Fabulous Financials

photo credit: thoth92

Tipping is an expense that is often overlooked or poorly planned for when on vacation. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I’ve been guilty of forgetting to include this expense in my vacation budget. When this happens, I either 1) forget to get cash out of the ATM, 2) have cash but it runs out too soon, 3) attempt to track my expenses but can’t account for $xx, or 4) tip poorly.

I’d like to think I’m a pretty decent tipper and a decent trip planner, but I’ve already made the mistake on my previous trip and I have at least 3 more planned before the end of summer. So this time, I want to make sure tips are properly accounted for in the planned vacation budget.

Here are a few service providers that I tip in cash:

Taxi Driver

My closest airport does not have metro access nor do I live near a metro station. So I either have to drive to the airport and pay $9/day for airport parking, rely on a friend to drop me off and pick me up (on time), call a car service, or take a taxi. Unless I’m traveling on business, I prefer the latter. It’s the cheapest and most convenient of all options.

Depending on locale, it is standard to tip the greater of 15% or $2 - plus $1 for each bag if he helps take them out the car.

Skycap

This is the person who helps with your luggage at the airport. Depending on the length of time away from home, I may have a carry-on only, but most of the time, I need to check a 2nd bag. When I don’t have time to stand in line, I play nice with the skycap.

If you check-in curbside, it is standard to tip $1-2 per bag, which shouldn’t be confused with the new $2 fee for curbside service.

Airport Shuttle Driver

Some hotels provide complimentary shuttle service from the airport and there are many companies who set up shop at the airport to provide the needed service. With the cost of gas these days, it will be interesting to watch the price creep.

Depending on the distance to your hotel, it is standard to tip $1-2 each way.

Hotel Bellhop

This is the person at the hotel who may carry your bags, show you to your room, open the blinds, and show you how to operate things in your room. You don’t have to use the bellhop to carry your bags, but if you do, s/he deserves a tip.

It is standard to tip the greater of $5 or $1 per bag. Upon check out, if you call the bellhop, it is standard to tip $2 per bag.

Hotel Concierge

This is the person at the hotel who gives you the 411. Sometimes it’s general information about the hotel amenities or directions to a tourist destination. Other than providing the basics, if they do anything special for you (i.e. make reservations, get better seats, discounts, exclusive entry, upgrades, etc.), you should thank them with some green.

It is standard to tip $2-5 each time you get a hook up.

Hotel Maid Service

The hotel maid should be tipped everyday. Some people leave a tip when they check out, but here’s the problem. What if the person who cleans your room on the last day is not the same person who cleaned your room all the previous days? Show appreciation for the “daily” service.

Depending on the type of hotel, it is standard to tip $1-5/day - the higher end for fancier hotels and adjusted up/down based on your level of satisfaction. Clearly label the tip “maid service” to ensure they don’t make a mistake and take something that belongs to you.

Bartender

If you run a tab, 15%. If not, it is standard to tip $1 for each alcoholic beverage.

Pet Sitter

I can either board Precious in a kennel, take her to doggy daycare, or have a pet sitter come to my home. I prefer that she stays at home because it is somewhat cheaper and the familiar environment reduces her separation anxiety. Therefore, I hire a sitter to feed and walk her twice a day.

This service has a fee per visit, but I tip based on the service provided above and beyond my expectations because I’m very anal. Not only do I require a written report (we have a standard form) of her behavior and eating habits, I also carefully observe my Precious and inspect my home when I return. Did the sitter have to give her a bath? She’s winter white, so it’s very easy to tell. Did the sitter only walk her or did she stay awhile and play with her too? Based on her demeanor when I return, I can if she’s been neglected. Did the sitter have to administer meds? Is her eating area (and paws) clean?

If everything is kosher, I tip the greater of 15% or $5/day. If I’m feeling really generous, I may bring the sitter a souvenir from my trip. After all, I trust this person with the keys to my home and the care of a loved family member.

Others

Depending on the vacation destination, I may also tip the tour guide, instructor, hostess, aesthetician, etc. $1-3 per activity.

This list isn’t all inclusive, but these are the main services providers I like to tip when I’m on vacation. So it looks like I need to budget a minimum of $50 for tips. Ooooh, and I need to remember to make an ATM run before I go. Yea, that’s kind of important.

Fun Fact: “The word “tip” originated in England and was an acronym for “to insure promptness”
- Source

Image credit: tollfreenumber.org

I had a family plan with Verizon Wireless, 1400 minutes at $99.99 per month. Using my employer discount, the final bill after taxes and fees ran about $80 something every month.

