I've updated the debt tracker on the sidebar of this page. I was able to get below $60,000 this month! WooHoo!!

I made a post back in July regarding opening a new ING "Electric Orange" account. You can read that story here. One of the features of the account is unlimited free use of the Allpoint ATM network (found in most Target, BP and Costco stores). I've used the ATM network about 3-4 times already without any problems. I needed some cash the other day so I pulled into a BP and used the ATM. I verified this was an Allpoint ATM by the Allpoint label on the front. As I began my transaction, the screen asked if I wanted to pay the $2 fee. Per the Allpoint website, if a machine asks if I will accept the fee, select "yes" but the fee will not be charged. I selected yes but I was charged $2 anyway. I went online to the Allpoint website and filled out the online form for a refund. All the information they needed was on the ATM receipt. I received an email apologizing for the fee the next day and advised my $2 would be credited to my account within 2 business days. I logged onto my account the next day and the fee had been credited to my account. So far, this has been my only problem with the account and it was a minor one. They borrowed $2 from me for about 2 days but I am still loving the account! If this were to happen everytime I used an ATM I would rethink my decision about this being my primary account.

If you are interested in opening a new ING savings account or Electric Orange account, let me know and you can get a free $25 for each and I will get a $10 referral. You need to open the account with at least $250 in order to get the free money. You can email me here if you need a referral. I only need your email address and name and ING will handle the rest. I do not have access to any of your information once you open the account.

I got an email today from a company called CircleLending. I read up on the website and it sounds like a pretty good idea. Say you want to owner finance a property and you are not sure how to do it. CircleLending will handle all the details for you as if you were financing thru a mortgage lender. They use all the same Fannie Mae forms.

According to the website, the benefits for sellers are:

• Generate a steady income stream.
• Attracting a larger number of buyers. In this market, you need all the buyers you can get.
• Overcoming valuation problems. House not appraising for your asking price but the seller is willing to pay?

Benefits for buyers using CircleLending are:

• Lower closing costs.
• Obtaining a mortgage when you may have not been able to otherwise.
• Supplement other financing. Bank won't approve 100% and you don't have alot of cash for a downpayment?

The costs seem to be relatively inline with normal closing costs. Let them handle the closing, service the loan and handle the escrow account for $2299. I did notice they charge a $9 monthly fee to handle the monthly payment for you. This service also works for mortgage financing between family members.

I got the following email today. Looks like someone needs help trying to transfer money from a foreign account to the United States. I am so happy, I cannot believe they picked me!!! I get 35% of the money just for helping them out. What a quick and easy way to make money. YEAH RIGHT!!! How in the heck did they find me out of all the people in the country to help them out. They are just waiting for me to send them my bank info so they can clean me out. What a bunch of idiots thinking that I or anyone will fall for this. Well at least I hope no one has fallen for this scam. Anyway, the email is below. Read it and be sure to watch for anyone trying to scam you out of your hard earned money. I have put the parts I find amusing in bold.


ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT
ECO INTERNATIONAL BANK PLC
PLOT 2, AJOSE ADEOGUN STREET
VICTORIA-ISLAND LAGOS-NIGERIA
FAX: + 234-1-7591913
EMAIL: drbernard_okumagba3@yahoo.fr
Dear Friend,
Re: Transfer of $18, 000.000. (Eighteen Million U.S. Dollars) First I must solicit your confidence in this transaction. This is by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential and top secret. We shall be counting on your capability and reliability to prosecute a transaction of great magnitude involving a pending business transaction requiring maximum confidence.
We want to transfer to overseas {$18,000,000] Eighteen Million United States dollars from Eco International Bank Nig Plc. I would like if you will be capable and fit to provide either an existing Bank account or to set up a new Bank account immediately to receive this money, even an empty account can serve to receive this money as long as you will remain honest to me till the end of this important business transaction.
I am Dr Bernard Okumagba Director of Accounts Department of Eco International Bank plc, during the course of our auditing I discovered a floating fund in an account opened with our Bank in 2000 and since 2002 nobody has operated on this account again, after going through some old files in the records I discovered that the owner of the account died without a heir hence the money is floating and if I do not remit this money out urgently it will be forfeited for nothing.
The owner of this account was Engr. Anthony Hamill, a national of your country an Industrialist. He died since 2002 and no other person knows about this account or anything concerning it, the account has no beneficiary and my investigation proved to me as well that Engr. Anthony Hamill until his death was a Manager with an oil firm in Nigeria.
I am contacting you as a foreigner because this money can only be approved to a foreigner with a foreign account because the money is in us dollars and the former owner of the account Engr. Anthony Hamill is a foreigner. I am revealing all these information to you with the believe that you will never let me down in this business. You are the first and the only person I am contacting for this business so please reply urgently for me to tell you the next step to take.
You should forward the following information: Your telephone/fax numbers and your Residential address which is also needed. You will have to give me the assurance that when we meet this money will be intact pending our physical arrival in your country for sharing and disbursement of the fund which will be 35% for your assistance 60% will be for us while 5% will be set aside to take care of all the expenses that would be incurred by both parties during the course of the transfer.
I look forward to your earliest response through my alternative email address below (drbernard_okumagba3@yahoo.fr ) for security reasons.
Yours faithfully,
Dr. Bernard Okumagba

