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

At the beginning of the year I ended my relationship with DreamHost. My sites were having repeated downtime. I switched to LunarPages after hearing good things about them. And I repeatedly have problems accessing my sites.

Apparently there is a nameserver fail that is the problem:

* ns1.lunarbreeze.com returned (SERVFAIL)
* ns2.lunarbreeze.com

D’oh. And the best part is that the server status on my LunarPages account says “Server is OK.” Except, clearly its not. And this happens daily. Time to get a new webhost?

Fruits & veggies can be expensive if you buy them out of season. Here is handy guide of which fruits and veggies are cheapest by month.

January
papayas, cauliflower, oranges, broccoli, grapefruit, leeks, tangerines, lemons, tangelos,  cabbages

February
papayas, broccoli, oranges,  grapefruit, lemons,  cauliflower, tangelos,

March
broccoli, pineapples, lettuce, mangoes

April
asparagus, pineapples, lettuce, mangoes,  rhubarb,broccoli, artichokes,  spring peas,  zucchini

May
lettuce, cherries, broccoli, pineapples, spring peas, apricots, asparagus, okra, rhubarb,  zucchini, artichokes

June
lettuce, watermelon, corn, strawberries, apricots, cantaloupe, blueberries, cherries, peaches

July
lettuce, watermelon, green beans, strawberries, corn, cantaloupe, summer squash, blueberries, tomatoes, peaches, cucumbers, apricots, kiwi, plums, raspberries

August
lettuce, watermelon, green beans, strawberries, summer squash, cantaloupe, tomatoes, blueberries, eggplant, peaches, corn, apricots, cucumbers, kiwi, plums, raspberries

September
lettuce, grapes, spinach, pomegranates, tomatoes, persimmons, pumpkins, eggplants

October
lettuce, cranberries, spinach, apples, broccoli, pomegranates, winter squash, grapes, pumpkins, sweet potatoes

November
spinach, cranberries, mushrooms, oranges, broccoli, tangerines, sweet potatoes, pears, winter squash, pomegranates, pumpkins, persimmons

December
papayas, cauliflower, pears, broccoli, oranges, mushrooms, tangelos, sweet potatoes, grape fruit, pomegranates, tangerines

Easter, like most holidays, can be pretty expensive if you aren’t careful. If you don’t believe me just pop into a store to check out the prices of those pre-made Easter baskets. Fortunately, Easter does not have to be expensive. Here are a few tips to keep your Easter spending on a budget.

1 - Skip those expensive pre-made Easter baskets. Sure, it is a heck of a lot easier to buy a basket all wrapped in plastic with loads of goodies but you are paying through the nose for that convenience. And in my experience there is at least one thing in that basket that no one will want.  Instead, make your own goodie-filled basket! Get a cheap basket at a dollar store and fill it yourself.

2 - Skip the expensive individually wrapped mini candies. Instead of filling loads of little plastic eggs with mini candy bars and the like  - go large! You can get a full size candy bar for a lot less than those bags of mini candy bars. Plus the larger ones will look like more. To save even more money, look for those packs of 10 smaller sized bars at the grocery store. I regulary see those for around $1.25 a pack. You could also watch for sales on candy at your local stores.

3 - Instead of filling a basket with a lot of toys and treats, get some of those cheap plastic eggs and use them for an egg hunt/ scavenger hunt that results in one toy for each child. They will have so much fun in the hunt that they won’t even notice that they only got one toy.

4 - Color your easter eggs with items from your kitchen. Instead of spending money on dye, use stuff at home. You’ll save money and it will be safer for your kids and the enviroment.

5 - Re-use those colored eggs! I know a family that keeps the colored eggs in the fridge most of the time and at the end of the day those colored eggs are used as food! You can peel and eat them as hard boiled eggs or make something with hard boiled eggs in it.

6 - Skip the new Easter outfits. When I was growing up my mom always bought me a new outfit on Easter. And it was usually worn only once. Don’t fall into this wasteful trap! If you feel as if you must buy something new for your kids for Easter get something practical and try out a thrift or second-hand store for lower prices.

