digging out of a stinky pile of debt after realizing we are well past fucked

I don’t think it is any secret that the state of California is hurting for cash. Their latest attempt at raising money leaves a sour taste in my mouth. What is it?

The CHEATERS program.

The California Highway Patrol wants people to call them when they see an out of state license plate. Apparently someone forgot to inform the geniuses at the CHP that Cali is a big tourist draw and there are likely to be a lot of out of state plates here.

I clicked through to the CHP CHEATERS page to see what they were looking for. Here is what they want the tattletales to give them besides license plate number and make/model:

Comments / Evidence (Please include in the comments field any relevant information that might help with the investigation: specific addresses where the vehicle is observed, how long has the vehicle been seen in California, any information about the owner, why you feel that the owner is attempting to avoid California registration, local decals/bumper stickers/license plate frames, etc.):

Invasive much?

It’s precisely things like this that are contributing to the list of reasons that the Bumblefucked household will be vacating the state of California when our lease is up.

Today is Thursday. I have an Orchard Bank card payment due on Sunday. I logged into my account to make a payment today. It told me that I had to make a “Rush Payment” for $12.95 in order to avoid a $35 late fee. Say what? Remember kids, today is Thursday and the payment is not due until Sunday. Make sense? Yeah, not to me either.

Orchard Bank can suck it!

I seriously hate them.

Here in the Bumblefucked household we use Verizon Wireless. And ever since our 2 year contract expired in March we have been getting what seems like daily calls from an 866 number that turns out to be Verizon Wireless trying to get you into a new contract. Wankers!

After doing a bit of research on how to block a number on your Verizon Wireless cell phone I have this to say to the Verizon Contract Renewal department - you are SO PWND!!

For those of you interested, here is how to block a specific number from calling your Verizon cell phone:

1. Log into your Verizon Wireless account on www.verizonwireless.com

2. Go to My Verizon

3. Go to My Services

4. Go to My Cell Phone

5. Go to Verizon Safeguards (its on the left sidebar)

6. Go to Spam Controls.

You can enter up to 10 5 numbers to block for free!!! The block is only temporary though - 3 months. But it is still a victory!

Every so often I log into my Associated Content account to see if they have any decent paying Calls for Content out that I can write quickly. Today I logged in and was disturbed to see this Call for Content:

First-Person Stories: Obama Tries to Keep Jobs in U.S. ($10.00)
Partner: Reuters.com

Yes, that’s right, Reuters is buying articles from Associated Content. This is beyond disturbing. Why? Because Associated Content has no standards! Try reading some stuff on the site and you will see what I mean. Yes, I know there are some articles on there that are fine. I write on there occasionally too. But I’d say the quality ratio is looking at around 95% crap writing and 5% decent writing.

Needless to say, I am disturbed and saddened that Reuters would sink this low.

It really is the equivalent of companies farming jobs out overseas, which is kind of ironic considering the article they want to buy. I mean, Reuters could pay real journalists a real wage for this particular article. Instead, they cheap out with Associated Content.

Welcome readers of the Carnival of Personal Finance #203 and thanks to Weakonomics for including us in the carnival this week.

Highlights from this weeks’ carnival:

• Why Is It So Much Harder To Thrive in America Today
• Is Budgeting Keeping You Poor?
• We are debt-free! (Except for the mortgage - here’s how we did it)
• Three Ways Credit Scores are Used Against You
• Blogging Becoming a Serious Money Business
• At What Point Do You Consider Yourself to Be Rich?
• Filing Small Claims Court: Basic FAQs.

If you’re a comic book fan then I have good news for you - It’s Free Comic Book Day!

You can see which comic book stores in your area are participating by checking freecomicbookday.com

For a limited time Barnes & Noble has a pdf download of a YA fantasy/sci-fi book - The Merchant Of Death, Pendragon Book #1 by D. J. MacHale. Download link –> here.

In the Bumblefucked household we just got one of those nifty little reports in the mail from the Social Security Administration that tells you how much you have paid into Social Security and what your expected benefits are shaping up to be.

Today I actually read the paper that came with this little report. On the front it says “Will Social Security still be around when I retire?” Here is the answer, with the bolded parts my emphasis:

Yes. The Social Security taxes you now pay go into the Socia Security Trust Funds and are used to pay benefits to current beneficiaries. The Social Security Board of Trustees now estimates that based on current law, in 2041, the Trust Funds will be depleted. Because people are living longer and the birth rate is low, the ratio of workers to beneficiaries is falling. Therefore, the taxes that are paid by workers will not be enough to pay the full benefit amounts scheduled.

However, this does not mean that Social Security benefit payments would disappear. Even if modifications to the program are not made, there would still be enough funds in 2041 from taxes paid by workers to pay about $780 for every $1,000 in benefits scheduled.

Wow. Looks like Social Security will be paying out less than 80% of what is due to people when the Bumblefucked household hits retirement age.

If you were waiting for something to jumpstart your retirement savings this is it. I am going to log into Vanguard right now to set up an automated bi-weekly investment for the Bumblefucked household.

Thursday afternoon I was finally able to get through to a real person to file for unemployment in California. Imagine my dismay when she told me that I would have to file in Ohio. Why? Because I had a claim in that state last year and did not exhaust all of the available benefits.

This sucks for so many reasons. First, Ohio pays less the California for weekly unemployment checks. That is a problem since I have California rent and not Ohio rent. Difference in rent? Over $1,000 a month. It also sucks because my employer here in SoCal paid me $10,000 more a year than the one in Ohio. Hopefully the Ohio people will adjust my unemployment to reflect my most recent salary. It also sucks cause when I got this news it was 6pm in Ohio - too late to call.

In other news, I will be praying for the fall of Chase credit cards and Chase Bank in general. On our most recent credit card statement for Chase their finance charge put is $1.07 over the limit. They promptly charged us $39.00 for an over the limit fee. Coincidentally our annual membership fee for the Chase rewards card was $39.00. So, actually, it was that fee that caused use to go over the limit. Regardless, we recently locked in a promo rate on that card. It was paid off and we transferred a balance at 3.99%. Now that card will go back to the default interest rate, which is almost 28%. That is really unfortunate since the card the balance was transferred from had a lower rate than that!

I called Chase and asked to get the fee waived. Apparently they only do that in the case of bank errors. I asked to talk to someone higher up. Guess what? No one can waive an over the limit fee there. A look online shows me that Chase Bank is a bastard to everyone.  Good to know.

My job ended on Friday of last week. Today I tried to file for unemployment. All day long. Most of the time when I called I got a recording telling me that the phones were overloaded and to call back later. Other times I got excited to get to the actual system. And each time I spent almost 4 minutes being told how it is easier and quicker for me to file online. Then it would tell me it was transferring me. To a freaking recording telling me they are too busy to take my call!!!!

Now, I would love to file online. But since I worked in another state in the past 18 months I can only submit my claim over the phone.

I don’t have an actual home phone; just a cell phone. I’m wondering how many of my 700 monthly minutes I will spend trying to file for unemployment? There has seriously got to be a better way to go about things here people!

The kicker is that the unemployment website says that Wednesday and Thursdays are the best days to call in as they are the slower days of the week. As if.