Never in my lifetime have I seen so many threats to a family’s financial stability. Every day we see warnings about the latest scams. The warnings are just words until you have experienced a shocking loss because of a scam.

One of the most recent scams is emails almost daily that say you have won something from Costco, Walmart, Sam’s, etc. Then when you open the email it asks for all your personal information including a credit card number. The email usually says your account will only be charged for shipping and handling. Then the person waits and waits and waits for the item to arrive, it might be vacuum cleaner, a tablet, even a large item like a microwave. THE ITEM NEVER ARRIVES Then a month or so down the line you start seeing charges to your credit card you did not authorize. Then you immediately cancel the card and get a new one and change the passwords and use a multiple id system.

I saw an ad on Craigslist for a exceptionally clean golf cart for $2700 located in Green Valley, AZ. I answered the ad and had a conversation on the phone with the supposed seller. He said he was in Chicago but owned a winter place in Green Valley, AZ and needed the cart gone out of his garage because he needed the room when he arrived there. He said if I would send the money via PayPal he would in turn give me the code to his garage as soon as he received the money into his account. I looked up his Facebook account and read about him, and it seemed like he was ok. He was an Asian male that looked to be in his thirties. I sent the money via PayPal. I called him the next morning, he said that PayPal was holding the money and said they could hold it up to two weeks if they wanted. He said they said they would probably hold it three days. I ask for the code, he said no I want to wait until they release the money. I read on the internet about PayPal holds and it did not sound good. I called PayPal, they said they were not holding that guy’s money , he got it right when you sent it. I tried calling him again but he did not answer. Fortunately the money I used to fund the PayPal came from my American Express Account. I called American Express and explained the transaction. The fraud division took all the information and said if you do not hear back from us within 60 days, you will not have to pay the $2700 we took it off of your account. They were able to trace the guy through his phone and Facebook account so I guess they might have been able to recover the money? If you use Mastercard, VISA, or American Express and fraud occurs, generally you do not have to pay it back they track it down.

Another fraud technique it to go on line to County Property Records and select a property. After they select a property and get all the information they list it with a real estate agent and in some cases actually sell the property and collect the money. The true owner of the property does not discover their property has been sold until they check with the County where they live or they see other people trying to occupy your property. This technique has been used on summer hones where the people are only there a portion of the year. There is a service called LIFELOCK that costs about $20 a month that monitor your property records to make sure only you are selling it. It is well worth it.

People get multiple calls daily from companies they never heard of asking for information and offering everything from insurance, solar panels, internet, investment opportunities All of these inquiries are for the purpose of getting your personal information so they can at some point take money from your credit card or bank account.

BEWARE OF SCAMS!

Virtually every family has one or more up to possibly four or five vehicles. Too many people think you buy a good car new or used in that has been inspected and just drive it until various components quit working. That is exactly what a good percentage of people in this country do. That is why there are many franchise auto repair shops and family owned garages in this country.

If a family purchases new tires from Discount Tires or Costco, they many times get them on sale with up to about $300 of a set of Michelins which include disposal of old tires, and balancing and rotation of the new tires for the life of the tires. If a person buys the same tires from an independent dealer and balancing and rotation is not included, it can get real expensive. Let’s say you want to rotate your tires every 7,500 miles. I believe Jiffy Lube charges $20 to rotate your tires which does not include balancing. Other places like Firestone and Big O will charge you if you did not buy the tires there.
Discount tires only requests that you make an appointment prior to bringing your vehicle in for tire rotation and balancing. It only takes them about an hour and you have your car back. We had a Michelin completely blow out that only had 8,000 miles on it, it much have encountered something large on the highway to do that. Discount tire replaced the tire with a better tire that the style that was on there because that model tire was discontinued. We had the left rear tire losing about 5 lbs and the tire light coming on every month of so. I took it to Discount they pulled the tire and found a very small nail in the tire, plugged it and now all is well at no cost to me.

