GG's Financial Management Thread

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RunningMn9
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by RunningMn9 »

Ultimately you have to find the balance that works for you. A weekly effort is problematic for me because I run a tight ship and seven days is a long time for things to go awry before I catch it, but that’s a personal choice based on my circumstances.

The notion for the app is that we should *never* be doing that, since all of the transactions are entered already (when the transaction took place). But that’s a habit that I only sometimes half form.

Over time you’ll figure out what works for you. It certainly won’t hurt to experiment a little to find the best timing for your situation.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by GreenGoo »

Storm here in Ottawa knocked out the power for a few days. Our house was one of the longest out of power, more by bad luck than anything. My understanding is a transformer in the neighbourhood blew.

This has resulted in an entire deep freeze and fridge worth of food being tossed. Most of the deep freeze food wasn't edible anyway, as my wife has a habit of putting stuff in it and then burying that with more stuff, and never rotating out. We basically used the top 6-12" of the deep freeze. Anything below that is ancient and freezer burnt. So this is kind of a plus, as it will force us to clean that out and start over.

Fridge is a different story, everything in it tends to be fresh and purchased at full price. It hurts throwing all that away. I haven't bothered to try to estimate how much $$ we're throwing out, it'll hurt and there's nothing I can do about it anyway.

Anyway, bit of a set back, financially.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by Moat_Man »

Isgrimnur wrote: Tue Sep 25, 2018 8:22 pm File a claim.
Yeah, that's not gonna fly. His power went out because of a Tornado. The "investigation" will be pretty quick and the response will be to file a homeowner's insurance claim as it's not Hydro's fault. I'm betting the deductible will make it not worth the while.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

I figured that might be the result, but you can always ask. The worst they can say is, “No.”
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by Blackhawk »

Moat_Man wrote: Tue Sep 25, 2018 9:02 pm
Isgrimnur wrote: Tue Sep 25, 2018 8:22 pm File a claim.
Yeah, that's not gonna fly. His power went out because of a Tornado. The "investigation" will be pretty quick and the response will be to file a homeowner's insurance claim as it's not Hydro's fault. I'm betting the deductible will make it not worth the while.
:shock:

Not :shock: at the tornado, :shock: at the people. They did everything but run out and try to dance naked in the funnel.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by GreenGoo »

You're insane if you think I'm gonna file an insurance claim for spoiled food, knowing that insurance companies are looking to drop those with a number of expensive claims. I'm in no rush to start giving them reasons to keep an eye on my account.

Obviously no one is actually suggesting that, but the idea is still crazy.

Somewhere around 85,000 hydro customers were out of power during the outage. While it's true that my house was one of the last to regain power, many homes and businesses were without power for 2-3 days.

I'll look into it, in that I'll google and see what I get back, but I have no doubt claims are going to be rejected without explicit evidence of Hydro screwing up.

Since I was without power, I was pretty much cut off from news. I don't think we have a working radio outside of the car. I actually know very little about what happened or the damage involved. I guess I should find out, but I'm kinda meh on the whole idea.

Tornadoes are extremely rare in this neck of the woods, but I have seen the occasional small twister in cottage country, a couple of hours out of town. At one point I thought I heard the "steam engine" sound of a tornado, if tv is to be believed, but luckily it only lasted a few seconds and as far as I know the tornado didn't come very close. I assume because of the rarity, most Ottawans don't have a healthy respect for the damage they can do, which is likely why the video probably shows crazy people doing crazy things. I had to shoo my own kids away from the picture window (god help me) and downstairs while it lasted. We live in a 1 story bungalow with unfinished basement.

High winds was the worst of it for us. Lots of trees knocked over, some roofs messed up, some trees falling and messing up roofs or crashing through windows. We really didn't get it very bad, we were just unlucky as far as the electrical grid is concerned.

edit: the very last few frames of the video are just around the corner from me, I'm pretty sure. Well, about 1km if you follow the street, but about 600m as the crow flies. No one near me had anything like that.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by Max Peck »

By-the-numbers, courtesy of the CBC.
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One of the reasons that the power outage was so widespread is that the tornado that hit the south of the city completely disabled a key transformer station that connects the city to the provincial grid.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by GreenGoo »

The only part of that that I knew was the transformer.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by GreenGoo »

Ok, super dumb question but I'm going to embarrass myself by asking it here instead of looking it up.