I try to keep an eye on the housing market here in the Atlanta area to see how things are going. I own 2 homes in the Atlanta area so I have a vested interest in what goes on in the market. I've seen reports from local real estate agents that say it is a buyers market (oh really?) and that prices are flat. Luckily, Atlanta did not experience the run up in prices like other markets around the country so we are not having the huge drop in home prices like those areas.

One way I can tell how the market is going is the Metrobrokers Billboard on I-75 southbound near the North Marietta Pkwy exit. I pass this billboard everyday on my way to work. When the billboard first went up in August 2005, there were about 75,000 homes for sale. As of this past Friday, there were over 110k homes for sale. Per the Metrobrokers website, this number includes listings in the FMLS and MLS for the 20+ county Atlanta Metropolitan area. The number also includes some listings as far as the North Georgia mountains and as far south as Valdosta.

In Atlanta, per HousingTracker.net:

• The median home price is $209,000
• 1 month price change - (0.0%)
• 3 month price change - (0.0%)
• 6 month price change - (2.4%)
• 12 month price change - (4.0%)
• Inventory of available homes has increased 24.3% in a 12 month period.

House here are still affordable, there is plenty of available housing and the population is growing so according to local "experts", the Atlanta area will be just fine. I'll believe that when I see it.

In December 2006, I decided I wanted to start doing a little investing outside of my 401k. I'd tried holding individual stocks before and they were always hit or miss. I wanted to find a good mutual fund with low fees, a good track record for performance, and low initial fund minimums.
I opened an account with E*Trade and starting doing a lot of research. I'd heard about the Ariel Funds from a friend of mine and decided to check it out. Here are the essentials:

• Ticker ARGFX
• 3 star overall rating by Morningstar
• Midcap Blend Fund
• No Transaction Fee fund thru E*trade.
• No sales charge
• Low risk fund
• Expense Ratio of 1.03%

So far, even with the recent market turbulence, I have been very happy with the performance of the fund. Usually, I try to shy away from investing decisions from my friends as they tend to chase the "next big thing". This time, they got it right. Listening to my friends allowed me to pick up a nice stable fund that I can keep for the long haul.

Do you have a favorite investment you would like to share?

P.S. I am not an financial professional and if you choose to invest in the Ariel Fund, you are doing so at your own risk. I am not responsible for any losses you may incur.

For a bit of good news, I am happy to report that it looks like my non-mortgage debt is going down, down down. By the end of this month, I should drop below $60k in non-mortgage debt. At the end of January 2007, my non-mortgage debt was a little over $65,500.00. My December 2007 goal is to be at $56k or less. It looks like how things are going, I should me able to meet or exceed that number. I thank you for all the support and well wishes you have sent. My overall goal is to be

free of all non-mortgage debt by December 2009. If you are new reader, you can

find out how my debt was accumulated here.