If you are not going to drive a car very many miles, it might be ok to get tires from a local low price tire outlet with a shorter estimated life and save money. If you expect to drive the car to work and on trips and keep the car it is best to buy tires with an estimated life of 70,000 miles. A set of passenger car tires may cost anywhere from $600 to $1000 depending on the tire size for the higher mileage tires. Larger SUV’s, pickup, and trucks need tires that are much more expensive than that.

Families need to take their car to an oil change outlet at least every 3,000 to 4,000 miles. If you use regular oil in your car, it should be changed every 3,000 to 4,000 miles. If you use synthetic oil you can determine with 5,000 miles is about right depending on how the oil looks. If it is getting darker you probably need to change your oil. At the same time periodically have the wiper blades inspected and replaced it necessary. The oil change people will check your air filters and fuel filters and make recommendations and you can decide if you think you need them or not.

Have the brakes on your car inspected at least once a year. Many times if brakes are needed it is only the back brakes but it can be both the front and back brakes. The cost might be for back brakes $300 to $500 if both brakes are needed. The brake people also look at your struts, I recently had a front strut that was leaking and had to replace the struts. The cost for the back brakes and the struts was $1300. They have a deal where if you sign up for Synchrony credit card and pay off the balance in twelve months or less there is no interest.

Have an air conditioner repair shop check to see that none of the hoses are leaking and that it is cooling to it’s optimum potential. If a compressor is needed it is very expensive from $1,200 to $2,000 depending on the vehicle. Maybe a compressor can be avoided with good maintenance.

Have your vehicle washed regularly to include the underside to keep the mud and dirt from deteriorating the muffler and tailpipe. Get Maguires liquid wax and wax you car at least once a year to maintain the finish. Wipe down your engine and the surrounding parts periodically.

Keep in mind cars under warranty need to check with the dealer for your car to see the correct procedure for getting warranty work performed.

Good luck with maintaining your transportation.

When I was growing up in the 1940’s and 1950’s every family had savings accounts and their children each had a interest bearing savings account. During World War II people bought savings stamp books and bought the stamps and pasted them in a little booklet like the old Green Stamps saving stamp booklets. The war taught people to save and made families feel good about it.

Moving forward to the last ten years, savings accounts have not been a good investment until the last couple of years. The collapse of the economy at the end of George Bush’s administration that had the Federal Reserve decreasing the prime rate over and over again for the years that followed. Interest rates were totally unattractive, like 1% even as low as .25% on savings. CD rates ranged were about 2.5 per cent just three years ago, then they started to increase very slowly. Still families did not have the money to save and did not have the incentive to save because the rates were so low

Two years ago we bought a $20,000 CD yielding 3.00 per cent for fifteen months. Since that time the CD rate for fifteen months from the same bank has increased to 5.25%. Now the same bank offers a 4.60 interest bearing savings account that pays interest on the balance in the account on an annual basis of 4.60 with no penalties for withdrawing money as needed. I now have that savings account and it works great, I needed $3,000 and went on line made the request and it was transferred into my account within three days. I get a statement from the bank monthly showing the interest that has been added to my account balance.

There are many banks and offers on the web if you want to see if setting up a savings account or purchasing CD’s. Be sure that bank you pick is Federally guaranteed and has a good business rating.

It is a good idea now that rates are higher to teach you children to save and acquaint them with how savings accounts work. It will amaze a child how they can get a little bit of money for the bank using their money and if they save long enough it can be a significant amount to help pay for their education.