7 - Have a potluck. If you plan on celebrating Easter with your extended family or friends then why not save money and turn it into a potluck! Just remember that it is cheaper to make food from scratch than to buy something out. So, make something for your Easter potluck!

8 - Have an Easter picnic. If you live where the weather is pretty nice this time of year your family could have an Easter picnic. This is a great way to make the day special, especially if you are not able to provide as many treats or gifts this year.

9 - You don’t have to buy stuff in Easter packaging. If you see something that you want to buy for your kid or someone else for Easter do not be fooled into thinking you have to buy something in Easter packaging. You will notice a special Easter candy aisle at your local stores but you can buy candy from the regular aisle if you like. And it is likely going to be cheaper over there!

Yesterday I found out that my parents have not made a payment on their condo for the past five months. I discovered this because my dad called to ask my if I could help him post stuff on Craigslist as they had gotten a letter in the mail stating that foreclosure is on the way.  He wanted to get rid of stuff before the foreclosure peeps got it.

I’m over 2,000 miles away from him and he had no digital camera or computer skills, so I did what I could to help.

I posted some ads for the various things he need to sell on Craigslist. And yes, I posted them in the appropriate categories, etc. but the Craigslist hall monitors decided it would be fun to flag a few of those ads for removal!

That is one of the things that I hate the most about Craigslist. The people who have lives so unimportant that they spend their free time looking for ads to flag on Craigslist for no good reason. Clearly my parents need the cash from selling these items. So, it makes me a little angry that some asshole thinks it is a good time to flag ads for removal on Craigslist that are perfectly fine. Actually, that always makes me mad. It’s happened to me when I’ve been trying to sell something in the past.

Of course, I guess I shouldn’t get mad and should instead laugh about how pathetic the lives of the Craigslist hall monitors must be. It is a small comfort, but I still think they are all a bunch of wankers.

I was reading Family Too Fat to Work Wants More Money about an overweight family in the UK and it got me to thinking. They really pay people a disability payment in the UK just for being overweight?

Now that is the life! Bring on the cheesecake and fried chicken!

You know how Quizno’s was having that Million Free Subs promotion? I signed up and got one of those free sub coupons. Today was the last day to print it so I printed it out and decided to go use it for dinner. Regrettable decision indeed.

The Quizno’s location I went to is: 6020 Canoga Ave. Suite A, Woodland Hills, CA

After reading on the Consumerist how people have been having problems redeeming these coupons, I asked before ordering if I could use the coupon. The owner took my coupon and wandered off with it. When finally came back he mumbled something about how I could upsize to regular for $1.40. So, I asked if he was saying that I had to buy something to use the coupon. He replied that yes, I need to buy chips or a drink or something. I told him that I would take my coupon elsewhere and held my hand up for my coupon.

He wasn’t giving that back up though.

He told the guy making sandwiches “just give it to her” and the said something else in a foreign language. Riley thinks this is when he told the guy to put next to nothing on my sandwich. You see, my sandwich was missing several components. It had two black olives and one small tomato as opposed to what it was supposed to have on it. You see, the sandwich I ordered is one I’ve had before so I knew what it was supposed to look like.

While I was waiting at the register for my bread sandwich (I didn’t know at the time that it was a bread sandwich), the owner felt the need to give me a lecture for free as well. He wanted to tell me how he was “running a business” and that people needed to buy stuff for that to work. And that he was only taking the coupon to “make customers happy.” Er, good luck with that douchebag.

Do you have a car that you are thinking about donating to charity? In most instances charities will take your car whether it runs or not! And as you may know you can get a tax break for donating a car to charity, however there are steps you need to take to make sure that you get that tax donation.

Before donating a car to charity you should check out the charity; check the value of your car; and see what your responsibilities are as a donor. You can get some guidance from IRS publication 4303 or keep reading.