1. If you have a personal finance blog, what made you decide to start a blog?

2. If you are a frequent personal finance blog reader, what brings you back?

I started a personal finance blog for a couple of reasons:

• I wanted to share my experience with others
• Posting all my financial information to the world keeps me "accountable"
• Encouragement from my readers
• Maybe something I post, can turn the financial life of someone else around

I read personal finance blogs because:

• I can learn from someone who has been in debt and paid if off.
• I like looking into other people's finances to see what they are doing different.

Thanks to CleverDude's post Against the grain: Why we chose an interest only mortgage, I decided I would share my deep, dark, secret....I too have an Interest Only Mortgage. I too chose a 5/1 ARM and financed 100% of my home. Before you start throwing rocks at me, here are some of the reasons I took out an Interest Only Mortgage:

• I pay more than the Interest Only payment. I found a good reliable mortgage calculator and determined what the amortized payment would be if I had a fixed loan. I make sure to pay at least that amount of the principal every month. I've had the loan for about a year and a half and I have paid principal each month. If there is a lean month where I can only pay Interest Only, I have that option. So far, that hasn't been a problem.
• I do not plan to live in this house more than 5 years. I made sure there was no prepayment penalty on my loan so I could refinance or sell before the loan resets to a higher interest rate.
• I wanted to keep my cash for other uses. My other debt at the time I bought this home was at a higher interest rate than what I would be paying on my mortgage so I wanted to use that to pay down the high rate debt. I paid off all the high interest rate debt. Besides my car loan, everything is less than 5.5%.
• I knew what I was getting into. I understood that my rate would most likely increase after the first 5 years. I knew that if I made Interest Only payments, I would owe the same amount in 5 yrs as I owed when I initially took out the mortgage. I knew that I took the risk of being upside down in my home if values fell.

This is my second home that I have purchased. On my first home, that is now a rental property, I knew I would keep the home for more than 5 years as either my primary home or a rental due to the close location to a large college. For that loan, I chose a 30 year fixed loan at 5.875%.

There you have it, my conscience is clear now. Proceed with your comments.

I received a call from my cousin today. You know, the one that asked for $1k and refused to tell me what it was for. You can read that story here. Well he decided to call and apologize for the way our conversation went. He apologized for cursing me and hanging up. He stated that he had been under alot of stress lately. Me being the person that I am, told him if he needed to talk, he can still talk to me. Regardless of past issues, we are still family. He declined to talk about his problems but said he just wanted to call and apologize. I accepted his apology and told him whatever problems he has, he needs to just pray about them and keep a positive outlook. This time, we ended on a positive note.

Five minutes later, he calls me back and says oh yeah, can I borrow $200. *sigh* OK, you know I am going to ask you why you need it. If you don't tell me, you know you won't get it. He still declined to tell me what it was for and I still declined the loan request. This time instead of cursing and hanging up, he just hung up.

What is his deal? Does he think he can call and give a halfhearted apology just to get some money? I am sick and tired of it. I hate to do it but I think it is time to write him off for awhile. Not permanently, but long enough for him to know that I will not stand for him acting like a spoiled child when he does not get what he wants.

Oh well, at least this time, SingleGuyMoney is not MAD!

I almost had a small heart attack today. One of my co-workers was doing a little online shopping today. I asked her what she was getting and she said a pair of boots. I thought no big deal; boots aren't that expensive. She had to step away from her desk for a minute and asked me to listen for her phone as she was expecting a call. I was sitting at her desk and she had not closed the webpage she was shopping on. I can't help that I am a little nosey so I happened to check out what she bought. Are you ready for this........she bought a pair of Moschino "Cheap & Chic" boots for $695!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, I said that right, Six hundred ninety five dollars!!! This is the same person who only eats once a day because she can't afford it. No wonder... She has been with the company a little longer than I have but I know she doesn't make that much more than me.

I almost said something but figured it wasn't my place. Would you have said something? We are friends but not close friends by any means.

The Dow closed below $13,000 today and all my investment accounts reflected it. I am trying not to check my accounts so often but it is so hard not to when you hear the depressing news.
I think I am going to have to put up my sad face again.....

How are you guys feeling about the market and the economy in general?

