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Did you know the #1 reason for divorce is Money?

I had to walk away, because the car I owned for only 6 months was totaled when I made a left hand turn at a green arrow. the police officers took one look at my out of state plates, and said that I must have been going too slow, so the accident was my fault. If I was going too slow, shouldn't the approaching driver have been able to see me and stop? This is not the last time in my life I will wish I could afford a lawyer . . . Since I had an out of state license, and an instate residence, and Missouri and Indiana do not have linked BMV/DMV branches, we have never settled who I am supposed to pay, what I owe, or if I will ever be able to get a driver's license again. It will haunt me for years to come. The financially savvy out there will realize that, in fact, canceling my credit cards is where I made my first mistake. Canceling my cards was in effect, ruining my credit. As long as I kept using my cards, no matter how badly I handled the magic money, they would be there for me--like a co-dependent lover, holding back an alcoholic's hair while they puke. Canceling my cards was quitting--admitting defeat. Credit is made up of having loans OFFERED to you, and then making sure that the amount you take out is less than what is being offered in total. By quitting, I was announcing to the fiscal world that I was not good with money, I didn't anticipate getting better, and I would give up rather than fight for good credit. My then boyfriend (a man named Brian, like so many of them were), was having his own financial difficulties. His cell phone was being shut off, and he was worried about losing contact with the world. His mother was on his back about needing money, because she needed to make car repairs, or she would be even more dependent on him. I had been seeing Brian for just under a year, but his story touched my heart in a very personal way--I was very insecure about our relationship, and here he was desperate for something it seemed only I had, so I was sure to be able to buy his love on credit. (Hindsight makes me sad.) So inevitably, since this is the story of how I got here today, I gave him my credit card. And yes, worse, I uttered the words I have lived to regret: "I don't ever need to see this card again. Tell your Mom, as long as she makes the $15 minimum payment every month, I don't need to know how long it takes her to pay it back off." On November 11, 2003, Capital One says they received a letter saying I was deceased, and that I would no longer be paying off that bill. They noted the change in my living status, and alerted Equifax, and the other two leading credit reporting services, who kindly spread the word, so as not to have creditors calling and bothering my grieving beloveds. No one told me until 2005, when the apartment I was living in announced that rent would raise from $256 to $435, which I thought was horrible at the time. Oh, how I wish I had just accepted that and moved on . . . Instead, I tried to move, and discovered that no one would touch me with a ten foot pole. It was a woman at Cingular who told me that when she tried to report me to the FBI for identity fraud, she discovered I had already been reported twice that day, and she felt she should give me a friendly heads up. I fought and fought with Capital One to prove I am alive. It turns out to be much more difficult than it sounds. A letter got me 6 feet under, but a lawyer would have to bring me back--and I simply can't afford a lawyer's resurrection fees right now. So I did it by hand, and it took me a long time. I won't harp on this anymore, but it should be made clear--it's never going to go away. You get one credit report for your whole life--they simply add to the bottom. And Mine clearly says "Deceased" at some point. And then, it doesn't for some time. So any time a helpful, productive, over achieving clerk sees that someone accidentally unchecked the "Deceased" button on my credit report, they helpfully put it back in order, and the process starts again. Because of course, why would they notify me, if I was dead? The backlash of all that, is that once the word spread that I was alive, anyone who had stopped billing me because they thought I was untouchable now started tracking me, trying to find where I live, and sending me a bill for what I owed originally, plus years of late payments, and interest. Being Alive was mistake #3. I should have taken this opportunity to go live on the lam, under the radar, maybe join some sort of group that specializes in that sort of thing. I was dead, for all intents and purposes, and no one in banking likes to be told they are wrong. 2006 was the year I bought a car and started fighting to get my driver's license back. Sadly, I had not accomplished that when they pulled me over. So no with no license, I had no insurance, no insurance meant I couldn't register the car, no registration meant I had just left the old plates on the vehicle--any one of which is illegal, and they were totally justified in impounding my car, and throwing the book at me in court. In 2007, things were looking up. I had a real job, and had held it for more than a year--I even accepted the promotions, which were usually my signal to flee. I hate to be promoted at a job. It is a death sentence--it means that I really am going to do this job, indefinitely, comfortably accepting my paycheck every two weeks, and putting the hungry, cold, bus riding past behind me. This comfort zone always signaled the end for me: If I was happy here, I would not need to go back to school, get my degree or follow my calling. I could be happy enough right here, right? Wrong. I always quit when I realized there would be more money, more security and more potential for comfort in my future--but I still wouldn't go back to school. But in 2007, I was an Associate Project Manager, and my Boss was full of praise. I was living in an empty little apartment, with my little dog, and my little life, trying to fight off the scurvy that had set in in 2006 without the consultation of anymore doctors--doctors always meant more bills, and prescriptions, but never any sort of game plan. So I was fighting for my little life as best I could, and actually beginning to qualify for health insurance for the first time in 6 years. I could see a future that wasn't so bad. In September of 2007, a fire started underneath a bureau in my bedroom. I left the house at 7am, to get to work on time, and only my little dog was home. The fire started just after 4pm, and they called me at work to tell me it was out at 6pm. I was home by 6:30pm, but by then everything was black and charred. My little dog was coated in charcoal, and freaking out as you can imagine, but healthy and unharmed. But all of my possessions were ruined. All the art I had dabbled in over the years had finally gone up on my walls--and now up in smoke. My electronics looked fine to me--but the Fire Marshal warned me that I would have to cut the plugs off of them before I threw it all away--if one