Select your charity

In order claim a tax deduction for donating your car to charity to be sure to that the charity is a qualified organization. Otherwise, your donation will not be tax deductible. The most common types of qualified organizations are section 501(c)(3) organizations, such as charitable, educational, or religious organizations. To verify an organization’s status call the IRS Customer Account Services division for Tax Exempt and Government Entities at (877) 829-5500 (toll-free). Have the charity’s correct name and address when you call.

Tax Deduction Qualifying

You must itemize deductions on your Schedule A of Form 1040 in order to get your charitable tax deduction. Some limitations may apply to your individual tax situation, such as your deduction cannot exceed 50% of your adjusted gross income.

Determine the Value of Your Car

You can only deduct the fair market value of your car on your taxes. This is not the same as the blue book value. The fair market value is the price a willing buyer would pay and a willing seller would accept for the car, when neither party is compelled to buy or sell. Note that you will need to obtain written acknowledgment from the charity if the total deduction you are claiming for a donated car is $250 or more. And if If the deduction you are claiming is greater than $5,000 you must get a written appraisal of your car.

Other requirements

You will need to transfer the title of your car to the charity. If you do not have your car title, do not worry. Most charities can assist you in obtaining the title for the car you are donating.

A lot of charities can also pick up or tow your car if necessary. This is typical of local charities at least. Of course, if you want to maximize the amount of money that goes to the charity then you should get the car to them yourself.

Charities take items other than just vehicles for donations. You can donate your boat, your trailer, your RV and even your motorized wheelchair or scooter.

These tips should help steer you in the right direction to donate your car to charity!

So, I’m a little behind on one of my Sallie Mae payments. No big though, cause I plan on paying it before the next one is due. However, the payment that I am behind on are those evil private student loans that I got suckered into at UCF.

Well, every day this week when I have left work and turned on my cell phone there has been a message from Sallie Mae about how I need to return their call in the next 24 hours, yada, yada.

I’m only two weeks late, so really the attention is flattering. And I am quite stoked that they have left me a number to call that does not go to India! I posted about the horrors of the India Sallie Mae call center experience I had on Sallie Mae FAIL. For those of you interested, reach a US-based Sallie Mae call center at 1-888-629-0189. They are apparently open 8am to 9pm in every time zone.

So, anyways, I thought I would give them a call yesterday. Initially I was going to ask to stop my payments, even though you have to pay $175 to get a forebearance on the private loans. But as I was waiting on hold I got annoyed by the fact that they had already charged me a $26 late fee and that I wasn’t even 30 days late and they were calling me daily. That is when I got a call center employee. Here’s a rough transcript of our conversation:

Sallie Mae rep: How may I help you today?

Me: I had some messages on my phone to call you guys, so here I am.

Sallie Mae rep: Okay, can I have you account number? And can you verify your mailing address.

Me: (I give acct. # and verify address)

Sallie Mae rep: Okay, I see that you are currently past due $326.88, would you like to make a payment today.

Me: No thanks.

Sallie Mae: Well, you are past due, when are you planning on making a payment?

Me: Well, my payroll department totally fucked up my paycheck this week**, and I was gonna pay it all tomorrow when I get paid but now I’m not sure. I might pay some of it.

Sallie Mae rep: I can take you payment over the phone and post date it for you so we can take care of it.

Me: No thanks.

Sallie Mae rep: If you do not pay the past due amount it can hurt your credit. I can set up that post-dated payment today.

Me: Yeah, I don’t really care about that. And besides I can pay it online myself when I’m ready.

Sallie Mae: Well, you will keep getting the daily calls until you pay the past due amount in full.

Me: Meh, I keep my phone off all day anyways, so it’s no big.

Sallie Mae: Okay then…well…. thanks for calling Sallie Mae.

It was actually kinda fun. I should have offered to send them a drawing of a spider.

And remember, to reach a Sallie Mae call center in the US, call 1-888-629-0189!

**My payroll department totally did screw up my paycheck. They reset all of my withholding tax info so that the maximum tax was withheld. Wankers.

