for trying to get me to buy a new tire instead of patching the old one. The thought of having to talk to the same salesman only a few weeks after this incident was not appealing. Instead I started driving over to the Walmart auto care center near my house. I took the back way to avoid the highway if I happened to get another flat. On the way I saw this sign.

 This was a guy operating out of a metal pole building selling used tires. I thought what the hell. I want to get rid of this car soon anyways, why not save a few bucks and buy a used tire. I followed the signs to savings. 

There was an older gentleman sitting under a tent in the back. I explained to him that I needed a used tire. He took one look at my spare and said, "do you know that your lug nuts are on backwards?" Clearly he was a pretty sharp mechanic. I told him I was no mechanic and he laughed. I pulled my tire out of the trunk and he went though his inventory to look for a matching size. After a few minutes he told me that he didn't have an exact match but he had one that would work but it was just a bit narrower than my current tire. I asked him if it would fit and be safe to drive. He said it would be fine on there so I told him to go ahead and rig it up. After a bit of calculation he told me it would cost $45 for the tire and instillation. He needed cash since his credit card machine was either broken or non-existent. I drove over to Chase to pick up the cash and when I got back he had the tire mounted on the old rim. This guy must have worked on a pit crew as a younger man. He had those tires swapped in about a minute. Really a master tire craftsman. Hopefully this tire will last long enough for me to drive this car to the junk yard after I obtain a loan for a new one.

Did I come out ahead by getting the tire patched in the first place? I would say no. I spent $25 to get the tire patched and then another $45 for a used tire. I could have likely bought a brand new tire for less than $100. Then there was the time, hassle and inconvenience to have to drop a delivery. This could have happened on the way to a trivia show which would have been a major problem. The stress of not knowing if it will continue to break down is wearing on me. The emotional and financial cost to maintain this vehicle is just too high. I'd like to think this is how a person gains wisdom but maybe wisdom in this case is just not trying to cut corners all the time. Apparently wisdom means really means expensive lesson.

 

Travel Hacking

When doing deliveries on the weekend I end up spending a lot of time in my car. Sometimes as much as 25 hours in a 3 day period. In order to prevent myself from going stir crazy I like to load up some Podcasts. The Joe Rogan Experience (http://podcasts.joerogan.net/) is my favorite along with The Mad Fientist (https://www.madfientist.com/) and The Bigger Pockets podcast (https://www.biggerpockets.com/podcast). What I like about podcasts is that I can select the topics I want to hear about without too much commercial interruption. Plus these particular podcasts are free to download. I used to listen to the BBC and NPR all the time in the car but the news has become too depressing. I thought I would miss it but I don't. It's really easy to load up 20 hours of podcast and then go cruse the town delivering emergency tacos to the drunk and hungry.

While listening to the Mad Fientist podcast, one of the guests introduced me to travel hacking. The basic concept is that you sign up for a new credit card that has a travel bonus. Usually the terms are something like spend $4,000 in 3 months and you will get 40,000 travel miles or some other reward as a new customer. That would be equivalent to about $400 in free travel. After you have obtained the bonus you close the card and pick a new one with a new bonus.

The problem I had with this system is that I didn't think I could hit the spending thresholds each month since I do not spend that much money consistently. I would need to spend around $1,300 a month or so to hit those limits. Then an unexpected opportunity arose.

I was living in a house with two roommates. We were each paying out landlord $500 a month for rent in cash. We also split the utilities which was another $50 a month. Our landlord unexpectedly needed us to move out so he could rent the house to a friend of his. We were bummed out but liked living together so the 3 of us rented a 3 bedroom apartment down the street for about the same price. I told my roommates that I would like to put the entire rent on my credit card and have them pay me in cash so I could obtain some credit card bonuses. They agreed to do that. Each month I am now putting not only my rent onto a credit card but their rent as well. It comes out to about $1,600 or so each month. With that kind of spending it was been simple to hit those spending targets. One draw back is that the apartment company charges a 1.75% fee to make a credit card transaction each month which comes out to about $28 each month. In the end it still comes out in my favor. 