I am going to relate a shocking experience I had this past month. As I have mentioned in a previous posts, I buy and sell used golf carts on a small scale to make a little extra money. I hire a professional hauler to haul my carts whether I am getting one or if the people that buy from me need the cart delivered. I go and see some of the carts before I buy them sometimes driving as much as 150 miles round trip. Some of the carts I just take the money and a Bill of Sale to Tim, my hauler, and he takes it with him to pick up the cart and gives it to the seller and brings back a signed copy of the Bill of Sale. He has hauled over thirty carts for me in the past eighteen months. On one occasion where I did not go look at the cart, Tim called me and said the cart will not run onto the truck what do you want me to do? I told him come back do not give them the money. The seller said the batteries were only two months old, Tim looked at them and determined they were no good and probably several years old. So, I paid Tim $150 for the trip and did not get a cart. Another occasion people stopped him on the Freeway and wanted to drive the cart on his trailer so he let them take a spin. The man wanted the cart the woman did not, so it was just a deviation on Tim’s trip. Tim lives in the town ten miles from me. The town I live in has a population of about 80,000 but many of the carts are from as many as 100 miles away. I determine with the hauling cost if I can make money on them selling them in this area and if the cart is in excellent condition, I do not repair them.

Last month when looking at Craigslist Phoenix and Facebook Marketplace I found a Western golf cart that seemed like a very good deal. I had purchased a couple of carts previously from this seller so felt pretty confident it would be a good cart. I called Tim and set up the time for the pickup and told him I would go to the bank and get the money and ask if he would be home. Tim said he was going to a doctor’s appointment, he said just leave it under my garage door, I will leave it up a little bit just slip it under the door. I will leave as soon as I get home from the doctor.

I had $1600 cash at home and went to the bank to get $1,100 from my bank account. I went inside and got $1100 in $100 bills and went to the car to prepare two envelopes as I always did on purchases, one for the seller, one for Tim. I put $2600 in the seller envelope and $180 in Tim’s envelope and put them in a bank money bag. I then drove to Tim’s house about five miles away. When I got there the garage door was up about two inches. I slipped the bag under the door and went back and pushed it a little further and looked to see if you could see anything standing outside near the door. I HAD A BAD FEELING LEAVING $2700 THAT WAY AS I RETURNED TO THE CAR. It continued to bother me as I drove home.

Two hours later, I get a frantic call from Tim asking me if I left the money, I said “yes I slipped it under the garage door.” He said, “there is nothing on the floor of my garage, someone has stolen the money.” We both agreed for him to call the sheriff’s office. Later that day they sent an officer that collected all of the details. The officer also called me to get information. The officer speculated that since the neighbors on both sides of Tim were elderly and not likely suspects, that someone followed me from where I counted the money in my car at the bank, and held back a little on the street following me in a vehicle to see where I was going with the money. After I dropped it, they just pulled up and probably had to get something to fish the money bag out of the garage, but they got it and were gone. The officer said they were getting more and more calls where criminals are following people after they have been to the bank, and several have involved shootings. He said I was lucky that when I got out of the car that the bad guy did not stop me pull a gun on me and hold me up, and possibly shoot me for the money.

I did a lot of research on Homeowner’s Insurance policies and cash losses. Homeowner’s policies sometimes will reimburse policy holders a small about from $200 to $1000 for cash losses. I had Tim file a claim with Geico and they pay nothing for cash losses. We both determined Geico is not a good insurance company. They were rude and seemed insulted Tim would file a claim. Tim and his wife filled out the forms and sent them in and got them back with a big “Denied” stamp on the front. So the result is I am out $2700. I should never have agreed to put the money under a garage door.

BE CAREFUL CRIME IS EVERYWHERE IT SEEMS AND THEY FIGURE OUT ALL KINDS OF WAYS YOU MIGHT NOT BE AWARE OF TO GET MONEY FOR DRUGS

In my lifetime I have had way too many times when I felt the business I was dealing with took advantage of me in one way or another. In most cases it meant a financial sacrifice for the disputed action.

