I Pick Up Pennies

Found money update: 2012.

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thI’m a little late totaling up my 2012 found money. Okay, I’m several months late; normally I count the money around Thanksgiving.

Even though the money’s been counted, it’s still at my friend Linda’s house along with some other things I haven’t moved to my new place. Also still at Linda’s is the old vase in which I keep my finds, a gift from my daughter when she was very young. Abby found it in the “free” box at a yard sale. (That’s my girl!)

I’ve been using an old plastic container for all the coins I’ve picked up since Jan. 1. It doesn’t have the soul of that vase, which is actually pretty ghastly: fthe color of a Pepto Bismol tablet left out in the sun, embellished with gilt and bearing a painting of what looks like a 17th-century dude courting a 17th-century dame. But it was a gift from my kid, and I treasure it. Perhaps my descendants will take it to “Antiques Roadshow” and find out it’s worth a million bucks.

Last year’s final tally:

  • Six $1 bills
  • One 50-cent piece
  • 15 quarters
  • 71 dimes
  • 22 nickels
  • 286 pennies

I also found a single Canadian dime, which I’ll add to my stash. Who knows? I may drive the Al-Can again some day.

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13 ways to prepare for income reduction.

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budget © by 401(K) 2012

A reader suggested an article on preparing for income reduction. Not layoff or job loss, but rather a partial loss of expected funds – salary reduction, an end to child support and the like.

“Where you still have a job, but really need to evaluate the ‘new budget’,” she says.

I’ve written on this subject before, calling it the “financial fire drill.” You figure out how little you can get away with spending – and you do it with an attitude of calm preparation, not fear of deprivation.

This baker’s dozen of tips will get you started.

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6 things to do while you’re on hold next weekend.

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Telephone © by plenty.r.

Planning to shop online between Black Friday – which is increasingly more of a Post-Turkey Thursday – and Cyber Monday? A company called STELLAService has determined that the merchants with the shortest phone-support hold times are Nordstrom.com (18 seconds), Overstock.com (44 seconds), LLBean.com (46 seconds), Zappos.com (1 minute, 9 seconds) and Target.com (1 minute, 18 seconds).

That information is based on the 2011 shopping season. I bet it’ll be just as good this year, since retailers are scrambling to stand out among the din of the busiest shopping weekend of the year.

And if you’re buying from a place that leaves you languishing on hold for lonnnnng minutes? Here are six things to do while you wait:

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Like being at FinCon12 – or at the sponsor tables, anyway.

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Even though I had a bad cold I had a great time at the recent Financial Blogger Conference in Denver. If you want to know more about the event, check out my daughter’s posts over at I Pick Up Pennies:

And if you want to win some conference swag? Read on.

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Blog roundup: Attack of the choleliths edition.

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A few nights ago I had what I thought was a really bad case of indigestion and nausea. Zantac couldn’t touch it. It got worse. I tried to make myself vomit and couldn’t.

Eventually I realized that (a) indigestion shouldn’t feel like this and (b) I had eaten a fairly healthy dinner. A doctor’s visit and an ultrasound determined that it was a gall-bladder attack.

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Drivers: Watch where you’re going.

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Somebody pulling out of a parking lot hit my daughter and son-in-law’s car. The driver was too busy looking off to the side to notice that she was aimed straight at the Chevy Cavalier in the left-turn lane.

Even though she wasn’t going fast, the T-boning she gave the car damaged both doors on the passenger side. Neither one will open now and there’s probably unseen damage because it felt wonky during the drive home.

As Abby notes in this post, it looks as though the other driver’s insurance company will declare it totaled, as in “It costs more to fix than it’s worth.”

Here’s the thing: Their car was old. But it was still reliable transportation. With luck it would have lasted them several more years, years during which they would have been saving for a replacement vehicle.

 

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Blog roundup: Stupid virus edition.

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That’s me who’s sick, not the computer. I’m pretty sure it’s viral: Sore throat, slight cough, aches and malaise but no fever. Blech. This is one of those times when it’s not good to be single. If someone else were here I could ask him to please go get me a box of Popsicles.

I wanted to write something staggeringly clever and original but after a day of research/interviews for my day job, I’m feeling somewhat battered. Also acutely aware that I leave in, um, 13 days and have to turn in a lot more work unless I want to be writing from the Piccadilly Backpackers Hostel. (Hint: I don’t.)

I’m going to bed early. The rest of you can read.

The price of everything at I Pick Up Pennies

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Guillain-Barre syndrome: The anniversary.

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Recently my daughter noticed she was having trouble swallowing. This perplexed her until she realized what day it was: Jan. 21, the anniversary of the day she wound up in the ICU back in 1998.

What put her there was Guillain-Barre syndrome, an auto-immune disease that attacks the peripheral nervous system and, in Abby’s case, paralyzed her right up to her eyeballs and nearly killed her.

 

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