Lotsa Rants

Today I have many rants.

I'm annoyed with my bank because first they increase the minimum balance to maintain a savings account without a fee. I close the account because I now get better interest (these days its not much, but every penny helps) with ING. I take out all the money and tell the CSR I'm closing the account, but apparently he doesn't do it. So when my bank charged me a maintenance fee, I had to call them up to take it off and really close the account. At least that one didn't cost me any money.

Then there's Citibank. Have a credit card with them. I take a weekend and pay/set up a lot of my credit cards with online banking information. Citi claims I put in the wrong checking account information, but doesn't tell me that until a week after the payment is due. I doubt I did it wrong because when I tried to "fix" it, the online program kept telling me I wasn't changing anything, so I couldn't "edit" the information. But the CSR took off the late fee and 'returned payment' fee because I agreed to make the full payment (which was actually two monthly payments now) right then and signed up for their credit protection service for free for 30 days (which we will now have to write them to cancel because those things are just new ways to suck your money).

So I make the full two month payment (even though the Oct. payment isn't really due yet) and confirm that the checking account info they now have is correct. So what happens? Come the day that the Oct. monthly payment was due, which I actually paid several weeks ago (and confirmed on line that I had O minimum payment due), the program still took out the full payment (which was actually two monthly payments). Normally I wouldn't mind too much if it cut down my interest charge, but this account is currently on a 1.99% promotion rate, so it was very minimal savings, but now I'm out two monthly payments that I didn't owe (with money already short these days and we're living on a tight monthly budget - not a whole lot available for 'extra' payments).

Also, the lovely Citi CSR person didn't tell me that because that first online payment didn't go through, my account got put into "default" mode, which means that I was going to have my interest rate increased to 30% and the balance transfer check I had already written (to transfer a higher interest credit card account to the 1.99% interest rate) would now be declined. I find this out only after the balance transfer check got bounced (which my bank charged me another fee). Fortunately more phone calls and requests for fee waivers got approved and I got the returned check fee waived by my bank and Citi finally agreed to keep my interest rate at the original 1.99% rate. I didn't ask if I could do more balance transfers, I figured that the less of my money Citi has right now, the better. I'll just work to pay off the higher rate card faster.

Granted all these problems got resolved, but they all took time to do so over the telephone and caused me stress in the meantime. Also, they only got resolved in my favor because I didn't have prior problems on my accounts. Now, of course, if I have new problems, I may not get a good resolution because of these now prior problems (which weren't my fault). I guess that overall this is just a lesson in why we need to get these stupid cards paid off as fast as we can. Its just hard to do with the current state of the economy, and little extra money left over each month.

The Septa strike is another rant of mine because that one is costing me money. Because I can't take the subway to work, I have to take the train. That costs me an extra $7.00 per day for fare and parking, plus the extra driving to the farther train station. A few days is not a real problem, but if the Septa strike continues for a few weeks, that $7.00 a day starts to add up real quick. Plus I have to make sure I have lots of change available to pay for parking because the meters don't take dollar bills. I'm sure Stephane wants the strike to end soon too, because since I have to be at the train station before 7 am to get a parking spot, he has to take the kids to daycare in the morning, which is a bit out of his way to work. Not a lot of sympathy for the union workers, who make $52,000 a year with guaranteed raises, cadillac health care plans (for which they pay $400 a month for a family) and well funded pensions (of which they only pay 2% of their salaries).

Its a tough time. Every penny/dollar counts these days, as expenses seem to continue to go up, yet our income remains flat. Just need to get through to August when daycare expenses will go down some at least. Hopefully Stephane will get even a small raise this year too.