As of 19 May 2008, the 2 year contract expired on my primary line. As of 12 July 2008, the 2 year contract expired on my 2nd line. Don’t ask me why they were different. In addition to poor customer service, this is only one of the many asinine things I’ve endured since being a Verizon Wireless customer for the past 5 years. Needless to say, I’m looking for a new love.

Effective the 18th, I disconnected my 2nd line and converted to an individual plan - BabyGirl is now responsible for her own cell phone bill/usage. Verizon has an unlimited individual plan for the same amount I was paying for my family plan, but I decided to reduce the calling plan to 900 minutes for $59.99, which is a reduction of 500 minutes (BabyGirl used way more than that) and a savings of ~$30 per month. However, as a basic wireless user, I still think that’s too much.

So I did some research. I used this website to do a side-by-side comparison of the most basic individual calling plans offered by Alltel, AT&T/Cingular, Nextel, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Using only the criterion that are important to my decision, this is what I found:

• They all have national coverage. Doesn’t matter if it isn’t reliable [-SM]
• They all offer basic services: call waiting, call forwarding, caller ID, three-way, voice mail.
• They all require 2 year agreements.
• All of their basic plans begin at $39.99.
• Alltel offers the most minutes (500) on the starter basic plan. All others are 450, except T-Mobile at only 300.
• T-Mobile is the only one to offer the “myFaves” feature, which allows you to have unlimited conversations with 5 people on ANY network for free.
• AT&T is the only one to offer rollover, which allows you to rollover unused minutes from month to month. For someone who doesn’t talk much, the rollover may come in handy during unsual months [-SM]
• With the exception of Nextel and T-Mobile, all others offer unlimited mobile-to-mobile.
• AT&T is the only one with limited nights and weekends minutes (5000). All others are unlimited.
• Night hours begin at 7pm for Nextel and Sprint. All others don’t begin until 9pm.
• Night hours end at 6am for Alltel, AT&T, and Verizon. All others end at 7am.
• Weekend hours begin on Friday 9pm for Alltel and AT&T, Friday 7pm for Nextel and Sprint, and Saturday 12am for Verizon and T-Mobile.
• Weekend hours end on Monday 6am for Alltel and AT&T, Monday 7am for Nextel and Sprint, and Sunday 11:59pm for Verizon and T-Mobile.
• Alltel charges $0.59/minute for off-network roaming. All others are free.
• Alltel has the lowest activation fee at $25. All others are $35.

Reviewing this list, the best features seem to be: Alltel offers the most minutes. T-Mobile offers unlimited convo with 5 people. AT&T offers rollover. Nextel and Sprint have night hours from 7pm to 7am and weekend hours from 7pm Friday to 7am Monday. Alltel has the lowest activation fee. Now I need to prioritize and figure out what is most important to me.

Here’s my wireless usage profile:

• I don’t have a house phone, which means I use my cell phone for everything. Aside from customer service, reliability is THE most important thing to me. Price is third, then minutes, features, and phone options last.
• I use my cell phone for personal use only.
• I use lots of minutes, but my longest conversations are with the same people. Conversations with others are usually limited to no more than 20 minutes.
• Unless I’m in transition (job change, moving, new tenants, etc.), my usage is predictable.
• I do NOT use data features (i.e. text, picture, internet, ring tones, etc.)

Based on the above, I’m leaning towards a T-Mobile “my fave” plan. If I can have unlimited conversations with five people, I’d rarely use any other minutes. As for their customer service (my #1 criteria), I had T-Mobile before I moved to the DC area and I loved them. However, I had to switch when I moved because I couldn’t get a signal (my #2 criteria) at home or work. I used to live in a rural area and worked in a restricted zone, but I’m in a completely different location now - both home and work. I wonder how reliable they are in DC.  I don’t want to make a final decision without covering all of my bases.

In YOUR experience, who is the BEST wireless service provider? And why?

I just spent several hours recreating my corrupted spreadsheet. I still have no idea how it happened, but you best believe, that mug is now backed up, password protected, and secured like Fort Knox. As I was gathering the data, I noticed a recurring theme. Gas is getting friggin expensive! Ok, ok, that’s no surprise, but seeing the numbers in black and white gave me a serious reality check. Here are my monthly gas expenses for the year:

Jan: $74.86 <–not bad

Feb: $80.17 <–slight increase

Mar: $144.57 <–dang, what happened here!?!

