Saturday, July 13, 2024

10 Concerning Financial Issues

This has been a weird week in financial issues...
  1. First, I got a notice from my credit card asking if I was making a few transactions with the card.  I wasn't, in fact I had only used that card once several months ago and I keep it locked up and don't even carry it with me.  The bank declined the transactions then cancelled the card and sent me a new card.  I asked the fraud department lady how this could have happened since I don't even use the card or have it with me and she said it could be any number of ways, even just a random computer generation of numbers that happened to end up being my card number.  eeekkk
  2. Next I checked my free credit reports just to make sure there wasn't any other weird things happening with my credit and thankfully everything looked fine (I keep a credit freeze on all of my credit reports so no one can open fraudulent accounts in my name so maybe this helped?).
  3. Then at work a check got deposited into our bank account that caused a kerfuffle with the accounting team (if ANY money is put in or taken out of our accounts without documentation there will be a kerfuffle as the money needs to be accurate down to the penny).  We called the issuer of the check and they did not know anything about the check then called our bank fraud department which is taking care of the situation.  I immediately thought this could be a common scam so hopefully this situation gets taken care of and never happens again.  double eeekkk
  4. A couple days later I get a notice from another bank we use at work and they blocked a check because they said the signatures of the sender and depositor didn't look right.  I looked through several past checks signed by the same people and everything looked the same.  Weird.  The issue got resolved but I wonder if banks are just being extra careful these days or if some wonky AI is causing such issues?
  5. On another security note, here is a good video on how to improve the security of your phone.
  6. We have been talking about buying a new house that is more "elderly appropriate" (ie: single level, walk in shower, senior community, etc) but as is pointed out in this article, downsizing would actually cost us more money than staying where we are!  Our house payment would go up, our interest on the mortgage would go up, our property tax would go up, our house insurance would go up, etc.  Bummer.
  7. FWIW, our schools begin in early August (!) something I had never heard of before moving to Las Vegas as everywhere else we have lived, schools started in September.  Anyway, just a reminder to buy a full year's worth of school supplies for each of your kids while they are super low-priced then save half to give to the kids when their second semester starts in the winter (the regular price of school supplies is pretty expensive if you don't buy during the deeply-discounted 'back to school' sales).
  8. Thinking about finances, and house insurance, I grabbed my cell phone and went room-by-room videoing every room and everything we own.  I do this about once a year so that if our house is ever burglarized/destroyed we would have a good video of everything we own in order to make an insurance claim.
  9. Amazon Prime Day will be July 16 and 17.  I don't think we really need anything (plus I cancelled Prime ages ago) so I probably won't be buying anything, so just an FYI.
  10. Finally, I am pretty much getting tired of consumerism in general (prices are high, quality is lacking, people in stores act like maniacs, etc).  Here is a related video from Prepper Princess.

6 comments:

  1. Why not convert your home to be age friendly. You could either put in a chair lift on the stairs or put in an elevator. Or, you could convert a room downstairs to a bedroom. Because I did not want to leave the doors unattended with three small children, I used a parlor for my bedroom and put a door from parlor to bedroom. I was only 29 when we bought that house, so no thoughts of getting old...lol. Everything you need is right in your house you have now. A different bath and commode and grab bars could convert your bathroom. I put the washer and dryer on the first floor right next to the bathroom. Other people thought it was crazy. Some suggested putting it in basement. Others thought the laundry should be upstairs. I lived there until I was 72 and challenged by stairs. It worked out fine for me. Of course, I don't know how all this would work for you. Your upstairs could be for storage or guest bedrooms.

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    1. We have had a couple of relatives do exactly as you suggest--they changed their formal dining rooms into a downstairs bedrooms and added showers to their downstairs half baths. Definitely something to consider!

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  2. So sorry about your card. It's happened to me once, and it happens to my mom often. It's so frustrating. The banks where we live are getting funny about checks as well. Hubby and I often talk of downsizing, but the smaller home prices have been grossly inflated here, so much so that I think we'd be backwards with everything as well.

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    1. It seems like every scammer on the planet targets the elderly which is awful (hubby gets way more scam calls and emails than I do and I think it is because of his age).

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  3. I have friends who are having fishy things happen with their bank accounts and credit cards. I too have a freeze on our credit reports and get daily alerts on my accounts for any withdrawals, deposits, charges, etc. The video is a smart idea for insurance purposes. I should probably do the same. School here starts Aug 8th. It's crazy.

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    1. Wow I didn't realize school starts so early for you--your summer is almost over!

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