Credit Card Fraud--Protection from Ourselves

Yesterday, I received a call from the Security Department of the Visa credit card that we use for most purchases. They wanted me to verify a charge from a company in the UK. It was for a large amount, and since my husband hadn't mentioned any large purchases for work, I told the rep that I would check with my husband, but that I thought the charge was NOT valid. Then I called my husband to see if he had ordered anything, and he said, "Yes, I already received the product. It's a valid charge."

I'm grateful that we have good fraud protection--I just wish hubby had told me of his plans! Thirty minutes of back and forth with the credit card company and my husband, and I think everything is worked out.

Moral of the story: Call your credit card issuer if you plan to use your card buy anything from outside of the US.

A Summer Cold Got Me!

My children were sick a couple of weeks ago, and the germs got to me last weekend. I have been trying to get over a cold for more than a week now, and I'm ready to feel better! I'm going to spend some time on the couch again today in hopes that tomorrow I'll be back to normal.

Summer Temps and the Ice Maker is Broken

Our ice maker has been slowing its production for the past few weeks, and it's not even close to keeping up with our ice needs. Now it's going to be 100 degrees this weekend--what a time to be without ice! I had hope that the ice maker would magically start working again, but so far that hasn't happened. We've resorted to buying bagged ice, and I don't foresee that as a long-term solution. Hopefully, my husband will spend some time looking at it this weekend so we can order either parts or a new unit.

Our refrigerator is less than 5 years old, and I'm disappointed that the ice maker is having problems already. Our previous refrigerator was 18 years old when we moved, and everything still worked. We left it at our old house because our new house could fit a larger refrigerator and we wanted a more energy efficient model. I guess our money from the energy savings will be spent on a new ice maker!

Coupon Savings over the Weekend

My family went shopping together over the weekend in order to combine errands and save money on gas. We needed to return some items and make other purchases, and we went to 6 stores. Thanks to the Deal Finder at the Life Takes Visa website, got a coupon for $10 off a $25 purchase at Lowe's Home Improvement. Additionally, I had received a coupon in the mail for $5 off a $50 purchase at Target. Because of these coupons and others from the Sunday paper, we saved $19 on items we would have purchased anyway.

I love coupons!

June 2008 Net Worth

I didn't post May net worth since I was out of town during the first week of May, and I didn't have my account information with me. I'm just going to pick back up with June since I never bothered to look up the amounts for May.

Our net worth has rebounded a bit, mainly because the value of our stock accounts has gone back up. Also, our liabilities are slightly inflated because I used a credit card to purchase $1200 in Kroger gift cards to get the 10% bonus. We'll use the cards over the next few months, and everything will even out.

Assets $478,726

Liabilities $202,185

Net Worth $276,541