I don't know about you guys but I hate shopping. I think I would rather go to the dentist than go to the mall. One of my friends told me about Ebates.com. It is a great shopping website with all your favorite stores. Not only is there a wide shopping selection, you also get cash back and coupons. The cash back percentage is listed next to the website. I signed up with my friends referral and got a free $5 just for signing up. You too can get a free $5 by clicking here. Even if you do not plan to use Ebates for shopping, you may as well go ahead and take the free $5.

If you haven't already, head on over to No Credit Needed's blog. He hosting this week's Carnival of Debt Reduction. There are also instructions on how to host a carnival if you wish to do so.

My favorite post comes from CleverDude titled, "Is the thought of debt ruining your life?". Be sure to head on over and check out all the great posts this week.

What am I so mad about?? One of my many cousins...both of my parents have big families...called me up today. I hardly ever talk to this cousin because he's screwed me over in the past. Anyway, that's not why I am mad at him now. . I am mad at him because he called me today and the conversation went like this:

Me: Hello. (he called from a number I wasn't familiar with)
Him: Hey Cuz, wassup?
Me: Nothing much, wassup with you?
Him: Nothing much, I need a favor.
Me: What do you need?
Him: A thousand dollars. (he said it like he was asking for $5 bucks)
Me: (I almost fell out of my chair when he said this) What for?
Him: That's none of your damn business. I just need the money.
Me: (blood pressure rising) So you want to borrow ONE THOUSAND dollars from me and not
expect me to ask you why? Are you out of your damn mind?
Him: Are you going to let me borrow it or not?
Me: Dude, you still owe me fifty bucks from a loan 2 years ago.
Him: Fine, I will pay you back One thousand fifty bucks.
Me: LOL. Like I said before, you are out of your mind.
Him: Are you going to loan me the money or not?
Me: What do you think?
Him: F*ck you! Click........

Can you believe that? Not only does he get mad at me for asking what this huge "loan" is for, he also gets mad because I mention he already owes me money. I am steamed. I see red. I am MAD.

Luckily, he lives over 3 hours away or SingleGuyMoney would be blogging from my local jail.
Ok, maybe not blogging; more like making my one phone call.

So what do you guys think? Did I handle this wrong?

Thanks to everyone who responded to the debt poll. The results were that the majority of the readers either have no debt or have paid off up to $1000-$5000 in debt.

The options were as follows:

• I do not have any debt
• $1-$5000
• $5001 - $10000
• over $10,001

I will put the poll back up towards the end of the year and see how the numbers look then.

I have a bad habit of going out to lunch EVERYDAY during the week. I do not cook and I would rather not burn down my kitchen trying to do so. I know this everyday lunch habit is costing me alot of money. I find that I just have to get out of the office for my hour break. It allows me to recharge and hang out with my coworkers and just have fun or blow off some steam.

One of the things I have recently started doing is ordering water instead of sweet tea or soda. This move along is shaving off an average of $2 per bill. I am also choosing more cost effective choices. I now have a limit of $8 per lunch meal, including tip. I have spent up to $14 for lunch before. After I get home and enter the transaction into my checkbook, I want to punch myself for spending so much money on ONE meal.

I cannot believe how hot it has been this week. Right now as I write this post, it is 7 pm est and the temperature is still 100 degrees. Last night, around 10pm, it was still in the 90s. I will probably add an additional $50 to next's months budget for the electricity bill. I have been leaving my A/C on 75 during the day and it seems to be running nonstop. If you are experiencing the extreme heat, do your best to keep cool.

Remember, when dealing with extreme heat:

• Make sure you stay hydrated!!!! Drink plenty of nonalcoholic beverages.
• Wear light color and lightweight clothing.
• Use sunblock if you will be exposed to the sun.
• Stay inside in the A/C.
• If you don't have A/C, go to somewhere that does...ie. mall or library.
• Schedule outdoor activities in the morning when it is cooler.

I must say, T-Mobile rocks! I have been a customer for about a year and the couple of times I have had to call customer service, it has been just that...customer service. Whatever problem I had, they were able to solve it without me having to jump through hoops.

My bill with them is on auto pay so I usually just open the bill to see the balance. I had a little free time yesterday and went through every page on my bill. I found that I was being charged a $9.99 monthly fee for some unknown service. It was not through T-Mobile and I didn't remember signing up for anything.

