If you make a charge on your credit card and there is a problem with the transaction you can file a dispute with the credit card company. You have 60 days from the posting date to file this dispute. There are several reasons under which you can file a credit card dispute. The most common ones are as follows:

• Services not rendered.
• Item not received.
• Service canceled.
• Item returned.
• Duplicate charge.
• Partial dispute. – you don’t have to dispute the whole charge if you had a problem with only part of your order.

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It’s Saturday again. Was that the fastest week in history? It was to me. I have to have a quick mommy brag before we begin. My son sat on the potty! Which is huge since until about two weeks ago he would get down right mad if I even brought it up. Down with diapers in 2008!

Ok, here we go…

Frugal dad discusses the difference between being cheap and being frugal.
Paid Twice also participated in the group writing project over at We’re in Debt.
Pinching Copper listed ways to get ready for the recession. Something that is probably on everyone’s mind.
Get Rich or Die Trying bravely posted his monthly budget. I wrote a similar post regarding my budget but if you’re a daily reader you know I never posted it. I chickened out. Maybe this will give me the guts to post it.
Remodeling this Life wrote about how she hates Wal-mart. I personally find the great Wal-mart debate very interesting.

Have a great weekend!!

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For the first five years of my adult life I worked for tips. Which meant three things:

• I got paid daily
• I got paid in cash
• I never knew how much I was going to make.

Having a budget was entirely necessary. It’s pretty easy to overspend when your pockets are lined with cash after each shift. I got into the habit of writing down my days tips on the calendar each day when I got home from work. At least that way knew how much I was making. I also took $6 out of my tips each day and put it into savings. After that, I really made use of the envelope system. Although I didn’t know there was a name for it at the time. I did get a small weekly paycheck. I would save those up each month and deposit them all at once. It was enough to pay my rent.

At age 23 I got a new job and was no longer working for tips. Getting paid every other week by check was new to me. So, I needed a new kind of budget. I listed my expenses in a word document and allotted my income accordingly. I stuck to my original plan of holding my paychecks until the end of the month. At the end of the month, when I knew exactly how much I had made, I would fill in the upcoming month’s budget. When a bill was paid I would put the payment info into the budget. If it was a fund rather than a set amount, such as discretionary income, I used receipts to keep track of my spending and at the end of the day I would make a note of how much I had left in that category.

Then I met my husband. He upgraded my clunky word document into a nice organized Excel spreadsheet. This is the way to go. The budget is still basically the same. We sit down together each month and plan the budget for the upcoming month. We keep our receipts and use them to track our spending. We’ve recently started using Bruce the tax guy’s suggestion of organizing your receipts in envelopes for tax purposes. It works out nicely. My favorite part of our budget is that we both have our input. We each know exactly what our goals are and where our money is going. To me, just that alone is worth the effort it takes to have, and stick to, a budget.

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Did you know you can buy peace and freedom? Every dollar you pay toward debt buys you freedom. Every dollar saved buys you peace. Isn’t that what everyone wants? Peace and freedom, aren’t those things worth working for?

I think the easiest way to build up your emergency fund is to set up your direct deposit. Decide how much you would like to save (10% of your income is recommended, but if you can’t afford that don’t get frustrated, put aside what you can) and set up that amount to go into your savings account. If the money is too tempting then set it up at a different bank from where you have your checking account. That way you can’t just transfer it online. If you have to trek all the way across town during normal business hours you will be less likely to impulse shop with those funds.

Having a savings account gives you a grace period between a bad event and the consequences of that event. If you lose your job and you have savings, you have a grace period before you start to feel the pain. You have time to make a plan. You can find another job, reduce expenses, ask for help. If you don’t have savings then are left with nothing but a stack of bills that need to be paid. You have no time to plan, no grace period. Your choices are limited and things start to fall apart.

“But what about my debt?” You ask. Yes, pay off your debt as fast and furiously as possible. But that doesn’t mean you don’t put a little something aside for emergencies. Life happens, you need to be prepared. You don’t want to have to use a credit card if something comes up. Even putting $50 a month aside will help if you get into a bind. Once you have your debt paid off you can really start funding your savings account.

Start today!

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I want to get some professional pictures taken of my son. He turned two about two months ago and I feel guilty that I haven’t taken him. I’ve succumbed to the sales pitches of what it means to be a good mom. I’m not a fit parent unless I have a picture of my kid standing next to a big plastic number 2. It sounds stupid, I know. But gosh darn, they are just so cute!

I’ve had a coupon stuck to my fridge for the past three months for no sitting fee and various other savings. I just can’t seem to justify spending the money. It’s not like I don’t have a gazillion other pictures of him. We even had to buy an external hard drive just to keep them all on the computer. But still, I want professional pictures taken of him at each birthday.

Part of my guilt is that I have them of my daughter. I faithfully took her every year, even when I was only making $7,000 annually. That means I spent almost a week’s pay to get her pictures taken. And now I can’t find the money, even though it’s now a small fraction of a week’s pay. Oh the guilt!