The first card I tried this on was the Chase Sapphire preferred card. The deal was if you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months they will give you 50,000 chase ultimate rewards points which can be redeemed for cash, travel, hotels or other perks. I easily hit this spend in 2 months and converted my points for a cash back reward of about $550. Nice.

The next card I picked was the Chase United Explorer Mileage Plus card. The deal on this card is that if you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months you receive 40,000 United Mileage plus miles. Additionally, if you spend $8000 in the first 6 months you will receive another 30,000 miles. I hit my first target and received the 40,000 miles. I then used these miles to book a flight that would have cost around $400 on United for $11.20. I'll be shopping around for another credit card as soon as I hit the final target for the current one.

A nice side benefit of this is that my credit score has gone up as well. I have a 100% on time repayment rate and my credit score is hovering around 740. It might dip a bit when I cancel one of my cards to obtain a new one but it will be worth it as long I can keep getting bonuses and not paying interest. I'm not sure how much longer the credit card companies will be offering all these bonuses but getting a couple of free flights a year is big for me so I hope they keep it up. What is also nice is that I am self employed so I can plan my vacations around the times of the year when the flights will be cheaper so the miles can go quite a bit further.

This has been a great system so far. I am looking forward to planning some more trips now that I have a way to drastically reduce the cost of airfare. Combined this with staying at an Airbnb or couch surfing and you have the makings of a very reasonably priced vacation.

    

Leaky Tire

When things go wrong with my car I get stressed out. I have never had an interest in anything mechanical. I need my car to get to trivia and to do my delivery job so it is imperative that I keep it in working order. I know this. I also have this other urge called not wanting to spend money on my car. In a perfect world my car would just run. I don't enjoy taking my car in to the shop since I am pretty much ignorant about how to keep it running when it breaks down. These two urges battle each other in my head until either something breaks and I have no choice be to bring my car in or someone rides in my car and comments on some broken thing and I feel like I should get it fixed since I assume they know more than I do. This is not a good system but that's how my brain works and I have come to accept it.

The rear passenger tire has had a slow leak for a couple weeks. I walked by this tire a bunch of times, saw that it was getting flat, then proceeded to do nothing. I probably would have kept doing this for a while longer until fate intervened. I was putting my gym bag back into my trunk after a workout when I heard someone try to get my attention. I thought it was a hobo asking for money but when I turned around it was an old Mexican man and his wife. He must have been in his 70's. I wasn't sure what he wanted until he pointed at my tire and said, "your tire, es flat." His English was pretty rough but it was much better than my Spanish will ever be. I said "gracias." They continued to walk towards the grocery store. If this guy is going out of his way to tell a perfect stranger that his tire is flat, it must be pretty obvious that I need to fix this.

I drove to the nearest gas station and found an air pump. I was about to ransack all the change out of my car but the pump accepted credit cards. Technology. After putting some air into the tire, I considered it fixed forever and promptly forgot all about it. 

Fast forward to a week and a half later. My tire is getting flat again. I never saw this coming. More action would need to be taken. There is a discount tire down the street from my apartment. After pulling up one of the employees came out to see what he could do for me. Once he knew of the leak in my tire he got to work inspecting all the tires. Then he looked at the spare. A few more questions followed and he took me into the waiting room for a tire report. He informed me that the other three tires were in ok shape but the flat one would need to be replaced. When I asked him if they could patch the tire he ignored my question and then showed me some new tires. The fact that he did not even address my question made me a bit suspicious. I had worked at Verizon as a salesman for a while. I remembered my boss telling me that the solution to any phone problem is a get the customer to buy a new phone. I felt that I was getting a similar treatment so I stalled. I told Jeff the salesman that I didn't get paid till Friday but would like to set up an appointment to get a new tire this Saturday. 

After this he directed me to the air station and one of the attendants checked my air pressure and filled my tires. When he got to the flat one he said that the machine would not fill it since the tire pressure was too low. I'm not a tire engineer but this demonstration seemed a little fishy and I was already a little suspicious. I drove back to the gas station and used the air pump which worked just fine a second time. 