When my CC bill is due, there is the amount due on the statement/bill, but by the time the due date rolls around, there are always additional charges on my card (because I bought things) that were purchased after the statement/bill was issued.

So on the one hand, the statement/bill has $x due (separately there is a minimum payment line. Let's ignore that).

On the other hand, when looking at the CC online, there is $y balance. The difference between x and y are the purchases I made after the statement/bill was issued.

My question is this:

If I make a payment that covers the statement/bill amount owed ($x) but not the current balance on the card ($y), am I charged interest on the difference (y-x) on next month's statement/bill?

Writing it out has made it clearer for me, and my assumption is that I only owe interest if my payment is below $x. The new amount (y-x) is charged to the new month's bill and hasn't started accruing interest until after next month's due date.

That's correct, yes?

I ask because in the past I always just pay the current CC balance when I pay my bill online. I almost never look at the amount ($x) on the statement/bill. However, due to financial issues, many of which are outlined here in this thread, I do not want to let go of the extra amount (y-x) before I have to do so.

Seems simple enough when I write it out. I'd like confirmation from those in the know. I'll also double check the answer when I receive next month's statement/bill.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by Zaxxon »

That's correct.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by GreenGoo »

Yeah, ok, thanks.

Just had a blank moment there so I started to post. By the time I had finished posting I had the answer, but I finished posting anyway, just to get corroboration.

Thanks again.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by gilraen »

GreenGoo wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:23 pm Writing it out has made it clearer for me, and my assumption is that I only owe interest if my payment is below $x. The new amount (y-x) is charged to the new month's bill and hasn't started accruing interest until after next month's due date.

That's correct, yes?
Yes, that's correct. As long as you pay statement balance in full by the due date, you are not charged interest.

I haven't paid a credit card bill manually in years, I have auto-pay set to always just pay my statement balance on the due date.

Edit: I think the only exception to that are cash advances, they start accruing interest immediately. Wouldn't apply here, though.
Last edited by gilraen on Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by LordMortis »

GreenGoo wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:23 pm If I make a payment that covers the statement/bill amount owed ($x) but not the current balance on the card ($y), am I charged interest on the difference (y-x) on next month's statement/bill?

Writing it out has made it clearer for me, and my assumption is that I only owe interest if my payment is below $x. New new amount (y-x) is charged to the new month's bill and hasn't started accruing interest yet.

That's correct, yes?

I ask because in the past I always just pay the current CC balance when I pay my bill online. I almost never look at the amount ($x) on the statement/bill. However, due to financial issues, many of which are outlined here in this thread, I do not want to let go of the extra amount (y-x) before I have to do so.

Seems simple enough when I write it out. I'd like confirmation from those in the know. I'll also double check the answer when I receive next month's statement/bill.
As far as I know that is dependent on your account but if you pay the balance as reflected on your monthly payment in full every month, you should never see interest, no matter how many transactions happen after your statement was generated.

I've had three major credit cards in life and they have all been Pay amount due by x date and there is no interest agreements. (New amount y-x will not accrue interest until a lack of payment after the next period. However, there are exceptions on my cards. Taking money against my card at an ATM will accrue interest right away. Transferring balances, unless otherwise agreed to, will accrue interest right away. I don't do that stuff, so I wouldn't know how to read it on my card.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by GreenGoo »

gilraen wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:32 pm I haven't paid a credit card bill manually in years, I have auto-pay set to always just pay my statement balance on the due date.
Canadian banks are behind the times, and my personal bank even farther in the past than the rest.

The idea that I could set up a repeating, variable payment that automatically figures out the CC balance and applies it to the payment each month sounds like witchcraft to me. Or at least to my bank.