Apr: $163.26 <–creep, creep…

May: $99.01 <–wishful thinking!

Jun: $184.09 <–told ya!

In addition to this month’s (June) gas expenses, I also paid $26.84 for an oil change plus $90.00 for parking, resulting in total transportation costs of $300.93. Umm, wow! This doesn’t include the ~$30 I’ve contributed to friends when I’m a passenger or the $409.10 I paid for six months car insurance premium. Then immediately, I thought to myself…

I wonder who buys premium gas these days and why?

I wonder how people manage with gas guzzling SUVs?

I wonder how people manage with car payments?

Hmm…I wonder - what is my auto expense threshold before I consider riding the metro?

[pause]

The metro???? Naaaaaaaaah! LOL!

As you can see, even with a fuel efficient Honda Accord and no car payment, the progressively increasing auto expenses are going to make me lose my mind!

Lots of random thoughts, so I’ll do a random update post:

Unexpected Money

When I filed my taxes this year, I had to claim the relocation benefits I received from my last employer as income, but I couldn’t write off the relocation expenses as deductions. Weird, I know, employer requirement, hard to explain. Anyhoo, because of this, I had to file a separate form with my employer and they have a process to evaluate what my tax liability would have been without the extra income. Any excess between what I paid and what I should have paid is sent to me via a refund from the employer, not Uncle Sam. Long story, short. I received the unexpected refund this week. Over $1,200.

Emergency Fund

As of today, I made the final transfer to meet my $20k e-fund goal! Because of the unexpected refund above, the balance now sits at $20.7k. I also set up a $100 bi-weekly payroll allotment for the e-fund. All extra above $20k will be earmarked for “non-retirement investing.” When it reaches $3k, I will open that long awaited Vanguard account, then redirect all extra money to to the new account.

Payday

My payroll problems were finally corrected. Benefits, tax exemptions, allotments, 401k match, retro payments/refunds, etc. - everything is kosher now. Thank da lawd! July has 3 pay periods and I plan to spend the extra cash on my rental property.

Medical Expenses

As of yesterday, the braces are completely off. BabyGirl was given two sets of retainers plus a night guard. I also made the final $250 payment, a total of ~$4,000 for 2 years of orthodontia care. Her teeth are beautiful, but with all the back and forth visits, I’m glad it’s over!

Precious’ vet bill this year was $248.69, which is $65+ more than previous years ($185 in 2007 and $177 in 2006). I’ve never had an annual vet bill more than $200, so I asked for a line by line itemized report of this year and last year. Although the secretary tried to explain the difference, I had to see for myself. About 10% was due to regular inflation that occurs every year, but one procedure was an additional $40 by itself. WTF! The reason? They send the culture to an outside lab for testing/examination and they have to pay extra for shipping/transportation expenses. In other words = FUEL!! I tell ya, this fuel crisis is hurting everything!

Car Insurance

Due to pure laziness, I didn’t research for better rates. My new 6 month (Jul-Dec) premium is $409.10 and it’s due next week. I thought this was a savings from the $468 that I used to pay, but I forgot it was reduced to $406.30 last December when I increased my deductible from $500 to $1,000. So in essence, this 6 month premium increased by $2.80. Not a lot of money, but it definitely shouldn’t be going in the wrong direction. That’s what I get for being lazy. I’m going to pay the premium in full this time, instead of the monthly payment plan. Other than saving the $1 processing fee, I just want one less bill to worry about every month.

Rental Property

My tenants are moving out this month and I’m meeting two potential tenants tomorrow morning for a scheduled tour. One is coming at 10 and the other at 11. It’s a 2 hour drive and I’m not looking forward to it. After the last tour, I’m meeting a girlfriend for lunch. She’s offered to show the property for me in the future, so I won’t have to drive down there again. But if the property isn’t rented by the end of this month, I’m turning it over to a property management company.

Edit to Add: Thank you all for bringing the blog problem to my attention. I appreciate all of the emails. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the post or why it was cut off HOURS after I published. In the original post, I provided a few updates about my summer vacation plans and my feelings about BabyGirl’s summer away, but it’s gone now and I don’t know how to fix it.

