Penny Pinching Mom

It Doesn’t Make Sense

Anybody know where I can get car insurance cheap? I’m now officially ready to find another provider.

I still haven’t gotten around to calling my agent yet. But I went into my online billing, and I think I’ve found what the problem is: When I added the T-bird to our insurance back in November, they apparently didn’t add enough to our monthly payment to make the rest of the payments come out even. They print a summary of future activity on the back of each bill, and according to that, the payments were supposed to be the same each month. Yet on the last two months of this term, they billed us more than that.

I added up the billed amounts, and they added up to what the website said was supposed to be our annual premium, plus fees. But why did the summary on the back of every bill since we made the change say that each month’s bill would be the same? It doesn’t make sense to me. So instead of calling the agent, I guess I’ll have to dig up my old bills and take them up there. I have a feeling it won’t do me any good, but I’m going to do it anyway. And then I’m going to start getting quotes from other companies.

This Has Got to Be a Mistake

Opening bills is not my idea of a good time. But when I opened my most recent auto insurance bill, I nearly had a heart attack. For some strange reason, despite the fact that my monthly bill is normally somewhere around $130, this one said I owed over $400. What????

I figured it must be a mistake, and made a mental note to call my insurance agent at my earliest convenience. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten around to it, and I got the bill a few weeks ago. As I’m sure you’ve gathered if you read any of my blogs, things have been turned completely upside down for my family and me for the past little while. And while a ridiculously high insurance bill would normally be a high priority, it kind of got lost in the shuffle between applying for assistance, trying to get Hubby’s back straightened out, and a zillion other things.

I have really got to call and get that straightened out. I never received any notice of my premium going up or anything, so it must surely be a mistake. Whether it is or not, I’m certainly going to be seeking out some quotes from other companies. I don’t want to deal with this kind of thing happening again.

Just When You Think You Might Get Ahead…

I was looking forward to Hubby’s payday today. He said he was supposed to be getting a nice bonus because they got all of the work they were supposed to have done by the end of the year completed. Imagine my surprise when I opened his direct deposit report and found that he made less than he usually makes.

Not only did they not give them the bonus on this check, his crew was also rained out a couple of times during the last pay period. So now we’re going to be seriously scraping by for the next couple of weeks. Happy happy, joy joy.

I hope to be getting a check next week, but it may not come until the week after. That’s the only money we’ll be getting until he gets paid again. And by the time I pay the bills that are due, we will have almost nothing left. I’m so tired of this it’s not even funny. Every time I think we might have a little breathing room, something happens that we don’t.

Must not get bent out of shape over this. Must calm down and breathe and remember that things will get better.

Very Angry

I check my online banking regularly to make sure I’ve got the amount of money I think I have in my account. I rarely write stuff down since I use my debit card much more than I use my checks, but I’m never clueless about how much money I have. Especially not when we’re as low on cash as we are now.

So I checked in over the weekend, and much to my surprise, it was showing a negative amount. It was obvious that some of transactions were pending, because the account balance was positive, but the available amount was negative. I nearly had a panic attack. I went over everything in my head that I had put on the debit card, but according to my calculations, I should have been in the black.

I asked Hubby if he had used the debit card for anything, and he said he hadn’t. I couldn’t call the bank to find out what the deal was since it was on the weekend, and they never know anything about pending transactions anyway. So I worried myself half to death all weekend.

I had Hubby deposit enough money first thing this morning to cover the amount of the overdraft (using money that was supposed to go toward groceries) until we could figure out what was going on. The transactions didn’t post until this evening, and when I found out where they came from, I was livid.

The stupid insurance company went ahead and charged the full amount for my, Hubby’s and Pumpkin’s life insurance, even though I turned down mine and Hubby’s. But that’s not all. Since I didn’t have enough in the bank to cover the amount that they wrongfully charged, they charged a freaking $28 overdraft fee! I am beyond pissed right now.

They’re going to be hearing from me first thing in the morning. If they don’t credit my account for the amount of my and Hubby’s life insurance and the overdraft fee, I’m canceling Pumpkin’s and taking my business elsewhere. And they can forget about me switching our car insurance over, which I had planned to do next month. I’ll leave the homeowners’ policy with them for now since it’s paid in full until next year, but I might even switch that on down the road.

It seems like nothing like this ever happens until we truly can’t afford it. But I’m not taking it lying down. If I don’t get my money back, I’m going to be extremely vocal about my displeasure.