I needed a second opinion so I called up my step father who had worked in auto sales. I asked him the critical question: was I just being cheap or was the guy at discount tire telling me the truth and I needed a new tire. He said to check the tire and see how worn it was. As I looked down to do this I noticed that there was a drywall screw sticking out of the tread in my tire. Huh. Neither of the attendants had noticed this which finally destroyed any sense of confidence in their abilities. 

After this revelation I called up a Goodyear affiliate and asked if they could repair the tire. As long as the screw is not in the side wall it would be no problem. He said it would cost about $21 and they would be able to complete the work today. They ended up fixing the tire in about 30 min. 

Did I learn anything? Just because someone presents themselves as an expert does not mean they have your best interest in mind, or that they care about saving you money. I should also remember not to drive on a low tire for weeks at a time. I was lucky that it was able to be fixed this time. Who needs new tires for a 21 year old car anyways?

 
 

Modern day foraging.

After driving around all evening delivering food it was time to decide what I was going to eat for dinner. I pulled up to Rosa's Cafe to place my last order of the evening. The restaurant was down to a skeleton crew so I knew the order was going to take longer than normal. I sat down to wait.

At a lot of Mexican restaurants here in Texas have a salsa bar. You can help yourself to all sorts of salsa and vegetables. I looked over the options. They had salsa, chopped onions, chopped jalapenos, Pico de Gallo, tomatoes, Cilantro, Lemons, limes and other items that I had never seen before. I thought to myself, A hungry guy could make a nice omelet with all that stuff. Then it hit me, I was a hungry guy, I liked omelets. This is just crazy enough to work.

I started loading up the tiny containers. I figured that it would look like I was filling up these containers for my delivery order. Little did they know my devious plan. I had a lot of time to kill so I ended up filling 16 tiny containers which are shown below. Pico de Gallo on the left, then onions, Jalapenos and finally salsa on the right.

Luckily I had a dozen eggs and some shredded cheese already. I fried up all the condiments first then added the eggs on low heat and made a scramble. When it was all done I put the cheese on top to let it melt a bit then threw salsa on. Practically a textbook version of huevos rancheros. It only took me about 6 min to put everything together since the restaurant had already chopped everything up. I was very satisfied with my handy work. Looks a lot better than 80% of the junk food I delivered tonight. The saving were also a strong, fragrant, spicy additon that really elevated my enjoyment of the entire process. Delicious.

        

Free Chicken Sandwich

I was out and about delivering food this Saturday when I arrived at Chick-fil-A. It was jam packed as usual. There was a double line of cars surrounding the building. I decided to save some gas and go inside to place my customers order. 4 piece chicken tender combo with waffle fries and a Dr. Pepper. Pretty standard stuff until the cashier handed me the receipt.

Before I could throw the receipt in the garbage she stopped me. We locked eyes and she gazed deep into my soul and whispered seductively, if you fill out this survey within the next two days, you can get a free sandwich. Spicy or original. This sent a shiver down my spine and I was mesmerized by the thought of a free sandwich. As I waited to pick up my order I wondered if I could get another customers receipt too so I could fill out a couple surveys to get even more free sandwiches. It was then I realized that the survey does not print out on every receipt. Was I one of the chosen? I didn't have time to find out as my order was complete and I needed to get back into my car to deliver the food.

When I arrived home I logged on to the site. www.mycfavisit.com. The first thing the site asks for is the serial number on the receipt to prove that you actually went to Chick-fil-A and made a purchase. My customer made the purchase so I would be reaping the rewards of the survey without spending anything. I was taking advantage of a gaping loophole. They said very explicitly that I will need to provide my email and that if I do not, I will not receive my free sandwich. Pretty clever tactic. What they don't know is I maintain a bunch of fake emails specifically for this reason and also to leave poor restaurant reviews. Point and match. Jim Smith who has email address of derpk.klaus@gmail.com is my favorite fake account. Turns out he really likes Chick-fil-A.