I had decided I wasn’t going to take him. The coupon expires at the end of March and I don’t have the money. So I thought it was finished. But then the guilt came back over me. I thought about how if I don’t do it now I will lose this chance forever. So, I took him to get his haircut so he looks nice for his photo shoot today.

I feel good about taking him. I decided I would rather regret spending the money than regret not getting the pictures taken. I can always earn more money but I will never again be able to have pictures taken of my two-year old little boy.

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Yesterday Change Your Tree posted a happiness survey. It is part of a group writing project by Alex Shalman about the psychology of happiness. Which is a topic I find fascinating. I mean, who doesn’t love happiness? So here are my answers. Feel free to comment, leave your own answers, or leave a link to your own post with your answers.

1. How do you define happiness?

I’ve heard that happiness is ‘having someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for’. I couldn’t agree with that more. I find that I am happiest when I’m working towards my goals with those that I love.

2. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your happiness now, versus when you were a child?

Right now I would say my happiness is at about a 9. I would say this has greatly improved since being a child. I don’t know how I would have rated my happiness when I was a kid but looking back I would say it was probably a 5.

3. What do you do on a daily basis that brings you happiness? (and how consistent is the feeling of happiness throughout your day)

The things that bring me happiness on a daily basis are spending quality time with my husband and kids, cooking for my family, reading, and writing.

My happiness throughout the day is pretty consistent.

4. What things take away from your happiness? What can be done to lessen their impact or remove them from your life?

Not getting enough time to myself can take away my happiness momentarily. It just makes feel worn out and like I need to get away. Another thing that makes feel unhappy is inconsistency. I like to know what is going to happen and when. The times in my life that have most stressful have been when everything is up in the air.

5. What do you plan on doing in the future that will bring you even more happiness?

I’m working on finishing school. When my youngest starts school I would like to go to school full-time. I would love to have a fulfilling career. In the shorter term, I would also like to see my blogs really take off. That would make me happy.

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We all say things like “I saved $10 on these shoes.” But everyone knows we didn’t really “save” any money. At the end of the month we won’t have an extra $10. What we should say instead is “I stretched $10.00 on these shoes.” That explains what really happened.

The idea isn’t that we actually saved any money. What we did was stretch our money. We took that $10 and used it to buy something else. Stretching enables us to meet our needs with less money. I don’t have money left over from stretching because I used it to improve my lifestyle instead. Our budget is uncomfortably tight right now. This weekend I found a way to stretch about $20 a month at our favorite restaurant. I’m excited about this because it will mean we get to go out to eat an extra time. I’m not going to fool myself into thinking we will actually save any of that money.

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It’s Saturday again! Ahh… the weekend. I’m looking forward to a nice quiet weekend.

Here’s a review of my favorite posts of the week.
Jonathan over at Master Your Card explained the details of the a new law that will affect your credit card (for the better) if it passes.
Seb at Pinching Copper thought about what it would be like to live on minimum wage. I say if you are going to do the minimum, you are going to earn the minimum, and then you will have the minimum.
JB over at Get Rich or Die Trying explained how important it is to have a personal finance class in our schools. This topic is very close to my heart. I don’t think our kids have a clue about how to handle their money. This is a tragedy.
Ben at Trees Full of Money told everyone to optimize their 401(k) plans. Another topic that I love. If you don’t have 401(k) print this article and tape it to your desk. Read it every day until you set up your plan.
Becky at Family and Finances explained how she got rid of her escrow account. I didn’t know that was even an option. I will have to think about this one.
My Money Blog breaks down the details of the Money Merge Mortgage. If you have ever wondered about these types of loans this is the place to get the lowdown.

I hope you find all these links as interesting as I did. Have a great weekend!

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Having my wallet missing for almost a full day made me realize I should keep some cash in the house. I don’t normally have cash. I use debit for absolutely everything. I had to take my daughter to the doctor yesterday and I had to pay a $20 copay. The only cash I had in the house was the $100 I was given at the zoo. So I took $40 to get me through the day. I really don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t had that money. Don’t worry, I’ve already paid it back.

I couldn’t swing by the ATM because I didn’t have my debit card. I couldn’t go into the bank to get cash because I didn’t have ID. I had checks but most places ask for ID to accept a check. I do have a credit card in the house but it’s in my maiden name. Not that that mattered I guess since I didn’t have ID to prove my name one way or the other.

I’ve heard before that some people keep a mattress stash and I always wondered why. Seemed kinda silly to me. But I’ve learned my lesson. So please, everyone, keep a mattress stash!

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My husband found my wallet when he got home from work. phew. It was folded up in the stroller in the back of the van. I knew it was in the van. I looked there at least three times. I even pulled the stroller out but I didn’t open it up. So mystery solved. I don’t know why I got the cash out to pay the parking before I put the stroller away, but apparently I did.

My friend found her wallet too. It was also in the back of her car. I told you it was chaos getting the kids in and out of the car!

So all is right with the world again.

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