While I’m on the subject, I haven’t been blogging regularly because I’ve had quite a few computer issues lately. I don’t know if I have a computer virus or if my blog has been hacked - maybe both. So much for the Norton All-in-One Computer Protection, huh? My spreadsheets are damaged, which means all of my expense tracking and net worth details for the entire year are GONE. I’ve tried to do a system restore and file recovery, to no avail. I also keep getting “404 errors” when I publish or update posts on my blog. And some evenings, I can’t get online at all or the “high speed” connection is extremely slow. The latter may be attributed to the terrible weather we’ve had in the past few days, but trying to get online or attempting to write a blog post is challenging.

It’ll take weeks to get my spreadsheets back in order and I’ll need help with the blog issue, but everything will be fixed - eventually. If it aint one thing, it’s another. But eh, so is life. *shrug*

Blog wit’cha soon.

photo credit: Jaye_Elle

For the past three years, May has become annual exam month for my entire family. I visit my OB-GYN, BabyGirl visits our PCP (as of this year, also the OB-GYN), and Precious has her wellness visit/annual vaccines at the Vet. Needless to say, medical expenses in May exceed any other month of the year. So far, I’ve spent $356 in medical expenses, which include co-pays, Rx, and OTCs. Now that the month is over, I want to share how I saved money on Rx.

Information Gathering: When I stopped by the pharmacy to pick up two Rx - one for myself and one for BG - the cashier said my total was $100. What?!?! Wait a minute. I already pay $91 for premiums every pay period and $30 for each specialist visit. I could not understand why I had to pay so much for an Rx, which is usually $7-$20 each.

I asked the pharmacist if there were any generics available and she said no. Now what the heck kind of special medication is this with no generic version? Then I asked for the name of the meds so I could go home and look them up online. When I logged into my insurance provider’s website, I searched for the Rx name, its purpose, side effects, alternatives, etc. After about 10 minutes, I found exactly what I was looking for…and a bonus…the primary active ingredients. Armed with information and a better understanding, I made a few phone calls.

First up, I called my insurance company. I wanted to know WHY my out of pocket costs (OOPC) were $50 for each Rx. I was told because the meds were “non-formulary” which is just another word to mean “not on the HMO preferred list so you’re on your own sucka!” Yea…ok.

First Rx: Then I called my doctor’s office to explain the situation. I asked the nurse if there was a reason the doctor prescribed THAT specific med. I explained that my insurance company had a “preferred med list” and there was another med with the same % of the primary active ingredient. I also asked if she could call in an alternative Rx, which would make my out of pocket costs $10 vs. $50. We discussed the purpose of the original med and why my doctor preferred that specific brand. I don’t have a medical degree, so I was not about to press the issue, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. After hearing the hesitation in my voice, the nurse asked:

Nurse: How close are you to the office?

Single Ma: I’m at home right now. About 15 minutes away without traffic. Why?

Nurse: We might have a sample here in the office. Let me check.

Single Ma: [on hold]

Nurse: Yes, we have a sample. Will that solve the problem for you?

Single Ma: Of course.

Nurse: We close at 2pm today. Stop by to pick it up when you can.

Single Ma: Great, thanks!

OOPC: $50 –> $0

Second Rx: I called BG’s doctor and had a similar conversation. They didn’t offer a sample, but they agreed that one of the alternatives would work just fine - reducing my out of pocket costs from $50 to $10. The nurse called in the alternative Rx and I was all set.

While waiting for the prescription to be filled, I browsed on my insurance provider’s website. I discovered that a 30 day supply would cost $10 but a 90 day supply would cost $20. Hmm…another $10 savings. So I called the pharmacy to make sure they received the alternative Rx and asked if they could fill a 90 day supply. I was told the doctor would have to authorize it because some meds have to be restricted. Otherwise, they could only dispense a 30 day supply.

You know what I did right? I called BG’s doctor back! LOL I asked them to call the pharmacy again and specify a 90 supply with 3 refills vs. a 30 day supply with 11 refills. She said no problem, and within minutes, it was done. Great!

OOPC: $150 for 90 day supply ($50/30 days) –> $20 for 90 day supply

This experience taught me a very important lesson. In order to save money on Rx, I should:

1. Understand the Rx
2. Understand the details of my insurance coverage
3. Ask for FREE samples first
4. If #3 is N/A, ask for the generic alternative
5. Never be afraid to ask the doctor to explain their med choices

One of my girlfriends thought I was out of my mind to question WHY my doctor prescribed a certain med, then had the nerve to ask for an alternative. LOL I told her these doctors are “practicing” but I’m not a guinea pig. Besides, this is MY body, MY money, and ultimately MY decision - so I have a right to know, ask questions, and understand. And you do too!

At the end of the day, we received the appropriate meds and saved $180.