At the end of my survey it said that it will take up to 24 hours for my digital gift card to arrive. Was there a problem at the digital post office? That is a long time to wait for a free sandwich. I went back to the home page and tried to enter a new serial number to see if I could win another sandwich with a different fake email. My original serial number was 4240308-01903-1351-0330-90 so I obviously tried 4240308-01903-0330-91 to see if that would produce another survey. Sadly, that did not work. Then I got on google and searched for "Chick-fil-A survey serial numbers". No numbers were listed. I did find a reddit thread about people asking about how they could get a survey for free but the discussion quickly descended into rude comments about each others mothers.

Finally, after hitting refresh about a thousand times my coupon arrived via my fake email address. I got a QR code that will entitle me to one free Chicken Sandwich. Hopefully that helpful cashier with the deep sultry voice will be there again to take my order of one free sandwich one packet of special sauce and one tap water. I'm sure she will be impressed. Maybe I can ask her to use her employee discount for me to get a side of waffle fries. Then I remembered that tomorrow is Sunday and Chick-fil-A is not open on Sundays because Jesus only eats fish on that day or something. Guess I'll have to wait another entire day for my spicy chicken delight. 

Here is an update from last week. Success!

Auto Insurance Adjustment

Around the beginning of the year I get a notification from Geico about my next 6 months of auto insurance. Its the Yang to the holiday Yin I have just enjoyed that brings me back to reality. They use all sorts of factors to determine how much your auto insurance is going to cost. Level of education, safety record, credit score, where you live, how much you drive and a bunch of other factors. What many people do not know is the insurance companies have a formula to determine if you are the type of person who may decide to switch policies. If you are not they often add a premium to your rate.

To date I have never made an insurance claim. I have had a couple cars bump into mine but it has never been anything serious. All the money I have paid for insurance premiums has been pure profit for the insurance company. I own my car and have the lowest amount of coverage possible. In the event of an accident all the lives of the humans involved in both vehicles would be covered and the other car. My car would not be covered and I would pay any repair costs out of pocket. At that point I was paying about $67 a month for my policy.

My first attempt at getting my premium lowered failed. My credit score had improved quite a bit last year so I called up the insurance company and asked for a lower rate based on this fact. The agent was very shrewd. He told me that he couldn't offer me a lower rate but if I signed up for renters insurance I could get a discount on my auto insurance. He transferred me over to the renters insurance department. Not one of my possessions is worth insuring but I decided to let him give me a quote. For the combing policy it was going to be about $85 a month. I declined and hung up the phone. Of course this quote dogged me for a few months since they must have told their sales department I was a hot lead. I was not.

I decided I would have to take a different tact. A few months had elapsed so I thought I would try again. This time I got online an looked up some quotes from other companies. My quote from Allstate came in at about $90 a month. Nope. Then I got a quote from Esurance for $55 a month. That was appealing and I saved this quote on my computer. Then I called Geico and asked if they were willing to price match a competitor. At first the agent was resistant. She said that I was as low as possible. I informed her that I would like to stay with Geico but Esurance had come in at $55 a month. Magically she found a way to match their price. How strange.

The first thing she did was switch my auto pay from going through my debit card to being directly withdrawn from my checking account. Even though this money was still coming out of the same account they were charging me a $4 a month processing fee. Then she lowered my coverage in some area down to the minimum. I had been paying this processing fee for years and no one thought to mention it.

I told my story of triumph to a friend of mine recently and his reaction was, "why bother?" Mostly because I think its funny and also because there is no reason to spend more and not get more. Most companies are not focused on trying to maximize the value they deliver to you as a consumer. They are trying to maximize their profits. If they can find a way to extract extra money from you they will do it. They prey on the fact that most people will not shop around. Many times people just accept whatever price they are given because it takes time to look for a better deal. If you take a little time to compare rates and arm yourself with some information you can cut through all the hidden fees to get to a reasonable price. I now do this with all my bills and the sweet savings add up each month. Each dollar I save is a dollar I do not have to earn by working.

 

How much would you pay to insure this sweet ride?