Sometime in the last few years they JUST gave us the ability to set up repeating payments of a fixed amount. Prior to that, you couldn't even do that, just one off future dated payments. I'm not sure why they suck so hard at online banking, but they do. They have been brought kicking and screaming into the 90's. It's only a matter of time before they hit Y2K and collapse completely.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by LawBeefaroni »

I pay every two weeks and always manually enter the payment amount. Often I have a statement amount (x) that is higher than the total balance (y). It buggers up the payment if I accidentally hit "pay statement amount."
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by RunningMn9 »

GreenGoo wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:23 pmSeems simple enough when I write it out. I'd like confirmation from those in the know. I'll also double check the answer when I receive next month's statement/bill.
You are correct. The only thing that might monkey up the works is that if you didn't pay the bill off the previous month, then I don't know if you have to zero the bill to make that stop. But it sounds like that's not your situation, so yes, if you just pay what's on the statement, no interest on the charges you've made after the statement.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by Hrothgar »

That's true as long as you pay x by the due date. If you pay any amount less than x by the due date, interest will be charged on the whole account balance on that date.

Let's say that x is $500 and y is $1000. You pay $400 on the due date. You might think that you'd be charged interest on $100. No, you'll be paying interest on $600.

I found this out the hard way when I kicked two numbers in a payment (I think it was last digits 89 instead of 98). Instead of paying interest on less than $10, I was paying over $15 in interest. That's not a lot, but given that it was all stupid tax, it hurt.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by GreenGoo »

I suspected that as well, but I wasn't sure. Thanks for the heads up.

It's a helluva racket.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by Isgrimnur »

Up until 2009, in the US, they could advertise a nice, low rate, and the fine print would cover the double-cycle billing:
Finance charges on outstanding credit card balances must now be computed based on purchases made in the current cycle rather than going back to the previous billing cycle to calculate interest charges. So-called two-cycle or double-cycle billing hurts consumers who pay off their balances, because they are hit with finance charges from the previous cycle even though they have paid the bill in full.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by GreenGoo »

As you know my wife was recently sued for non-payment on her credit card. We successfully paid in full and have been waiting on the bank/lawyer to send us the final paper work.

I could use some lawyerly, non-binding wisdom.

The documentation is a Full MUTUAL release, meaning that we release the bank from any future legal action regarding this event/action/thingy. Why on earth would we release the bank in this case? We have NO IDEA if they was any malfeasance on their part, and while there is no reason to suspect it, mistakes happen and legal action is one remedy when a party is not willing to make things right without being compelled. That's why we were sued.

I'm seriously pissed off about this, because my wife would be signing away any right to legal remedies if things come to light in the future, for no other reason than because we want the bank to acknowledge that we've paid them in full. So slimy.

So, is this "just how it is"? Do I need to get my own lawyer to alter the document and send it back to their lawyers? Can I just cross out "MUTUAL" or "NAME OF BANK" everywhere I find it, initial it and sign it (wife signs) and send it back?

Thanks, mega-banks and lawyers of same, for making an unpleasant experience particularly vexing and frustrating because you've got a gun to our heads.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by GreenGoo »

Separately, we are again receiving statements from the credit card, which to me implies that it is an active, working card. So fuckyouverymuch for re-opening and setting the bear trap for us to fall into again.

Related, it has a negative balance, meaning that we overpaid when we "paid them in full".

My wife is going to call and make sure the card is cancelled and ask for a cheque for the over payment.

I'm less pissed about this but the other thing is raising my blood pressure enough that everything is pissing me off.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

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I'm not a Canadian lawyer, I don't know Canadian law, consult an attorney in the practice area of your concern, etc., etc., etc.

I will say that in my world (corporate business transactions and their related disputes), a mutual release is standard and fully expected when concluding a dispute. It's fair to both parties to know that they don't have to worry about this issue any more. If one party is paying another, the payor knows that the payee won't come back to get a second bite at the apple. For the payee, you know that you can close your books on the matter.

That may be different on the consumer side of things (as opposed to the business side). It does seem odd that you would need to release them when you paid them in full, but perhaps they see it as a compromise if they could have gotten legal fees or additional interest out of you in court.