Having trouble getting a loan? Or at least getting one with a decent rate? Or maybe you just wanna stick it to the man and not let any banks make any money off of you. Enter Lending Club. Are you familiar with them?

Basically Lending Club is a network of people that lend money as a group to people like you and me that want to borrow money maybe at a lower rate than the bank will let us. And if you have the money to lend, well, you can make some money off of it just by lending it to people like me.

The max you can get a loan for through Lending Club is $25,000 and your repayment term cannot be longer than 3 years. You could use this to get a low interest car loan for example.

I was actually checking it out the other day to see if it could help me out with some high interest credit cards. It does not cost anything to submit an application and I just might do it. If anyone out there has any experience with them, good or bad, feel free to let me know in the comments!

Until this past week, I have used Dreamhost for my website and blog hosting. In fact, I had been with Dreamhost for three years and was set to renew for a fourth year on Saturday. However, I have known since early November that I would not be staying with Dreamhost. In the past, I would have recommended them to anyone. However, over the past year I experienced loads of downtime that cost me money.

So, I did some looking around and saw that Lunarpages Web Hosting had some good reviews and was WAY cheaper than Dreamhost! In fact, they are running a special (the same one I got) where you can get hosting for $4.95 a month if you sign a year contract - and you get a free domain registration!

I had a lot of Wordpress blogs to migrate over and I was worried about that. However, it was a fairly easy migration. If you need to move your Wordpress blog from Dreamhost to Lunarpages Web Hosting here are the steps that I took:

1. Upgrade your WordPress if you are not using the most up-to-date version

2. Back up your wp-content folder (I just used my FTP program to copy that folder to my desktop)

3. On your Dreamhost Panel, go to Goodies -> ManageMySQL

4. From there, back up your database for your blog using phpMyAdmin (additional info here)

• Log into phpMyAdmin
• Select the appropriate database
• Export
• All of the files should be in the ‘export’ box
• Make sure “SQL” is selected
• In the SQL section, put a tick in ‘Structure,’ ‘Add DROP TABLE,’ ‘Add AUTO INCREMENT,’ and ‘Enclose table & field names with backquotes.’
• In the Data section, tick ‘Data header’ and leave the inside boxes without ticks
• Tick ‘Save As’ and leave the template name as is
• Select ‘zipped’ and click ‘go’

5. Now, go to the LunarPages Cpanel and add the domain

6. Change the nameservers for your domain with your domain registrar

7. Install Wordpress on your domain at the new host (Lunarpages) from the cPanel through Fantastico. (remember to enter your original user name and password for your blog!)

8. Once Wordpress is installed, go to ‘MySQL Databases‘ in the cPanel and then scroll all the way down to click on phpMyAdmin.

9. Click on the new database that was created when you installed Wordpress.

10. Then go to ‘Import’ to import the database zip file making sure to uncheck ‘partial import’ and click ‘go.’

11. Once that is done, use your FTP program to copy over your wp-content folder from your desktop to Lunarpages.

That’s it! It should work after that.

TROUBLESHOOTING

I did have some problems with two of my blogs. Apparently when I had upgraded the Wordpress on Dreamhost the database did not get fully updated but it thought it did. As a result, when I tried to log into the blog I got an error when I tried to login to the blog. For instance, when I was in phpMyAdmin my database tables would look like ‘wp-0013nfne3-content’ instead of wp-content. The fix was that some of the tables could just be renamed but others could not. It was a trial and error process.

I also had the problem of none of my categories or blog posts working when you clicked on them. Instead you got a 404 error. Of course when looking at the blog it all looked okay till you clicked on it. I did some searhcing online and discovered that it was a permalink problem. So, I changed the permalink structure and it worked fine. Then I changed it back to the way I wanted it and it still worked.

The final problem I had is that a couple of the blogs were displaying weird characters in some of the blog posts where there were symbols like: &, ‘, “, %, $.

If you are looking for a new web hosting company I recommend Lunarpages Web Hosting. Their support has been stellar and I have experienced zero down time. And hey, the price is right!