I checked my past bills and found out that I had been charged this fee for the past 4 months. I called up T-Mobile and explained the situation. The nice lady cancelled the charge for me and then credited back the past 4 months. I wasn't expecting reimbursement for the past 4 months because maybe I or one of my cousins using my phone possibly signed up for the service. My main goal was to have any future charges stopped. I was very impressed with this and the professionalism of the customer service rep. After we were finished, I asked to speak with her supervisor. She asked if there was something wrong. I told her no, I just wanted to let her supervisor know what a great job she did. In speaking with the supervisor, I told her I know she gets complaint calls all the time so I wanted to give her a compliment call. She thanked me for making her aware of the good work of her employee and I thanked her for the great service.

Lesson: All bills need to be checked for any unauthorized charges.

According to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Publix Supermarkets will start offering FREE antibiotics (up to a 14 day supply). This is in a move to compete with mass merchandisers (Wal-Mart) offering generics for less than $5. As you may remember, Wal-Mart started offering may generic drugs for $4 last fall. Publix has 684 pharmacies in five southeastern states.

The free antibiotics they will be offering are:

• amoxicillan


• cephalexin


• sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim


• ciprofloxacin


• penicillin VK


• ampicillin


• erythromycin

My first thought was how are they going to make money on this then I thought about the obvious reason....to get people in the door. Most people don't go to a pharmacy in a supermarket just to go to the pharmacy; you usually pickup a few more items.

Next time you need generic antibiotics, don't forget about the free one's at Publix.

As I posted on July 27th, I opened a new "Electric Orange" account at ING. I received my debit card yesterday so I thought I would give a timeline for anyone thinking about opening an account.

• June 26, 2007 - Applied online for the account. I already had a savings account with them since 2002 so the opening process was pretty simple and took about a minute.
• June 27, 2007 - Changed my payroll direct deposit from my primary account to my ING account.
• June 27, 2007 - Requested to link my primary account to ING.
• July 31, 2007 - Received the ING test deposits in my primary account. Logged back into ING to verify. Link established. Requested transfer of 1/2 of the funds in my primary account to be transferred into ING.
• August 2, 2007 - Received direct deposit from my employer into my ING account. Funds available the day of deposit.
• August 2, 2007 - Received my Mastercard debit card. Still need pin number to activate. Pin was mailed separately for security purposes.
• August 3, 2007 - Paid 3 credit card bills. Paid online at credit card website.
• August 4, 2007 - Received emails from ING direct indicating that each of the credit cards had initiated an electronic withdrawal from my account. I like this feature.
• August 6, 2007 - Received pin and activated card online at the ING website.
• August 7, 2007 - Used debit card at Allpoint Atm in the BP Gas station down the street from my house. No fee charged although the machine was slow. (I could hear the modem dialing as I stood there). I also did a balance inquiry with no fee.

As of today, I am officially making this my primary checking account. I am able to pay bills online, get cash quickly, without a fee and without having to wait for a reimbursement. If anyone is on the fence about opening an account, I hope this helps you make a decision.

FYI - Even though I was already a customer, they still did a hard pull on my credit report. I assume this is for the overdraft protection.

I hope everyone has a great week.

Today is the end of the tax free holiday here in Georgia. It seems like everyone was out shopping today as traffic was horrible. I am glad I do not have any kids so I did not have to fight the crowds to get school supplies, clothing, etc. I did go out and pickup a laptop pad for $14.99, tax free. I'm sure some people overspent thinking they were getting great deals due to the tax free holiday. If you were buying a $1000 computer, you were only saving about $60 bucks based on our tax rate here of 6%. That is pretty good but I would rather wait until it has a great rebate to make it worth my while.

My 16 yr old cousin just recently got a part-time job at a restaurant working in the kitchen as a busboy. He asked me for advice on how to handle his money because he "wants to be rich like me". I was very taken aback at this statement and asked him why he thought I was rich. He stated well, you have a nice house, a nice car and alot of other nice things. I decided I should really open his eyes because he apparently is incorrect in what he considers rich. To make it simple to a 16 yr old, I tried to break our conversation down into sections.