Note that you may have some consumer protection laws in your favor even if you sign. A court may throw out a release if there's evidence of fraud that you were unaware of. Courts may also look down upon one-sided releases between big corporations and unrepresented individuals. Don't rely on any of that, of course, but it's just a possibility.

Another thing to consider is whether they would continue with a lawsuit if you refused to sign the release. You're not getting anything from them out of this, so what do they do if you've paid the amount in full and refuse to sign a release? Take you to court and incur legal expenses? Again, don't rely on that, as I don't practice in that area of the law or in your country. Just some things to think about on both sides that probably doesn't really help you too much.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by GreenGoo »

ImLawBoy wrote: Fri Nov 09, 2018 5:02 pm I'm not a Canadian lawyer, I don't know Canadian law, consult an attorney in the practice area of your concern, etc., etc., etc.

I will say that in my world (corporate business transactions and their related disputes), a mutual release is standard and fully expected when concluding a dispute. It's fair to both parties to know that they don't have to worry about this issue any more. If one party is paying another, the payor knows that the payee won't come back to get a second bite at the apple. For the payee, you know that you can close your books on the matter.

That may be different on the consumer side of things (as opposed to the business side). It does seem odd that you would need to release them when you paid them in full, but perhaps they see it as a compromise if they could have gotten legal fees or additional interest out of you in court.

Note that you may have some consumer protection laws in your favor even if you sign. A court may throw out a release if there's evidence of fraud that you were unaware of. Courts may also look down upon one-sided releases between big corporations and unrepresented individuals. Don't rely on any of that, of course, but it's just a possibility.

Another thing to consider is whether they would continue with a lawsuit if you refused to sign the release. You're not getting anything from them out of this, so what do they do if you've paid the amount in full and refuse to sign a release? Take you to court and incur legal expenses? Again, don't rely on that, as I don't practice in that area of the law or in your country. Just some things to think about on both sides that probably doesn't really help you too much.
Thanks ILB. I really had no intention of doing anything but signing (I keep saying me/my/I but this is all my wife, I'm just helping her by doing everything, I swear) but it absolutely stuck in my craw that I needed to sign away any right to future litigation even though I have no reason to suspect we'll need that right. The release is for this specific incident in any case, which makes sense obviously, if we end up screwing the bank in another area then of course they want to be able to come after us again. The release allows us to do the same. This is not news to you, I'm sure.

Again, thanks for explaining some of the possibilities that may be pertinent. That's exactly what I was hoping from the forum and you provided it. Much appreciated.

Related to something you noted, they did receive legal fees, as part of the repayment agreement included some money for legal costs to cover the lawyer starting the process, dealing as an intermediary and doing the paper work. I have no idea if it was enough or too much, but at that point it was a pittance compared to what we needed to repay, so we just added it to the pile. Whatever. It was worth the cost of not having to fight about it.

Anyway, you've helped me accept the fact that we're going to sign this thing without fuming about signing away rights that I have no idea if I will ever need them or not. Not that you set out to do that, but the information you provided has helped me let go of my frustration a little, which was driving me crazy.

Thanks.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by GreenGoo »

My wife has called and cancelled the card and asked for a cheque for the overpayment, which they agreed to send to us. According to them the card was already cancelled, but with the overpayment it was still on the books so to speak, so they sent out statements. Or something. Doesn't matter, they assured us the card could not be used.

Once the cheque arrives, I'll have some peace of mind on that subject as well.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by LordMortis »

You're not getting anything from them out of this, so what do they do if you've paid the amount in full and refuse to sign a release?
Not understanding debt or lawyers related to debt this is all I could think.
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Re: GG's Financial Management Thread

Post by GreenGoo »

LordMortis wrote: Fri Nov 09, 2018 5:34 pm
You're not getting anything from them out of this, so what do they do if you've paid the amount in full and refuse to sign a release?
Not understanding debt or lawyers related to debt this is all I could think.
It certainly crossed my mind as well, but then I don't want to hear about how additional lawyer fees are owed because blah blah blah case is still open blah blah blah. Hiring a lawyer at this point to protect our rights is an expense I was hoping to avoid by simply paying back what we owed in the first place. Hiring one lawyer (theirs) is enough of an expense.
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