of these machines was put in another home, and the oily smoke had left residue inside, then the next fire would be my fault. So I hand wiped all of my books, took a lot of dirty laundry to the laundry mat, and slept on a couch for a few months while I figured things out. The Fire Marshal ruled out arson and electrical fire. The apartment complex said if it wasn't arson or electrical fire, than it had to be something I did, and after their insurance (not mine--I didn't have any) paid off, I would owe them just over $10,000. You wold think mistake number 4 was not getting renter's insurance. You may be right--but I will always think mistake number 4 was not getting a lawyer and a camera while the apartment was still dripping from the fire hoses. He began the process of selling his house, when I said I couldn't bear to be trapped in Geist--there are no buses there, and I don't have a license. I was already registered to finally FINALLY go back to school. That was the only financial hardship I can't regret. I have taken out more than $15,000 in school debt, and its worth every penny. I can't wait to geta job in my own field, and start paying it back. Totally worth it, no regrets. But I couldn't have him driving me back and forth from school all the time--it was too expensive, and it made me feel like a prisoner, not able to leave unless he could take me. I would say that trying to sell his house--even in such a nice part of town--was our first big mistake together, as a family. But, the wedding was in January of 2008, so moving in together wasn't a hard leap for us at all. Sadly, his three children all wanted a place to stay in our new apartment too, so we ended up in a beautiful 1800 sq ft apartment, with stained glass and original crown molding . . . for just under $1200 a month, which is ridiculous. And, of course, our second big mistake as a family. Maybe we should have rented a one bedroom apartment and put up sheet to separate our our corners. We might have been able to afford sheets. . . Instead, we had an apartment the size of a house with rooms for each of us. The very second his oldest son moved out and got his own apartment, we took in a renter. That renter took in a renter, and then that renter took in a renter, and now we can't even begin to afford the rent on this place without three renters at all times. Of course, anyone who has ever had to rent a room out of their home knows, no renter is ever permanent, unless you want them to move out, so we have unsuccessfully gone through eight renters in the last year and a half, each with more or less their own financial burden, or wasteland of unpreparedness when they leave us. Brian and I don't see eye-to-eye on his past financial mistakes, so I will biasedly list what I think his are, without going into his story in depth. His financial troubles are so mundane, it's not even a story. In America, you marry, have children, make home repairs, go bankrupt, and get foreclosed on. That's what happens today--that's who we are. When you marriage falls apart, you try to save it, and when you can't, you get divorced, and then you pay child support. He owes almost $4,000 in credit card debt, which they can't garnish from his wages, because his wages are already garnished as much as is legal. That did not stop the government, however, who says he owes back taxes, since the divorce and his ex-wife filed all the kids, so they went ahead and started keeping a few hundred out of every paycheck. Today, he wrote to tell me they had put a hold on his bank accounts, and anything we put in it automatically goes to Taxes. I can't have a bank account. I tried, but it triggered a law suit from Capital One, for just under $4,000 in late fees and interest on that $500 card from all those years ago, and I can't risk anyone else coming out of the woodwork to take money from me I don't have. When I get my student loan checks, I have made it priority one to pay off any nasty outstanding debt, and then pay off the rent for as far as we can see. In this case, we are moving out in May, to move to Bloomington. I will be graduating with my undergraduate in Sociology from IUPUI in May, and if I get accepted to IU, start my grad program in August. So the plan is to pay off rent through May, minus whatever it takes to file bankruptcy myself. I'm worried all the time that we aren't going to be able to pull ourselves one fire after another. I should believe--Brian does, with all his heart. He believes the Universe takes care of us. And when I look back at all the terrible, outlandish, bizarre things that have happened in the last decade, I can't help but think, well, yeah, so far, there is no reason I should be so well dressed, well fed, in a beautiful home, with a loving husband, and a pack of tiny dogs. The universe has stepped up over and over again to help me out of crazy binds. We don't have hobbies anymore. We don't eat out, or see movies, or even visit friends. Gas is too expensive to travel, and our clothes is going to last us a while longer. Our big expenses are rent--which will change in May, and Child Support--which will change in January. Then we have to cut back on debt, not spending I guess. But the only way to cut back on debt is to cut back on spending, so if we think we are bare bones now, it's going to look pretty lush and fertile compared to what we are going to get down to, if I have anything to say about it. In the past, things could get really dire. It was always so horrible, when I would realize I had exactly $20 short from rent, no groceries, and no bus pass. I have begged, bartered, mooched and pawned most of my friends to death by now, and I don't see most of them anymore. I gave up hobbies, outings, social exchanges, and home cooked food. But when it got bad, it was just that--bad. Just me, and then me and my little dog. No one else to suffer from my mistakes. That's why Finances are such a big part of divorce: being very poor doesn't end a marriage. But thinking things couldn't get any worse, and he spends even $1 on a lottery ticket can blow up to astronomical proportions. Secret credit cards, and hidden spending can drive a wedge so far between loved ones that no amount of apologizing can help. We can look past an affair. It was her, it was him, it as just this once, it was just sex, or true love, and those circumstances will never happen again. But being bad with money--can we really see that changing? Won't we be forced to live paycheck to paycheck for the rest of our lives, without hope of gaining security, if we always have to watch over each others checkbooks, and monitor one another like misbehaving children? I intend to get our finances back on track, because I don't mind being poor, but I want to stay that way or get better, not worse. I don't like feeling safe and happy one day, desperate and insecure the next. I intend to make sure that we never end up in this place again. Because I intend my marriage to last. I intend to stay married to this man as long as we are supposed to love one another, and not just as long as we can afford to live together.