Cars: He wants me to go to the car lot with him so he can by a new "phat" ride. I then proceeded to explain that new cars depreciate significantly when they drive off the lot. His response, why do so many people buy new cars? This is a good question but I did not have a good answer for him. I explained some people are actually paying cash for their vehicles and some people are financing them. When you finance a new car with debt, you usually end up owing more than the car is worth, especially if you put no money down or roll over another loan. Lesson: Save up and pay cash for a good reliable used car.

Debt: I asked him how would he like to always owe someone else money? He said he would not like that. I told him that is the way it is when you have debt. You always owe someone money as long as you are in debt. I told him if you finance a home or an education, it is different because you are using debt for an asset that can better prepare you for the future. The one debt you should always avoid is credit card debt. Credit cards are fine if you have the discipline to pay them off every month. Lesson: Only use debt to acquire assets and do NOT carry credit card debt.

Savings: This one was pretty easy because thankfully, his parents had already told him about this one. Although, they only explained plain old ordinary savings accounts. I took it a little further and described investing and retirement accounts. He has about $500 saved right now but once he saves $1500, he will invest $1000 and leave $500 in the bank. Lesson: Make your money grow outside of regular savings accounts or your purchasing power will decrease as inflation eats up any interest you earn.

To summarize our conversation, I told him looks can be deceiving. That person driving that "phat" ride could be in debt up to their eyeballs. Another thing is not trying to keep up with the "Joneses", which is funny because his next door neighbors last name is Jones. They also have a "phat" ride. I also advised I am not rich and I am far from it. If I had taken my own advice that I gave him, I would be in a much better financial position.

So how did I do? How would you have handled this? Anything else I should tell him?

Reminder: Please subscribe to SingleGuyMoney.

Check out the debt poll on the right side of the page. SingleGuyMoney wants to know how much debt you plan to pay off this year. I will leave this poll up for the next week. Please be sure to vote. Depending on the response, I may have to setup some kind of contest to see who can payoff the most debt.

I am not sure what happened with Feedburner but it was not updating when I posted a new post. I have reset Feedburner and it should be working correctly now. If you were previously subscribed to the site feed or wish to subscribe, you may do so on the right side of the page below the "About Me" section. You may also subscribe for updated via email. It doesn't matter which method you prefer but please be sure to sign up if you enjoy this blog.

As posted in my prior post, I opened an ING "Electric Orange" checking account last week.
So far the following has happened:

• Transferred most of my available cash from my local checking account to my Electric Orange account. They only hold funds transferred into the checking account for 2 business days.


• Setup Billpay


• Updated my new account information on all the bills I pay electronically.


• Transferred my direct deposit. Got paid today and that was deposited and available immediately.


• Received my checkcard today. Still need to get my pin to use the card. Should be sent within the next few days.


• Checked out the Allpoint website to locate free ATMs in my area. There are 340 within 50 miles of my zip and one right up the street at a 24 hr gas station.

I see they are now offering $25 to open a new Electric Orange account with a minimum of $250. Again, if you wish to get a free $25 and open a great new checking and savings account, email me here. I just need your name and email address and ING will send you an email on how to open the account. I do not get any details on your account and I will not sell your email address.

Assets

• Rental Property - $137000.00
• Primary Residence - $193000.00
• Car - $29500.00
• Retirement - $38482.89
• Cash (checking, savings) - $39514.15
• Brokerage - $3387.77

Total Assets: $448384.81

Liabilities

• Rental Property Mortgage - $151162.72
• Primary Home Mortgage - $184123.06 (first and second mortgage)
• Car Loan - $26693.48
• Student Loan - $22223.81
• Credit Cards - $11947.41

Total Liabilities: $396150.48

Net Worth: $52,234.33 increase from June: 1.12%. YTD Increase: 62.56%

In last month's update, I stated that June was the worst month as far as Net Worth increases but due to the market correction at the end of July, this is now the worst month YTD.

There aren't any major expenses coming up in August but I will get paid 3 times this month due to my bi-weekly pay schedule. My non-mortgage debt is $60864.70 but should get below $60k this month.

My credit card debt is as follows: $8017.78 @ 2.99% until balance is paid, $3800 @ 0% and $129.63 in charges from July that will be paid in full this month.