I lived in a small Colorado town population 3,000 and there was a popular pizza restaurant on the main street which was also a state highway. There were not many restaurants in the town so the pizza place got a lot of business. The original owner ran the restaurant for about five years and then sold it to the main cook that worked there. The cook had a residence built over the restaurant and lived there. The food and service quality declined dramatically after the cook took ownership. My two children and I lived across the street from the restaurant and went there to eat about once a week. On a Friday night I ordered a Hawaian Pizza for our family for take out. When we got it home, sliced it and got ready to enjoy it, we suddenly realized the pizza crust was just like a plastic frisbee you could not even bite into it. I took the pizza back to the restaurant and told the waitress the problem. She said she could do nothing about it, only the owner could decide what to do. I ask her to call him which she did. I spoke to the owner and explained the problem. His response was my wife and I make the Pizza crusts daily exactly the same and there is no way that is a defective crust, you do not know what you are talking about. That really set me off. I invited him to come down here and try the pizza. He declined the invitation. After a long conversation he said the next time you come in and if I am here I will give you a $25 credit slip. I thanked him and went home. They did not offer to give us another pizza that night, which I thought was strange.

I worked for a community college in the small town. The college was offering a continuing education course in “Small Business Public Relations” that they claimed would increase that business dramatically. I sent a letter to the Pizza Restaurant owner and suggested he take this course. I recounted our bad experience and told him that he needed instruction on how to run his business to make it more profitable. The business had declined significantly after the cook took it over. l did not hear anything back from the owner, but we did eat in there periodically.

Several months after the “Small Business Public Relations” course was given. My two children and I are sitting in a booth having pizza when the owner asked if he could sit down with us. He did not know who I was and that I was the one that had complained about the plastic pizza and I was the one that sent him the course information. But that night one of his servers told him that it was me that was guilty on both counts. The owner said “I want to thank you for recommending that course at the college and for sending the letter. I began to realize as my business declined something needed to be done. I took the course and applied the recommendations. Afterward my business because to steadily increase and I found joy in making my customers happy. I just wanted to find out who sent that letter and to thank them for getting me on the right track, so “Thank You”!

An incident this past week is another example of a total failure in public relations by a restaurant hostess. We picked up a friend in Phoenix at the Sky Harbor airport and went to Cheddar’s in Chandler, Arizona to eat about 3 P.M. in the afternoon. The parking lot at Cheddar’s did not have many cars in it. Also when we entered the restaurant there were not very many customers seated. The hostess said you have to get on the waiting list. My wife ask how long is the wait, she said five or ten minutes. There were two other couples seated on the two benches by the door also waiting. After twenty minutes I stepped forward and asked the hostess, “What is going on?” We have waited twenty minutes you said there was a five or ten minute wait. I asked when will we be seated. She responded, “I don’t know we are waiting for servers”. My wife came forward and said, “Let’s go somewhere else if that is the case, take our names off of the list.” I told the hostess and one of the managers that was visiting with her, we have always had good experiences with Cheddar’s for several years, and this was not one of them.” The waitress smiled and said , “Do come back!” I responded that is not likely this is rediculous.

I wrote a letter to the Cheddar’s manager recounting the experience. I told him we had a wonderful meal at the Cheesecake Factory, thanks to his poorly trained hostess. I ask why we could not have been seated and served drinks while you were waiting for more wait staff? I finished with maybe you should close down if you are not able to get enough help. I did not get a response. I am now writing to the main office for Cheddar’s and see if I get a response.

These are just two small incidences that show people need to respond to bad customer service to get businesses back on track. Good luck with your experience.
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First of all,why pay Dish or Direct TV between $120 and $200 a month for your home Television watching packages? The Roku is one of the most amazing small gadgets ever invented. The same technology has been in incorporated into most smart TV’s. If you do not have a smart TV, you can order a Roku streaming device for about $25 from Amazon or Walmart. With this device and home internet service you are able to get services like Sling which provides over eighty changes for as little as $60 which includes ESPN, Fox News, CNN, and many of the more popular channels you have been watching on the cable systems and paying through the nose. You need to have good internet service so your TV is not interrupted. I pay less than $50 for a 12bmp internet service and it supports two TV’s, two tablets, and a desktop without interruption. Some of the local channels appear on a smart TV but not all of the ones you might like. The Roku will run Netflix and Prime Video if you subscribe to them.

