Category Archives: Money Honey

Gas Prices Across the U. S.

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Found a very cool internet tool on Gas Buddy that shows a map of the entire U.S. broken down into counties and color coded to show the current cost of gas in each county. It is amazing to see the huge disparity in the cost of gas, with the highest costs always seeming to be in California and along the west coast, including Washington, Oregon, Nevada and then over to New York on the east coast, and surprisingly, Maine is very high, too.

At the moment the three cheapest states include Missouri, Oklahoma and South Carolina.

There is also a map that show the cost of gas across Canada.

Check out the U. S. National Gas Temperature map for yourself – isn’t it cool?

Ross Perot is Charting Again

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Remember Ross Perot? Rich guy from Texas, ran for president, made a lot of noise. A lot of what he says makes sense, and when a millionaire – or more likely billionaire – is willing to talk about money and share his insights, maybe the rest of us peasants should listen to him and take his advice. He is a powerful and persuasive speaker and is notorious for using lots of charts to illustrate his points.

Perot has launched a website called www.perotcharts.com that has . . . you guessed it! Charts.

He’s trying to help America manage it’s money and its debt. Check it out.

Emergency Cash

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My step daughter had borrowed one of my cars for the past week as hers was broken down for some unexplained mechanical problem. I don’t mind letting her borrow the car for short periods, but she makes it very difficult to keep my resolve to close down the “Daddy ATM.” Her mother and I decided at the first of the year that we must stop shelling out hundreds of dollars each month to “help out” as long as she continues to choose this path down the wrong road.

As I was cleaning out the car upon it’s return, I noticed a paper stuck between the seats and the console. It was a paper receipt for a payday loan. I was shocked and dismayed, but then again, since we told her in no uncertain terms that the cash handouts from our wallets are over, I suppose she thinks she has no choice but to use those types of cash advances to tide her over.

The problem with this is that she never seems to have enough money to pay the loan off and she ends up renewing the loan, putting herself farther behind. This is exactly the type of behavior that we are trying to discourage and she must be even more hard headed than I thought if she is not learning this important financial and independent lifestyle lesson.

Payday loans are a great tool for a one time emergency cash advance. It is supposed to be used for things like emergency car repairs and emergency medical expenses, with the key words being “emergency.”

Now I know I just said that her car was broken down, but I’m not sure I believe her. The car was in excellent condition when we bought it for her last year. I check it over once in a while to make sure the oil is changed and the fluids are OK, the tires are OK, etc. I hadn’t noticed anything going wrong so I have to wonder what the emergency repair was for and she has managed to not share that information with us. If it is true, I hope she is going to handle this payday loan as a responsible adult and pay it off with her very next paycheck.

Comparing Notes

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Talking with another District Manager last night we were comparing notes on how our out of pocket expenses have been increasing the past few months. With our contract renewals right around the corner, we are looking hard at how much money our current rate really nets so we can arm ourselves with information for our next contract negotiations.

One of my biggest expenses is gasoline, as I live exactly 22 miles from the office and there’s no way to shave that expense. I’m not moving out of this house – I love it here – and I’m not able to use a smaller vehicle and get the same same payload.

My next big expense is all the paperwork and all the route sheets, invoices and payroll information that I have to print on paper every week. We go through a case of printer/copier paper every week. Tommy says he buys his paper one or two packs at a time for $2.50 per pack. I told him that a case of 10 is only $21.0, so he can save a little that way.

I bought a low end HP laser printer that goes through one laser cartridge every 2-3 weeks. Tommy is using the Lexmark printer that came with his Dell computer system that he bought online last year. It uses the little inkjet cartridges and he goes through those like string through a duck.

I told him to try using the refilled inkjet cartridges – there’s a lot of money to be saved by recycling your empty inkjet cartridges and buying refilled cartridges. The refilled HP cartridges that I buy cost 40% less than the brand new ones. I’ve used them for 2 years now with no problems at all and I’ve saved a lot of money. Tommy says he had thought of that but was concerned that the refilled inkjets might hurt his printer. I had to laugh – he is so gullible if he believes that he has to buy new inkjets!

Van Adventures

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Last year we bought a full size Chevy van from a used car dealer that advertised online. We were looking for something to use at the warehouse and didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it – just something mechanically sound with no frills.

The one we found was a good price and since we were in a hurry, we agreed to buy it. That meant someone had to fly out to California to pick it up and drive it back, which wasn’t a big deal. The hardest part of the plan was figuring out how to get from the airport to the dealer, which involved a cheap hotel room on the way because of the flight schedules. That all worked out and a few thousand bucks later we had the keys to a van.

I have full coverage insurance on the Tahoe and the Mazda, so I called my insurance agent to let him know that we bought the van and needed to add it to our policy. Since it was the weekend, all I got was his voice mail. Since we made the decision so quickly and had to buy it quickly – good deals never last – we had bought the van and driven 1,200 miles before Monday morning when the insurance agent got my voicemail. I was worried that if something bad happened on the way back we might not be covered by insurance. But thankfully the trip was uneventful in that regard, and as it turns out my full coverage insurance policy covers a new vehicle purchase for the first few days anyways.

The great thing about having that little insurance umbrella is that we were covered for the trip back but when we got back I had the chance to make some calls to get competitive quotes and also go online to find the best price on Van Insurance. We ended up paying a little under $100 per month for the van’s coverage by adding it as an additional vehicle to our other insurance. But it is always worth checking and getting new quotes it’s time for renewal.

This reminds me that I took some great snapshots on that trip back from California. Let me see if I can find a few and post them on the blog to share – it was a great trip. And we’ve got a good work van, now.