Source: Sex Sandwich And A Nap, Please

Netspend: Taking it to the bank, or not

As a result, some people end up cashing their paychecks at a check-cashing agency, where all that’s required is a driver’s license and a signature. But the same people who can’t afford the fees for a bank account are sacrificing a percentage of their hard-earned cash in check-cashing fees.

For instance, a person who has a paycheck of, say, $900, may pay close to $30 to get it cashed through a check-cashing store. If he does that 30 times, he’s lost an entire paycheck to fees.

Keith Owens, Tahlequah center manager for Advance America Cash Advance, said his agency offers non-banking customers a new option that could save them money.

“We take payroll checks, and rather than convert them to cash, we load them on a prepaid Visa card through NetSpend,” said Owens. “That card works just like a bank-issued debit card, except there’s no overdraft fees. When the balance reaches zero, you can’t use the card.”

According to Owens, there is no fee to deposit a paycheck to a NetSpend account, and customers also have the option of getting their payroll checks direct-deposited to the account.

“We can also load cash on the cards here, at a fee of $2,” said Owens. “NetSpend has certain fees, like any other debit card, for using ATMs and things like that.”

Owens, who recently transferred to Tahlequah from his company’s Wagoner office, said the popularity of the prepaid Visa cards has grown exponentially.

“Since I’ve been here, we’ve really been trying to promote the option, and more and more people are using it,” he said. “I have one myself, and I feel like it’s more secure than my bank’s debit card. I also like not having to worry about overdraft fees. If you spend $3 over on a bank card, you can get hit with $20 in overdraft fees.”

Indeed, many banks offer automatic overdraft protection – sometimes up to $400 or more, if a checking account has remained in good standing for a predetermined length of time. But if you opt to use it, it’s going to cost you.

One local resident and NSU student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, knows all too well how quickly this protection, if abused, can run up a deficit balance.

“By taking out money on the ATM card that I didn’t have, sometimes just to get me through to my next paycheck, I ended up paying hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees,” he said. “By the time my next direct-deposit hit the bank, sometimes I didn’t have a paycheck left, or worse, I was still in the red.”

He admits he didn’t exercise good judgment, and that the bank told him when he opened the account about the fees involved for overdrafts.

But it’s a mistake many people make – so much so, that the banking industry is taking in anywhere from $25 billion to $38 billion a year in overdraft fees from customers, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

Last week, the Federal Reserve imposed rules making it more difficult for banks to hit customers with overdraft fees, allowing the customer to “opt out” of overdraft protection.

If a customer opts out of the protection, the bank card would operate much like the prepaid cards, in that when the balance reaches zero, the card would be declined.

Local pawn shop owner Tony Boyle doesn’t have a debit or ATM card.

“And I never will have, either,” he said. “A lot of people don’t have $20 cash in their pocket who have the resources to do so, which I think is silly. I have one credit card, and if you want to travel or rent a car, you have to have one. But I haven’t used it in years.”

Boyle said much of the problem with the way people manage money today stems from lack of education.

“It’s all about instant gratification,” said Boyle. “While savings rates have improved, they’re still not near what people in other countries save. I can’t understand why someone would endanger their children’s future for a new pair of shoes, or a new car.”

Boyle is also aware that people often cry foul about banking and lending fees when they shouldn’t.

“I’ve never held a gun to anyone’s head and forced them to take out a loan on some tools,” he said.

“They know what they’re doing.”

Source: Teddye Snell

Source: News and Events