To get all of the local channels in you area, you will need an outdoor antenna, it does not have to be a big antenna that looks like the aerial for a TV or Radio station. The have them on Amazon for as little as $40 that will get channels within a 50 mile radius. Do not believe it when they say they get channels for 100 to 120 miles. Most low cost antennas will get about forty channels which would include ABC, Fox, NBC, and ABC, Grit, and a lot of other channels. There are usually about five or ten Spanish speaking channels in there, a movie channel, weather channels, mysteries, Court TV, and marketing channels.

Now you have the full range of channels, the network channels, the local channels , and others that you have not heard of until adding the channels with your new antenna. You can order a Roku Streaming Stick which attaches to the back of your TV rather than a standard Roku that attaches to the front of the TV. Some people prefer the streaming stick because it is not visible.

Of course if you want to spend more money on a big antenna that sets on top of your house, you can, but storms and wind make take your antenna down and make it a more expensive way to get local channels.

Our monthly cost for TV aside from the cost of the internet which we had already, is $60 Sling, $12 a month Netflix, and $139 a year Amazon Prime. If you want more sports than Sling initially offers for $10 or $15 for additional package items can be added on Sling. So, if we compute it on a monthly basis $60 Sling, $12 Netflix, $12 Amazon, that would be $84. We were paying $130 a month for basically the same channels to Dish before we made the conversion to Roku and also got a smart TV which has the Roku built in.

Good luck, we have been off Dish for three years now and no regrets.

Year 2023 has been an unpredictable year to say the least. I am sure if you prepared a family budget it had to be revised many times throughout the year.

Let’s prepare for 2024 by building a budget based on your anticipated income and expenses for next year. Then on January 1, 2024 begin the year right by keeping track of what you are spending in each category. A runaway budget is not helpful to your family. Begin 2024 right and keep right throughout the year making adjustments in your budget aa you encounter income changes or expense changes.

Using Excel set up a worksheet that lists the names of your income sources and the amounts anticipated for 2024. Show a total for your income projection for the year.

Next list by category your anticipated expenses on the Excel worksheet going down the page. Suggestions for categories are: (1) House (2) Auto (3) Food for Family (4) Work related meals (5) School Lunches(6) Fuel for Cars (7) Car Repairs and Services (8) Clothing (9) Phone Service (10) Internet Service (11) Pet Costs (12) Utility Electric (13) Utility Water (14)Trash Service (15) Home Maintenance and Cleaning Supplies (16) Landscaping and Outdoor Maintenance (17) Car Insurance (18) Insurance On Home (19) Eating Out (20) Entertainment (20) Computer Supplies (21) Health Insurance (22) Medical Expenses (23) Savings and Investments (23) Credit Card Interest. I am sure you will have other categories as you prepare the list for your family. When the list is complete total the anticipated total expenses for 2024.

How does your Total Income compare to the Total Expenses? If they are less you can readjust categories you feel you might have slighted. If the Total Expenses are more, then look at each Expense category and see what you can reduce so that the income and expenses closely match.

Now set up a column next to the total anticipated income and expenses column that you can use for the total income and expense divided by 12 to establish your anticipated January monthly budget. At the end of that month post the actual income and expenses for that category in the third column. See how they compare and show the differences in the fourth column so you can see where you were over and under and if you need to adjust your budget.

I am sure you are saying “What about credit cards and the monthly payments on them?” The payments on credit cards are for items included in your expenses and the credit card statements can be used to post the expenses incurred on the credit card. If you do not pay your credit card off completely monthly and incur interest, then have a category for credit card interest. Some families will have a credit card imbalance where they incur expenses and just pay interest on the credit card and the credit card balance gets larger and larger and out of control. If that is your family try to get a credit card that has no interest as an introductory promotion for possibly a year and pay it down so you will not have interest in the future.